about a good man's passing
This from the LeftCoaster... A Hero and a Toady
A real American hero died yesterday.
It was 1968. Lt. Calley and his troops were raping and killing the peasants in the village of My Lai, South Vietnam. The pilot of a US helicopter, Hugh Thompson Jr., couldn’t believe the scene he and his crew witnessed from the air. Thompson set his bird down on the ground in between defenseless Vietnamese women, children and old men and a murderous gang of American soldiers. He demanded that Calley and his men put down their weapons or Thompson and his crew would open fire on them. He then rescued the wounded in My Lai and took them for medical treatment. Thompson stopped the carnage that day, but not before “America’s finest” had killed 500 people in cold blood.
A real American hero died yesterday. At the age of 62 in a VA hospital in Louisiana. Too young. Too unknown. A man who knew the difference between right and wrong down to the core of his being. A man who needed no official regulation to tell him that an unlawful order should never be obeyed. A man that needed no regulation from Congress that prohibits torture of civilians and prisoners in a time of war. A real man that didn’t hesitate to stand up to gun wielding bullies engaged in slaughtering hundreds of people. Thompson had the right stuff that we embrace in our movies, but in real life, we don’t much like real men, whistleblowers that attempt to put an end to the despicable actions of the powerful in our institutions. In real life we prefer to ignore the Thompsons and celebrate powerful toadies, pretending that they possess the character of a hero without ever having exhibited heroism. From My Lai to the UN, Colin Powell demonstrated that he is nothing but a toady. That cares not for others but only for himself. That exemplifies what is so very wrong with America in the 21st Century.
A real American hero died yesterday.
It was 1968. Lt. Calley and his troops were raping and killing the peasants in the village of My Lai, South Vietnam. The pilot of a US helicopter, Hugh Thompson Jr., couldn’t believe the scene he and his crew witnessed from the air. Thompson set his bird down on the ground in between defenseless Vietnamese women, children and old men and a murderous gang of American soldiers. He demanded that Calley and his men put down their weapons or Thompson and his crew would open fire on them. He then rescued the wounded in My Lai and took them for medical treatment. Thompson stopped the carnage that day, but not before “America’s finest” had killed 500 people in cold blood.
A real American hero died yesterday. At the age of 62 in a VA hospital in Louisiana. Too young. Too unknown. A man who knew the difference between right and wrong down to the core of his being. A man who needed no official regulation to tell him that an unlawful order should never be obeyed. A man that needed no regulation from Congress that prohibits torture of civilians and prisoners in a time of war. A real man that didn’t hesitate to stand up to gun wielding bullies engaged in slaughtering hundreds of people. Thompson had the right stuff that we embrace in our movies, but in real life, we don’t much like real men, whistleblowers that attempt to put an end to the despicable actions of the powerful in our institutions. In real life we prefer to ignore the Thompsons and celebrate powerful toadies, pretending that they possess the character of a hero without ever having exhibited heroism. From My Lai to the UN, Colin Powell demonstrated that he is nothing but a toady. That cares not for others but only for himself. That exemplifies what is so very wrong with America in the 21st Century.