{"id":13150,"date":"2017-07-22T19:22:01","date_gmt":"2017-07-23T00:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/?p=13150"},"modified":"2017-07-22T21:44:07","modified_gmt":"2017-07-23T02:44:07","slug":"devastating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/2017\/07\/22\/devastating\/","title":{"rendered":"devastating"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"

Hugh Thompson, center, and Larry Colburn, right, receiving their Soldier\u2019s Medals in 1998 in Washington. Credit Michael Williamson\/The Washington Post, via Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

from the obituary of larry colburn<\/a>, who helped stop the my lai massacre:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Mr. Colburn was the last surviving member of a three-man helicopter crew that was assigned to hover over My Lai on Saturday morning, March 16, 1968, to identify enemy positions by drawing Vietcong fire.<\/p>\n

Instead, the men encountered an eerie quiet and a macabre landscape of dead, wounded and weaponless women and children as a platoon of American soldiers, ostensibly hunting elusive Vietcong guerrillas, marauded among defenseless noncombatants.<\/p>\n

The crew dropped smoke flares to mark the wounded, \u201cthinking the men on the ground would come assist them,\u201d Mr. Colburn told Vietnam Magazine in 2011.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we would come back to those we marked,\u201d he said, \u201cwe\u2019d find they were now dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audaciously and on his own initiative, the pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr., swooped down and landed the copter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Thompson was just beside himself,\u201d Mr. Colburn recalled in an interview in 2010 for the PBS program \u201cThe American Experience.\u201d \u201cHe got on the radio and just said, \u2018This isn\u2019t right, these are civilians, there\u2019s people killing civilians down here.\u2019 And that\u2019s when he decided to intervene. He said, \u2018We\u2019ve got to do something about this, are you with me?\u2019 And we said, \u2018Yes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Thompson confronted the officer in command of the rampaging platoon, Lt. William L. Calley, but was rebuffed. He then positioned the helicopter between the troops and the surviving villagers and faced off against another lieutenant. Mr. Thompson ordered Mr. Colburn to fire his M-60 machine gun at any soldiers who tried to inflict further harm.<\/p>\n

\u201cY\u2019all cover me!\u201d Mr. Thompson was quoted as saying. \u201cIf these bastards open up on me or these people, you open up on them. Promise me!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got it boss,\u201d Mr. Colburn replied. \u201cConsider it done.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n

Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the obituary of larry colburn, who helped stop the my lai massacre: Mr. Colburn was the last surviving member of a three-man helicopter crew that was assigned to hover over My Lai on Saturday morning, March 16, 1968, to identify enemy positions by drawing Vietcong fire. Instead, the men encountered an eerie quiet and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13161,"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13150\/revisions\/13161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookbinderlocal455.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}