A U.S. Army helicopter pilot named Hugh Thompson Jr. may be the greatest American hero you’ve probably never heard of. On March 16, 1968, Thompson—a warrant officer serving in Vietnam—and his crew were dispatched to support a “search and destroy” mission supposedly targeting the Viet Cong in a tiny hamlet called My Lai.
Instead, the Georgia-born soldier came up upon arguably the most notorious war crime in U.S. history—with thatch hutches ablaze and countless villagers, including women and children, laying dead or dying in an irrigation ditch.
A generation after Thompson’s death, the kind of bold action he took that day in 1968 — disobeying what he correctly understood as an illegal order—is yet again on America’s front burner. This time, the debate is fueled by a video from six veterans who now serve as Democrats in Congress―reminding today’s soldiers about their sworn duty to disobey unlawful commands.
That every expert in military law agrees with this principle hasn’t stopped President Donald Trump or his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, from going ballistic—calling the Democrats “traitors” or even reposting calls for their death by hanging.
It’s the removal of responsibility and it was a feature of the Nuremberg Trials of Nazis after the Second World War
Officers and high ranking people argued that they only gave orders … anyone could have disobeyed or refused their orders so it wasn’t their fault
Low ranking officials and soldiers argued that they were following orders … they were ordered to do things under threat of punishment so it wasn’t their fault
