Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam, is not from Louisiana. But he did spend the last several years of his life in Lafayette, making his way down to Acadiana on a well-worn path — meet a Cajun woman, retire, settle down in bayou country.

Before that, the Stone Mountain, Georgia native lived anything but an ordinary life. On the ground in one of the most destructive conflicts of the modern era, Thompson stepped into history when he and his crew stopped the Mỹ Lai Massacre of March 16, 1968 — kicking off a story that would one day converge in Lafayette, when the “forgotten hero” met an Acadiana journalist by the name of Trent Angers.

Mỹ Lai is infamous for being the largest documented mass killing of civilians by U.S. forces in the 20th century. It occurred during the war’s deadliest year, marked by shockwave events like the Battle of Huế City, which saw United States and South Vietnamese troops fighting from house to house in an effort to retake a city of over 100,000 people. The U.S. would eventually win the battle — but thousands of civilians died, and the conflict’s brutal nature had been captured on film for the world to see.

Thompson arrived in Vietnam at the end of 1967 as a Chief Warrant Officer with the 23rd Infantry Division. In the middle of March, a couple of weeks after the Battle of Huế City ended, his company was deployed for a seek-and-destroy mission against the Vietcong 48th Battalion, thought to be hiding in Quảng Ngãi Province in a series of hamlets known as Mỹ Lai. 

Charlie Company received a series of orders to enter the village and destroy everything they saw. Flying over the site after the operation had commenced, Thompson and his crew were shocked by what they witnessed. They decided to do something about it, embarking on a journey that would come full circle decades later, with a chance meeting in the swamps of Louisiana.  

‘Hero of Mỹ Lai’ makes a home in Lafayette

Hugh Thompson’s story is a remarkable one in the history of warfare. “Hero” is a term used more often in novels than in history books, but it’s a label that has come to stick to Thompson’s actions at Mỹ Lai — even though it took 30 years for the Army to present him and his crew with the Soldier’s Medal, which is the highest award for brave conduct not involving direct contact with the enemy. 

On March 16, Thompson was piloting a helicopter above Mỹ Lai when he noticed something disturbing — a ditch full of bodies that he recognized as non-combatants. After landing in the village, Thompson and his crew began assisting injured and escaping civilians, eventually realizing that their fellow soldiers were responsible for the carnage around them.

Fast forward to 1997, when Trent Angers picked up Newsweek magazine and started reading about a little-known soldier who exhibited exceptional courage.

“A little blurb showed up about this U.S. Army helicopter pilot who had stopped the Mỹ Lai massacre, and who was being jacked around by the Pentagon,” said Angers. “I read how he set his chopper down, ordered his gunner to train his weapon on American soldiers who were committing a war crime by definition, and he filed a complaint with his commanding officer that led to a ceasefire. When I read that two-inch blurb, I thought, ‘This is the purest story of heroism I’ve ever heard in my life.’

“It said that he lived in Louisiana, and I had no idea where, but I said, ‘I’m gonna find this guy and buy him a drink and just shake his hand and thank him, on behalf of humanity.'” 

Angers would come to know Thompson and his story very well, including the twists and turns of what happened after March 16. After reporting the events at Mỹ Lai to his chain of command, Thompson endured years of scrutiny and backlash from officials who branded him a traitor for his testimony.  

It was later determined that faulty intelligence led to the view that Vietcong soldiers were hiding in the village, which was populated with unarmed civilians that day. The orders, which included a directive from Lt. William Calley to round up villagers and kill them, were later deemed illegal by the U.S. Court of Military Appeals. Out of 26 soldiers charged, only one, Lt. Calley, was convicted of murdering 22 villagers and given a life sentence, which President Nixon commuted to three years under house arrest.

Mỹ Lai had been deemed a “free fire zone,” where everyone present was assumed to be an enemy combatant. Up to 504 civilians died at Mỹ Lai that day, around half of which Thompson described as “not draft age whatsoever” — infants, children and the elderly. The list of victims, including their name, age and sex, is published in the book Angers’ wrote after meeting Thompson, titled “The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story.” 

In a twist of fate, Angers’ and Thompson’s paths collided not long after Angers read about him in Newsweek. Thompson had closed his Army career at Folk Pork, and decided to stay in the Lafayette area after falling in love with a woman who turned out to be good friends with Angers’ sister. 

Said Angers: “It’s Thanksgiving, I’m at my parents’ house, and I go upstairs to take a nap after we eat. I’m in a dead sleep when my son pops in and goes ‘Pop, that guy from Vietnam is here.’ Then my wife comes in and says, ‘Trent, get your butt out of bed, Hugh Thompson is here.'”

The retired soldier was living in Broussard, making a round of holiday visits through Lafayette. He had stayed in the area after retiring and going to work as a helicopter pilot for PHI. Later, he would go on to work for the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs in Lafayette. Thompson died of cancer in 2006 at the age of 62, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Pineville. 

“He was adamant about getting every soldier, every military retiree, 100% of what they were entitled to financially in terms of health care. He would fight for them. He had that reputation around Lafayette, like, ‘if you want to get everything that’s coming to you, go see Hugh Thompson.’ His office was right at the corner of Pinhook and Jefferson,” Angers said. 

Angers began writing about Thompson for Acadiana Profile magazine, which he published from 1975 to 2010. Eventually, Thompson offered Angers the contract to be his biographer, beginning a relationship that would see them travel together back to Mỹ Lai to meet with a few of the people that Thompson and his crew, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, were able to save back in 1968.

A soldier, a biographer and ‘60 Minutes’ travel to Vietnam

In March of 1998, Hugh Thompson, Larry Colburn, Trent Angers and Mike Wallace of CBS News traveled to Vietnam to help dedicate a peace park in honor of the victims of the Mỹ Lai massacre. Andreotta was killed in action just weeks after the massacre, but Colburn and Thompson were able to meet with survivors while a camera crew filmed a segment for “60 Minutes.”

Angers covered the trip for Acadiana Profile, publishing photos that brought the story and region to life for Thompson’s home audience. 

“I remember seeing Mike Wallace crying and getting off camera because he was so emotional. I remember Hugh saying, ‘I didn’t do anything that any other soldier should have done. We were doing our job.'”

Angers’ book, which he released in 1999, is a heart-rending way to experience what Thompson, Colburn and Andeotta saw, felt and did on the day of the massacre. Its writing was a life-changing experience for Angers, who delved into research exposing the attempted government cover-up, and the decades of effort by journalists, officials, citizens and veterans to commend Thompson and his crew for their actions — culminating in their being awarded the Soldier’s Medal on March 10, 1998. 

“The Forgotten Hero of My Lai” was on the U.S. Army Chief of Staff’s professional reading list, based on how it highlights the behavior and decision-making process of an ethical soldier. Angers was nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work on the book, which saw him dive into archives that exposed attempts by President Nixon and others to sweep the event under the rug.

Angers said that he also faced some of the same blowback that Thompson did for shining a light on crimes committed by American soldiers. 

“I was shocked when I got some push back from a handful of people,” Angers said. “Some would say, ‘Well, I don’t think much of a guy who turns his weapon on his own people on the battlefield,’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t either, in general. However, you have to understand, our people were murdering women and children.’”

Angers said that Thompson would come to understand that people had complex feelings about what he did — but he never questioned whether he did the right thing.

“We’d go out and have a beer and I’d interview him, and he’d say, ‘I think that the majority of our people did serve honorably in Vietnam. But some did not.’”

Learn more about Hugh Thompson’s story, and the life he built in Louisiana as a retired soldier, in “The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story (Revised Edition)” by Trent Angers. The book is available for purchase at Acadian House Publishing, and through major online booksellers.