Reed Irvine - Editor
ENERGETIC VET EXPOSES BIG VIETNAM LIE
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This is a story of how one citizen, given sufficient determination and energy, can force the media to correct a major falsehood about Vietnam before it is enshrined in history as "the truth." He is a remarkable man named Ron Timberlake, who won several high decorations as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, and who now lives in retirement in Katy, a suburb of Houston.
The cause which Timberlake adopted as his very own involved one of the more searing photographic images to come out of the Vietnam War, that of a young girl, the clothes burned off her body, running down a road with other villagers, her mouth locked in an apparent scream. Associated Press photographer Nick Ut took the girl's picture, which ran on front pages of papers around the world in June 1972. Ut won a Pulitzer Prize for what was indeed a dramatic photograph - and one which opponents of the war quickly turned into an emotional propaganda tool. As was reported at the time by Ut and another eyewitness, Chris Wain of United Press International, a South Vietnamese pilot dropped napalm on civilians fleeing the Viet Cong who he mistook for guerrillas who were charging government positions. Whether napalm actually burned the girl is a matter of contention; Gen. William C. Westmoreland, former Vietnam commander serving as Army chief of staff in 1972, said his investigation showed that an hibachi turned over during the raid, spilling hot coals on the girl.
Whatever the cause, the victim, Kim Phuc, then nine years old, survived the burns and after a lengthy hospitalization made anti-American propaganda films denouncing the war. The Hanoi government then sent her to Cuba to study pharmacology. During an airline stopover in Canada in 1986, she demonstrated what she thought of the Communist regime by defecting. She now lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. Kim Phuc recognized the fame she achieved through the photograph continued to give her box office value, so she was a regular at so-called "peace rallies" both in the United States and Canada.
It was at such a rally, at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington in 1996, that she met a Vietnam veteran named John Plummer. A divorced recovering alcoholic, Plummer for several years has been a minister at a small Methodist church outside of Washington. And for some years prior to 1996, Plummer had been telling small audiences that he "ordered" the bombing attack in which Kim Phuc was burned.
The media-driven image is of an accidental encounter between a victim and the military officer "guilty" of injuring her. A careful reading of Plummer's own account shows that the reality was considerably different - that the meeting at the memorial was a publicity stunt contrived by persons who want to keep anti-American hatreds alive because of the war.
Kim Phuc and Plummer were brought together by a Vietnamese poet, Linh Dy Vo, who argues that all Americans must take responsibility for what happened to her country. [To Linh's credit, he would be dismayed at the use Plummer made of Kim Phuc later.] The actual invitation for Kim Phuc was arranged by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, an anti-war organization which has far out-lived the cause for which it was formed, but which drums incessantly the theme that America is "guilty" for fighting in Vietnam.
Kim Phuc knew that Plummer would be in her audience. According to an account in Biography Magazine [September 1997] Kim Phuc gave an emotional speech in which she claimed that two of her brothers had been killed in the air strike. [Actually, they were cousins, not brothers.] Plummer professed shock at this news, according to Biography, thinking, "That was the first time that I was ever aware that there were any deaths." [Actually, he had claimed that he learned of her being burned in a 1972 Stars & Stripes article which stated that 10 persons "were killed or injured."] During her speech Kim Phuc said, "Even if I could talk face to face with the pilot who dropped the bombs, I would tell him, 'We cannot change history, but we should try to do good things for the present and for the future to promote peace.'"
It was at this point, according to the account Plummer has given to uncountable audiences, that he passed a note to the podium, "I need to speak to you for a moment; I am the one," and he and Kim Phuc met and fell into one another's arms with heaving sobs. Plummer begged forgiveness for having "ordered" the air strike.
The peace movement's heroine was reborn, now with a former American military man admitting responsibility for what the media depicted as a horrible tragedy of an unjust war. Two points bear noting: (1) what happened to Kim Phuc surely was an awful event, and the girl suffered enormously, but (2) she was one of scores of thousands of innocents harmed during the war. The Viet Cong, of course, did not permit photographers and other journalists to roam their lines, recording the civilian casualties caused by their actions.
Until this "reunion" Plummer's breast-beating had attracted little attention outside of his own minute church circles. But by allying himself with Kim Phuc, and the formidable propaganda machine serving left-wing "peace lovers," he found himself a sudden media star in his own right. He told of "ordering" the bombing on ABC's Nightline on June 6, 1997. He was featured on A&E's popular Biography program. There was considerable print attention. Plummer's claim was that war guilt had haunted him for years, driving him into alcoholism and ruining his marriages but that he got control of himself in the early 1990s and started preaching.
The new surge of publicity helped Kim Phuc as well, and in November 1997 she was named a 'good will ambassador" by UNESCO. A UNESCO film announcing her appointment included an interview with John Plummer claiming responsibility for the bombing. UNESCO quoted from the film interview in a press release from its Paris office, and many news organizations picked up the statement that the bombing had been "ordered" by an American.
Unfortunately for Plummer, the publicity caught the eye of Ron Timberlake, who had retired to the Houston area after military service and then done a stint as manager of an international airport in the Middle East. During his Vietnam service Timberlake flew many close support missions with both U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers, and to him Plummer's claim simply did not ring true. Officers of Plummer's rank, captain, assigned to a remote headquarters, simply did not have the authority to order any air strikes, either U.S. or Vietnamese.
Timberlake began by running down some of the claims Plummer had made in public. Many newspaper accounts about Kim Phuc's UNESCO appointment simply mentioned that the bombing was "ordered" by an American. But Timberlake found far more elaborate articles directly attributable to Plummer. The most complete was on A&E's Biography segment, which was converted into an article for the program's magazine, also entitled Biography.
Based on information provided by Plummer, and recycling material presented on the TV show, Geoff Williams wrote a moving account of the Kim Phuc affair in the magazine. By this version, on June 8, 1972, Plummer heard of the battle from his duty station in a command post some miles away. He "checked with an American military advisor who repeatedly assured him that the South Vietnamese village of Trang Bang was not inhabited by civilians. So Plummer assigned South Vietnamese aircraft to drop hard bombs and napalm on the village, which had been infiltrated by the Viet Cong."
The article continued that Plummer started his next day in a comfortable mess hall by getting a tray of scrambled eggs and bacon and picking up Stars & Stripes. "I put it on my tray and sat down, and I saw that picture, and I thought, 'Wow. That's terrible.'" Then he saw the words Trang Bang in the caption. "Plummer's oldest son, seven years old, looked about the same age of the terrified girl in the photo, a photo that the sickened officer kept staring at, thinking, 'I did that.'"
An even more dramatic rendition appeared under Plummer's byline in Guidepost magazine [Oct. 1997]. There is dialogue between Plummer, in a "command bunker," with a U.S. adviser at the scene who says the besieged forces needed help. "After studying the map, I was puzzled. 'That is right on the edge of the village,' I said. 'What about the friendlies?'" The advisor told him all civilians had left.
"I knew the best munitions for entrenched infantry were napalm and high-explosive bombs. Since the target was close to our troops, I wanted the most accurate means of delivery. I located a South Vietnamese air unit with A-37 and A-1E attack aircraft. But I was still concerned. To make doubly sure I checked with the district headquarters. 'What's the friendly situation down there?' 'All the villagers have left.' I radioed approval and about five minutes later the advisor reported, 'Bombs right on target; our ground troops are moving in.' A routine mission, I thought, I had done it dozens of times." Then Plummer repeated the emotional mess hall scene - only this time not the morning after the attack [per Biography] but three days later. [For the record, Plummer said on his Internet site that he did not write the Guideposts article, that it was ghosted under his name.]
So what really happened that June day in 1972? Once Timberlake read about Plummer in stories about Kim Phuc's UNESCO appointment, he obtained a copy of the two press releases which were the basis for news stories. One mentioned a 10-minute film, "Kim's Story," about the attack in which she was burned. The press release stated, "Ms. Phuc is shown in a moment of reconciliation with John Plummer, now a Methodist minister, but who as a 24-year-old officer, ordered the bombing of the village."
Timberlake informed the UNESCO press office that control procedures were such that Plummer could not have "ordered" the air strike. Jo Hironaka, a UNESCO information officer, sent back an artful reply which is a good illustration of how a bureaucrat can concede that he was wrong without saying so directly. "For what it's worth," Hironaka wrote, "the United States is never mentioned in either [release], although the second...mentions Rev. John Plummer in the context of the air strike." Hironaka said that UNESCO did not "assign blame or dig into old wounds," but he offered "our apologies for any misunderstandings that may have been raised." Hironaka agreed to "strike" the sentences concerning Plummer from UNESCO's on-line site about Kim Phuc.
Timberlake next checked contemporary news accounts. At this point, he told us, he wasn't sure exactly what had happened, only that Plummer's account was questionable. Since Plummer claimed that his first knowledge of Kim Phuc being burned came through an account in Stars & Stripes, Timberlake found old issues of the service paper to learn what had been published.
The Stars & Stripes story ran on June 10, 1972, two days after the incident, accompanied by Ut's photograph. Christopher Wain, of UPI, gave an eyewitness account which was contained in the body of the article. He wrote that troops of the Viet Cong's K1 Battalion attacked the Chu No marketplace in the outskirts of Trang Ban and the nearby hamlet of Gio Loc, 30 miles northwest of Saigon. The attack sent "thousands of civilians fleeing for cover."
Wain wrote, "A company of Communists dug bunkers in the marketplace, and two more companies set up firing positions around the hamlet, waiting for government troops to counterattack. Three South Vietnamese infantry battalions backed by government Skyraider bombers moved in during the late morning in an attempt to oust the entrenched Viet Cong troops."
Although the bombing and ground fire appeared to take a heavy toll of the VC, by late afternoon the counterattack had slowed and the Communists remained in control. The story continued: "He [Wain] said during the fighting at Gio Loc one of the government Skyraiders dropped four bombs 300 yards from the Communist lines where government troops and civilians were taking cover. Soldiers and civilians made a dash across Highway 1 for safety...and a South Vietnamese pilot, apparently thinking the fleeing men, women and children were Viet Cong, dove and dropped the napalm canisters on them."
Wain reported that he saw four children and one woman burned by napalm. "South Vietnamese officers said five government soldiers were also burned, but newsmen at the scene saw only two or three of them."
Wain described the girl later identified as Kim Phuc [he did not know her name] in two sentences: "One little girl ripped all of the clothing off her body and ran naked with several other children, crying and screaming. The skin was burned off her back." Ut would help take the little girl for medical treatment, then return to the battle scene. The fighting would last for three days before the Vietcong withdrew.
Peter Arnett of the Associated Press was also present. The portion of his story which ran was incorporated into the Stars & Stripes story. It said little about the VC attack which led to the air strikes. He wrote, "Trang Bang was the scene Thursday of a mistaken napalm attack by South Vietnamese planes. Canisters of blazing jellied gasoline fell on civilians and troops alike, and 10 persons, children, women, men and soldiers, were killed or injured."
What caused the Vietnamese pilot's error? The group which included Kim Phuc had been in a pagoda near the market place. When the bombing began, they began running towards positions occupied by South Vietnamese soldiers and the American journalists. Some in the group apparently carried weapons. The pilot made a split-second decision to protect the ARVN troops from what he perceived as a threat. He diverted from his target and dove to attack the group. This is what correspondent Chris Swain witnessed. Only one American military man was at the scene, an officer acting as an advisor to Vietnamese infantry. He had nothing to do with the air strikes.
Given this account, and knowing what he did of coordination between American advisors and the South Vietnamese, Timberlake felt that Plummer's story could not be true. So Timberlake began working through the old chain of command of which Plummer was a part in Vietnam service. Plummer's story quickly evaporated as Timberlake talked with his former superiors. He passed their names along to the media so that they could check for themselves the veracity of what Plummer had been telling the press. In December 1997, long stories ran in both the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post, as well as a piece by Ann Gearan on the Associated Press wire, which quoted sources supplied by Timberlake.
Plummer, 24 years at the time of the incident, was a captain assigned to the Third Regional Assistance Command [TRAC] as an assistant G-3 air. In military parlance, this means that he was the staff officer for the operations division who worked on aviation-related matters. Plummer's office was some 80 kilometers from Trang Bang. The TRAC commander, retired Lt. Gen. James F. Hollingsworth, stated, "On any staff anywhere, the assistant G-3 Air was nothing but a planner for the G-3. G-3 advisors were only advisors, operating under my direct control, and would have nothing to do with ordering anything. No captain G-3 Air advisor had responsibility with anything to do with VNAF or ordering it anywhere."
Another officer, retired Major General Niles Fulwyler, was a colonel in 1972 and Plummer's direct supervisor in TRAC. "I think he's stretching things the wrong way," Fulwyler told
Baltimore Sun reporter Tom Bowan. Gen. Hollingsworth, who commanded the entire region, told the Sun that even he couldn't order strikes by South Vietnamese planes, much less someone with Plummer's rank of captain.
Confronted with these statements in interviews with reporters from the Sun and the AP, Plummer seemed to back away from his claimed responsibility. Bowman, describing Plummer as "alternately testy and defensive," quoted him as saying, "I still feel the connection to what happened there because I was involved in the process." But Plummer told the Sun and the AP that he would no longer claim that he "ordered" the air strike.
After the Sun and AP articles, Plummer posted an angry rebuttal on a Methodist church Internet home page claiming that "I have been vilified in the press...." He charged that "there has been a concentrated effort to discredit me and the ministry of forgiveness that has arisen from mine and Kim's reconciliation.
Then he admitted that he in fact had erred. "In relating the story, I used the word 'ordered' when I should have used the word 'coordinated.' When I told the story, my emphasis was on the healing and forgiveness aspect and not the strict military use of the words. I believe that my incautious use of 'ordered' made it appear to some, especially in the veterans community, that I was claiming that the bombing was an American operation. I apologize for my inadvertent use of the wrong verb." Plummer claimed that the statements by his former superior officers "were true in a general sense," but that the demands of battle often caused deviations.
Accuracy in Media tried to contact Plummer directly and were told he is giving no more press interviews for the time being. Tom Bowman of the Baltimore Sun, one of the reporters implicitly criticized by Plummer, laughed out loud when we read him the rebuttal. "I really sort of feel sorry for the guy," Bowman said. "He's told the story, and he's stuck with it."
The "peace movement" claque that made Kim Phuc its poster girl has gone so far as to credit the photograph with "ending the war." In fact, President Nixon had already withdrawn most American group troops by June 1972, and nine months later, after the Paris peace accords, all U.S. forces were out of Vietnam. As Timberlake commented, "The photo was embarrassing to the U.S. government, but extremely damaging to the South Vietnamese government. It was a great propaganda tool for the Communists, and may have done more than any other photo to prevent the U.S. Congress from allowing assistance to the South Vietnamese government when North Vietnam launched the full-scale invasion of that country in 1975."
So are the media correcting the burned-girl story? Anne Gearan of the Washington bureau of the Associated Press was one of the reporters who believed Plummer's initial tale, and she wrote a long story that appeared in papers on April 13, 1997 under headlines such as "Shame, Absolution: Vietnam Veteran Meets His Victim." The day after Bowman's Sun article appeared, Gearan drove to Plummer's church, confronted him, and wrote another article which moved on the AP wire under the tag, "Vet Said to Have Overstated Role." She quoted Plummer as saying he "overstated his role" in the incident.
In his pre-Timberlake interviews, Plummer claimed that he has overcome alcoholism and that his life is on the right track. We certainly hope so, and we can appreciate the emotional stress he suffered over its years, whatever its origins But for any veteran to make claims which put blame for a horrible episode on his fellow Americans is despicable. Plummer outraged fellow veterans who are tired of being likened to callous war criminals.
Ron Timberlake is the hero of this story. Spotting a damaging historical falsehood, he took the trouble to gather the evidence that disproved it and proceeded to persuade reporters to take another look at the story. Timberlake tells us that he was "deeply offended by the falsifications and implications" of how the Kim Phuc story was reported. We congratulate him for his success in getting the media to correct the historical record.
Correcting Lies About Phoenix Program
Another Vietnam era lie has been refuted in a new book. As a sophomore at Harvard in 1991, Mark Moyar took an introductory course on the Vietnam War. He found that "many student radicals of the Vietnam era have become professors at Harvard or other prestigious universities across the land," and that their "views about the war have not changed significantly over the years." He says they "had little respect for the idea of intellectual diversity."
Skeptical about the propaganda spouted by these academic zealots, young Moyar began his own research into one controversial phase of the war, the so-called "Phoenix program" run by the CIA to destabilize the Communist infrastructure. Anti-war fanatics such as the political pornographer Oliver Stone have denounced this program as one that employed torture and murder. Moyar's research resulted in a book published by the Naval Institute Press that rebuts the smears of the Left and demonstrates the efficacy of the Phoenix program. It is entitled, Phoenix and the Birds of Prey: The CIA's Secret Campaign to Destroy the Viet Cong. We recommend it highly. Using the enclosed card, you can order it from AIM at a 23% discount from list price.
Send cards or letters complimenting the presidents of the AP, ABC News and NBC News for their treatment of another Vietnam-related story discussed in the Notes belatedly honoring three heroes. The cards suggest that they not wait 30 years to vindicate the TWA Flight 800 eyewitnesses.
AIM Report NOTES FROM THE EDITOR'S CUFF
THIS REPORT WILL BE THE LAST OF MANY THAT JOE GOULDEN HAS WRITTEN OVER THE PAST nine years. Joe has had a great career as a reporter, author of books and media critic. His reporting career began with his hometown paper, followed by the Dallas Morning News and the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was Washington bureau chief for the Inquirer until he decided to apply his great talent to writing books in the 1970s and 1980s. He has authored or co-authored 18 that have been published and one, a biography of Woodrow Wilson, that is close to completion. I first met Joe while he was working on Fit to Print, A.M. Rosenthal and his Times. Rosenthal was the executive editor of The New York Times, and Joe asked to use our files in doing his research. The book was published in 1988, and it included material that portrayed AIM in a very favorable light. Joe joined our staff in 1989, accepting a salary far less than he could have earned elsewhere.
JOE’S LONG EXPERIENCE IN THE NEWSROOM ENABLED HIM TO SPEAK WITH AUTHORITY ON journalistic practices and ethics. After joining AIM, he was frequently called upon to testify as an expert witness in libel suits, and his testimony helped several plaintiffs win some big judgments. As a successful author he also helped many aspiring authors seeking advice on how to get their books published. A speed reader, he read and evaluated many a dauntingly thick manuscript, and he regularly reviewed books for The Washington Times and other publications, as well as for AIM. He was co-author with Cliff Kincaid and me of The News Manipulators, a collection of our columns and radio commentaries. He has given speeches and radio interviews for AIM all over the country, and for two years, 1994 to 1996, he was co-host with me on AIM’s TV show, “The Other Side of the Story.” Joe has now decided that he has another book or two in him that he wants to get out, and we have reluctantly bade him farewell. We will fill the void left by his departure in part, at least, by making more use of outside talent, and you will probably be seeing several different by-lines in the AIM Report in the months ahead.
CORRECTING THE LIES TOLD BY THE MEDIA ABOUT THE VIETNAM WAR HAS LONG BEEN DEAR to Joe’s heart, and it is fitting that we publish as his last AIM Report the story of the successful effort by Ron Timberlake to expose one of the most durable of those lies that has been associated with the 1972 prize-winning photo of a naked Vietnamese girl fleeing from an air strike in which napalm was dropped. Joe’s article tells how Timberlake, a decorated Vietnam veteran, succeeded in getting the AP, The Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post to set the record straight last December, exonerating our military of any responsibility for this air strike. Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t resurface in other publications. The AP blankets the country, but not everything that it distributes is printed by its client newspapers.
THERE IS ANOTHER VIETNAM STORY, ONE INVOLVING THE NOTORIOUS MY LAI MASSACRE carried out by U.S. Army troops in Vietnam in March 1968 that I believe deserves more attention than it has received. AIM member Harvey H. Wilkins of Colton, Calif., sent me an AP story by Leslie Zganjar published on the front page of the Riverside Press-Enterprise on March 2 telling about the valiant effort of an American helicopter pilot and his crew to save Vietnamese women and children from death at the hands of American army troops at My Lai. If you missed this story, you may have seen on TV or read about the heroic humanitarianism of Hugh C. Thompson Jr, Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta when they were honored on March 6 at a ceremony at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. They were awarded the Soldier’s Medal, the Army’s highest decoration for bravery in action not involving conflict with an enemy. The award to Glenn Andreotta was posthumous; he died in a helicopter crash two weeks after My Lai. I had never heard of these men before. I have never condoned what our troops did at My Lai, but I have criticized the media for giving it so much attention while ignoring the Communist massacre of some 5,000 civilian inhabitants of Hue during their occupation of that city in February 1968. I wish the media had reported the Thompson story prominently when the My Lai story broke late in 1969 because I think it would have done much to counter the impression that our troops in Vietnam were all sadistic killers.This story was such an eye-opener to me that I am going to quote a good part of Leslie Zganjar's AP story with some modifications taken from a good story by David Montgomery in The Washington Post the day following the ceremony.
“THE MY LAI MASSACRE ...STANDS AS ONE OF THE DARKEST MOMENTS IN AMERICAN military history.There is a sliver of light:Thompson ’s little known story.It ’s the story of a man who obeyed his convictions,who defied superiors,who placed his body between villagers and his fellow soldiers,who ordered his gunner to fire on American troops if necessary.It ’s also a story of long-withheld recognition of this bitter brand of heroism....Some insist the military was reluctant to publicly honor what Thompson did.Shortly after My Lai,he received the Distinguished Flying Cross as his crew mates received Bronze Stars,but he looks on that cynically.‘It was only to keep me quiet,’he says.Thompson,then 24,and his two-man crew were to swoop down over the village and draw fire so helicopters behind them could destroy the enemy with machine-gun and rocket fire.They never drew fire.
“BUT THEY SPOTTED A YOUNG VIETNAMESE GIRL,INJURED AND LYING ON THE ROAD. Thompson marked the spot with a smoke grenade,radioed for help and hovered nearby.He and his crew watched in horror as an American Army officer walked up to the girl,nudged her with his foot,and shot her dead.They saw the bodies of Vietnamese children,women and old men piled in an irrigation ditch.Thompson landed and implored American soldiers:‘Help the wounded.’Instead,troops fired into the bodies.Thompson wracked his brain for an explanation.‘We wanted to find something that would point the blame to the enemy,but it just didn ’t work,’the gruff, graying Thompson says.‘It all added up to something we just didn ’t want to believe.’
“HE WAS MOVED TO ACTION WHEN HE SPOTTED VILLAGERS CROWDED IN A HUT,AN OLD woman standing in the doorway,a baby in her arms,a child clutching her leg.American soldiers were approaching. ‘These people were looking at me for help and there was no way I could turn my back on them,’Thompson recalls.” Thompson put his chopper down in front of the advancing troops and asked an officer to help him get the villagers out.“The officer replied that the only help the villagers would get would be a hand grenade,Thompson says.So he gave his gunner,Lawrence Colburn,a simple direct order:‘Train your M-60 on the GIs.If the Americans attempt to harm the villagers,you open up on them.’Thompson radioed two gun ships behind him,and together they airlifted a dozen villagers to safety.He flew back to the irrigation ditch where his other crew mate,Glenn Andreotta,saw something move.Andreotta jumped out and waded through the bodies until he reached a 2-year-old boy,still clinging to his dead mother,but unharmed.He handed him over to Colburn.‘You ’ve never seen shock like this,’Colburn says of the child,whom he cradled as they flew to a hospital.‘Such a blank stare.’”
BOTH ABC AND NBC AIRED STORIES ABOUT THE EPISODE ON MARCH 6,THE DAY THE MEDALS were awarded.ABC's report was far more detailed than NBC's.It described briefly what led to the My Lai massacre, saying that Army intelligence had reported that everyone in the village was Vietcong.One former soldier,said to be haunted by the experience,admitted on camera to having personally killed between 20 and 25 people,obeying orders to do so.Twenty-five soldiers were charged with murder,but Lt.William Calley was the only one who was convicted, and he spent only three days in jail and three years under house arrest.Both ABC and NBC credited Thompson with having halted the atrocities by reporting to his superiors what was going on.
DAVID EGAN,AN ARCHITECTURE PROFESSOR AT CLEMSON UNIVERSITY,SAW THOMPSON interviewed on a BBC documentary ten years ago and began writing letters to Congress and high-ranking officials pressing for recognition of his courageous,morally correct action.He won the support of former Secretary of State Dean Rusk,and finally the Army informed Thompson in August 1996 that he had been approved for the Soldier ’s Medal.It took them another 19 months to make the award.A Pentagon spokesman,Dov Schwartz,blamed the delay on “bureaucracy and efforts to ensure that Thompson ’s crew was also recognized,not on military shame to revive the tragedy and shame of My Lai.”My Lai was indeed a tragedy and a shame,but in honoring Thompson,Colburn and Andreotta we demonstrate that My Lai was a departure from the standards of conduct expected of our troops that are exemplified by the actions of these three men.