Hugh Thompson, who put his U.S. Army helicopter between Vietnamese civilians and the kill-crazed troops of Lt. William Calley at My Lai in Vietnam, has died.

An excerpt from the AP story on globeandmail.com:

“These people [Vietnamese civilians] were looking at me for help, and there was no way I could turn my back on them,” Mr. Thompson recalled in a 1998 Associated Press interview.

Early in the morning of March 16, 1968, Mr. Thompson, door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Glenn Andreotta came upon U.S. ground troops killing civilians in and around the South Vietnamese village of My Lai.

They landed the helicopter in the line of fire between U.S. troops and the fleeing Vietnamese civilians and pointed their own guns at the U.S. soldiers to prevent more killings.

Mr. Colburn and Mr. Andreotta provided cover for Mr. Thompson as he went forward to confront the leader of the U.S. forces. Mr. Thompson later coaxed civilians out of a bunker so they could be flown to safety, then landed his helicopter again to pick up a wounded child for transport to a hospital. Their efforts led to the ceasefire order at My Lai.

In 1998, the U.S. Army honoured the three men with the Soldier's Medal, the highest award for bravery not involving conflict with an enemy. It was a posthumous award for Mr. Andreotta, who had been killed in battle three weeks after My Lai.

For background on My Lai in which more than 300 apparently unarmed civilians died, see this from PBS's The American Experience.