<p>Hugh Thompson Jr., a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot who rescued unarmed Vietnamese civilians from his fellow GIs during what became known as the My Lai massacre, died early Friday, his biographer and a hospital spokesman confirmed. He was 62.</p><p>Thompson, who was from Lafayette, died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the central Louisiana city of Alexandria, hospital spokesman Jay DeWorth said.</p><p>Trent Angers, Thompson'a biographer and family friend, said Thompson was being treated for cancer and had been removed from life support earlier this week. Angers said Thompson's former gunner, Lawrence Colburn, had driven in from Atlanta to be at his bedside.</p><p>"America has lost a valuable hero of the Vietnam conflict," DeWorth said.</p><p>It was March 16, 1968, when Thompson and his crew watched in horror as an American Army officer walked up to an injured Vietnamese girl, flipped her over with his foot _ and shot her dead. It was his first glimpse of the massacre that led to the court martial of Lt. William Calley, one of the pivotal events as opposition to the war was growing in the United States.</p><p>Calley was eventually sentenced to life in prison but his sentence was reduced by President Richard Nixon. He served three years under house arrest.</p><p>Journalist Seymour Hersh won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the massacre in 1970.</p><p>Thompson would recall in a 1998 Associated Press interview seeing bodies piled in a ditch and watching American soldiers approaching Vietnamese women, children and old men.</p><p>"These people were looking at me for help and there was no way I could turn my back on them," Thompson said.</p><p>He placed his chopper down in front of the advancing Americans and gave Colburn a direct order: Train your M-60 on the GIs and if they try to harm the villagers, "You open up on them."</p><p>Thompson radioed to two gun ships behind him, and together they airlifted at least nine villagers to safety.</p><p>By the end of his tour of duty, Thompson had been hit eight times by enemy fire and lost five helicopters in combat. He left Vietnam after a combat crash broke his back, and was awarded both a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.</p><p>But Thompson's role in ending My Lai didn't come to light until the late 1980s, when David Egan, a professor emeritus at Clemson University, saw an interview with Thompson in a documentary on the massacre.</p><p>Egan wrote more than 100 letters to Congress and high-ranking government officials. He pressed others to write. Among those who did: Dean Rusk, secretary of state during the Vietnam years.</p><p>Still, no recognition came until Aug. 22, 1996, when the Army told Thompson he'd been approved for the Soldier's Medal, given to those who risk their lives in situations where an opposing army is not involved. He was faxed a copy of the citation.</p><p>Though his acts are now considered heroic, for years Thompson suffered snubs and worse from those who considered him unpatriotic.</p><p>Fellow servicemen refused to speak with him. He received death threats, and walked out his door to find animal carcasses on his porch. He recalled a congressman angrily saying that Thompson himself was the only serviceman who should be punished because of My Lai.</p><p>"He was treated like a traitor for 30 years," Angers said. "So he was conditioned to just shut up and be quiet."</p><p>"Every bit of information I got from him, I had to drag it out of him."</p><p>Born in Atlanta, Thompson joined the Navy in 1961 and left three years later. In 1966, he joined the Army to become a pilot and completed his training in 1967 before being shipped off to Vietnam. He retired as a first lieutenant in 1983.</p><p>He met his wife, Mona, while stationed at Louisiana's Fort Polk, and later moved to Broussard, La. The couple, married more than 20 years, had three sons; Bucky, Brian and Stephen.</p>
