Lawrence Manley Colburn (July 6, 1949 – December 13, 2016) was a United States Army veteran who, while serving as a helicopter gunner in the Vietnam War, intervened in the March 16, 1968 Mỹ Lai massacre.
Born in Coulee Dam, Washington, Colburn grew up in Mount Vernon, with his father (a veteran contractor from World War II), mother, and three sisters, where he would serve as an altar boy for four years while attending Immaculate Conception Catholic School.
Serving as a door-gunner on an OH-23 Raven observation helicopter, his crew chief was Specialist Four Glenn Andreotta and his pilot was Warrant Officer One Hugh Thompson Jr. Thirty years after the fact all three men were decorated with the Soldier's Medal for their heroic actions at My Lai.
Spotting two possible Viet Cong suspects, Thompson forced the Vietnamese men to surrender and flew them off to the rear for tactical interrogation.
Thompson and his crew watched from a low hover as Captain Ernest Medina (Charlie Company's Commander) came up to the woman, prodded her with his foot, stepped back, and then shot and killed her.
(At his court martial, Medina claimed that he had turned away from her and then, startled by the sound of sudden movement behind him, spun back around and shot her, thinking she had been hiding a weapon under herself.)
Shocked at the sight, he radioed his accompanying gunships, knowing his transmission would be monitored by many on the net: "It looks to me like there's an awful lot of unnecessary killing going on down there.
Second Lieutenant William Calley (1st Platoon Leader, Charlie Company) then came up, and the two had the following conversation:[4] Thompson took off again, and Andreotta reported that Mitchell was now executing the people in the ditch.
Furious, Thompson flew over the northeast corner of the village and spotted a group of about ten civilians, including children, running toward a homemade bomb shelter.
After coaxing the 11 Vietnamese out of the bunker, Thompson persuaded the pilots of the two UH-1 Huey gunships (Dan Millians and Brian Livingstone) flying as his escort to evacuate them.
Thompson's allegations of civilian killings quickly reached Lieutenant Colonel Frank Barker, the operation's overall ground commander.
In 2003, at a Moral Lecture Series address to midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy, Colburn made the following remarks: Combat is chaotic.
[13]For the dedication of the peace park of the massacre (March 16, 2001), Colburn was reunited with Do Ba, the young child Andreotta had rescued from the ditch.
On July 4, 1999, Colburn and Hugh Thompson co-chaired the Stonewalk Project which organized and led the physical pulling of the one ton granite, memorial stone for Unknown Civilians Killed in War from Sherborn, Massachusetts to Arlington National Cemetery.