By George Cassidy Payne
Courage is rarely convenient. Sometimes it is condemned. Ask Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr.
On March 16, 1968, Thompson, a young Army helicopter pilot in the 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division, flew over the South Vietnamese village of Sơn Mỹ and witnessed something unimaginable. American soldiers were systematically killing unarmed civilians—women, children, and the elderly. There were no enemy combatants. This was not war. This was a massacre.
Most soldiers either did not see or refused to confront the truth. Thompson did. He acted decisively: he hovered his helicopter between the troops and the villagers, ordered his crew, Glenn Andreotta and Lawrence Colburn, to fire on American soldiers if the killing continued, and personally escorted terrified civilians to safety. He radioed repeated warnings to Task Force Barker headquarters. Eventually, his actions forced command to halt the massacre.
For Thompson, the cost of moral courage was immense. He endured ostracism, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, and personal strife for years. In 1970, he testified in a closed congressional hearing about what he had seen, facing hostility from some quarters of government and military leadership. Congressman Mendel Rivers (D-S.C.) even declared that Thompson was the only soldier at Mỹ Lai who should be punished, attempting to have him court-martialed for turning his weapons on fellow troops. As the U.S. government tried to cover up the massacre, Thompson was vilified and received death threats. Recognition came decades later when the Army awarded him the Soldier’s Medal, a belated acknowledgment of moral courage under fire.
Decades later, Thompson’s example has returned to the national conversation. Recently, a group of Democratic lawmakers, including Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and Representatives Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, Chris Deluzio, and Maggie Goodlander, released a video urging active-duty military and intelligence personnel to refuse illegal orders. “You can refuse illegal orders…you must refuse illegal orders,” the lawmakers said. “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.” They framed their guidance as a duty to uphold the oath to the Constitution, not to any individual leader.
The reaction was swift and incendiary. Former President Trump called the statement “seditious behavior at the highest level,” while Pentagon officials warned it could undermine “good order and discipline.” Some lawmakers were reportedly notified of an FBI inquiry. Social media amplified threats, escalating beyond rhetoric into menace. On Truth Social, a user openly called for the lawmakers to be hanged—a post the President reposted. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced the act, stating from the Senate floor that Trump was “calling for the execution of elected officials” and emphasizing, “This is an outright threat, and it’s deadly serious.” When questioned in an interview, Trump insisted he was “not threatening” the lawmakers, but added, “I think they’re in serious trouble. In the old days, they would have [been] dead.”
Yet legal experts insist the lawmakers’ message was not only lawful—it was accurate. “They did not encourage unlawful action,” explained Brenner Fissell, professor of law at Villanova University and vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice. “They were not encouraging the disobedience of lawful orders; they were encouraging the disobedience of unlawful orders. And that is a correct statement of the law.” Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), service members must obey lawful orders, but there is a strong presumption that orders are lawful. At the same time, service members may refuse patently illegal commands, including those that constitute war crimes, and can even face prosecution for carrying them out.
The stakes of following orders have never been abstract. Recent reporting has raised alarms that American military officials may have been ordered to commit grave violations of the laws of war. A Washington Post report described a September strike in the Caribbean in which boats suspected of smuggling drugs were attacked, and survivors were allegedly targeted in a follow-up strike. According to the report, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had given a verbal order to “kill everyone aboard” the boats, prompting a military commander to carry out a second strike on those who initially survived.
Lawmakers across the aisle responded with alarm. Representative Mike Turner, a Republican and former Intelligence Committee chair, called the act “very serious” and “an illegal act.” Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said the report-if accurate—“rises to the level of a war crime.” And Senator Mark Kelly echoed the concern, stating plainly on CNN: “It seems to.”
The ethical unease is not just theoretical, it is coming from inside the chain of command. The Orders Project, founded five years ago to provide independent legal guidance to U.S. service members, has seen a noticeable uptick in calls over the past three months. Staff officers involved in planning the Caribbean strikes have reached out seeking guidance, as have National Guard members concerned about potential domestic deployments. Some callers even express fear of legal complicity in what they describe as potential atrocities abroad, including U.S. weapons being used in Gaza.
“These are people who are performing some sort of role in between,” explained retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Rosenblatt, an Army lawyer and president of the National Institute of Military Justice, which runs The Orders Project. “They’re not the ones on the operations themselves, but they are concerned that the guidance they’re being asked to provide has been very disfavored. They’re feeling pressure from their higher-ups to convert a ‘nonconcur’ into a ‘concur.’”
From Sơn Mỹ to Capitol Hill, and now to the Caribbean, the principle is clear: silence in the face of wrongdoing is complicity; conscience in the face of authority is courage. As historian Howard Zinn once observed, “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.” Thompson drew a line between duty and obedience, risking his career, reputation, and personal safety to protect the innocent. Today, lawmakers and service members alike are grappling with the same lesson: patriotism is not measured by conformity—it is measured by integrity.
This is more than a legal debate; it is a moral one. History offers no ambiguity. When the chain of command conflicts with the Constitution or the law, the obligation to act ethically supersedes the obligation to obey. Thompson’s helicopter hovering over the bodies in Sơn Mỹ, the lawmakers’ warning to military personnel, the threats that followed, reports of potential unlawful strikes in the Caribbean, and internal military concerns about legal complicity are chapters of the same story: one of conscience, courage, and accountability.
In a time when authority can intimidate, mislead, or threaten the nation’s foundational laws, the lesson of Hugh Thompson Jr. endures. True service is not blind obedience. It is the willingness to say no, to defend the innocent, and to honor the Constitution, even when doing so invites condemnation, career jeopardy, or worse. Democracy is not measured by the strength of its institutions alone, but by the moral courage of those entrusted to uphold them.
The challenge is timeless: the bravest act is sometimes the one that defies orders, safeguards the innocent, and enforces the law. From the rice paddies of Sơn Mỹ to the halls of Capitol Hill, and across oceans to the Caribbean, the measure of our nation, and its soldiers, is in the courage to act rightly, even when it costs everything. As General Omar N. Bradley once reminded the world, “Leadership is intangible, and no weapon ever designed can replace it.”
George Cassidy Payne is a poet, essayist, and 988 Suicide Prevention Counselor from Rochester, New York. His work explores the intersections of ethics, public policy, and human dignity.
