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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>From the January 18, 2006 edition of the Boise Weekly at:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><a
href="http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=157686">http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/PrintFriendly?oid=157686</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>A lesson from Hugh Thompson Jr. May he rest in peace.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>One Free Man<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>The loneliest of liberties<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>By Bill Cope<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>On a March morning in 1968, Hugh Thompson Jr., a 24-year-old
Army helicopter pilot, was thrust into the heart of the darkest hour in our
nation's dark history with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
>From over the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">village</st1:PlaceType>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">My Lai</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>, he witnessed
American troops slaughtering civilians--the young, the old, the women. Whatever
passed between Thompson and his crew--Lawrence Colburn and Glenn
Andreotta--before they landed will likely never be known. But land they did,
directly in the line of fire between <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> soldiers, caught up in a frenzy
of indiscriminate killing, and villagers who were trying to escape the carnage.
While Colburn and Andreotta held the murderers at bay with the threat of the
copter's guns, Thompson gathered as many villagers as he could and got them the
hell out of there. He returned and flew a wounded kid to a hospital. It took 30
years for Thompson, Colburn and Andreotta to get the recognition they so
valiantly earned, while William Calley, the only man ever prosecuted for the
massacre, was pardoned by Richard Nixon after serving three years of house
arrest. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I wish I knew what passed between Thompson and his crew
before they landed. I really wish I knew. Whatever was said, if anything,
should be carved into stone and placed in every schoolyard and courthouse in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> as
testament to our most fundamental freedom. The freedom only I can grant myself
or you, yourself. The only freedom that ultimately matters. It doesn't have a
name that I know of, but it takes more courage than all the others because you
can only exercise it by yourself. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>It all depends on how you define freedom, of course, when it
comes to who you thank for being free. If your only answer is straight from the
Constitution--freedom of speech, religion, assembly, freedom from unreasonable
search and seizure, freedom to bear arms (as though you've memorized the
"Cliff Notes to the Bill of Rights" and recite them back like a
talking bird)--then with equal predictability you will no doubt thank all those
brave souls who over the past 230 years have fought and died in our military. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>And that's part of it, for sure. In spite of the fact that
most of our nation's wars had no direct relationship to the freedom of our
nation's citizens, we must never forget those veterans who believed their
sacrifice was made to keep the basic, Bill of Rights litany of liberties
intact. Nor must we forget that had the outcome been different in a couple of
those wars, all further open discussion of freedom would be academic, if not
down-right dangerous. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>But as those who are not white, not male and not affluent
have known from the start, the Bill of Rights took a pretty generic approach to
freedom--a road map, sort of, that indicated direction but left out the
specific cities, bridges and landmarks. For two centuries, American individuals
not necessarily in uniform have fought (many died) to add themselves and their
peers to the roster of free humans. If you're a black citizen, for instance, I
would imagine you are grateful for Martin Luther King, Malcomb X, Medgar Evers
... any number of African-American freedom fighters who accomplished what the
Bill of Rights and several dozen wars couldn't. If you're a modern woman, you
owe a moment of silence to Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinam ...
the front line in the struggle for equal rights. And if sexual freedom is your
particular field of interest, you should bow your head at the graves of
Margaret Sanger, Alfred Kinsey, even Hugh Hefner ... should he ever die. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Then comes the more personal question of whether we, as individuals,
are up to the task of being free. What use is the freedom to worship as we
choose, for example, if we allow our choices to be stripped from us by those
who lead us in worship? What use is the freedom of assembly if we allow
ourselves to be swept along with a thoughtless and pointless mob? What use is
our freedom from unreasonable search and seizure if we adopt the attitude,
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, you should have nothing to
hide?" And what possible good could come from our freedom of speech, if
all we do with it is to sing obediently along with the prevailing choir? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>It all began to come to me at a stop light, probably, as I
read the bumper stickers on the vehicle ahead: "Freedom Isn't Free!"
(And for those who gripe about the scream of jet fighters overhead, there's the
Air Force's favorite, "Sonic Booms--The Sound of Freedom.") The
message, of course, is that our military should be thanked for our liberty. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>All fine and good, I suppose. But there have been too many
free men and women throughout history--from weak nations whose military was
overrun by stronger forces, or from strong nations where the military, itself,
was the enemy of freedom--who proved that true freedom comes not from the
barrel of a gun, not from a document, not from God, and certainly not from
popular opinion. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>No, true freedom--that blessing which distinguishes one from
the herd and allows the blessed to live out their years content with themselves
if not with the world around them--has nothing to do with armies and navies,
Founding Fathers, faiths, tyrants or conventional wisdom. It is simply the
decision to be free, whether in thought or in action, and the deciding factor
is if one is brave enough to accept the consequences. The sound of freedom is
not the roar of a mighty military or marketing machine, but a quiet murmur from
inside of you, me, Hugh Thompson Jr. and Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta,
that must say, more often than "yes," "no." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>I think Thomas Paine would back me up on this--as would Nelson
Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Ghandi, untold numbers of people who made that
perilous choice, often from within a prison and often with the penalty of
death: If you live freely, think freely and act freely, you have only yourself
to thank. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>This slightly narcissistic attitude is not meant to detract
from the military. In fact, it's the death last week of this one military hero,
Hugh Thompson, that prompted me to write it. What he did humbles me and I
couldn't let his passing go unnoted. Yet, for his moment of profound
freedom--his "no" there on that March morning over <st1:place w:st="on">My
Lai</st1:place>--he suffered years of disdain, threats, shunning, nameless
cowards slandering him with the usual mob-spawned slanders. But I'm certain he
knew when he did it what consequences it would bring. And I'm certain he died
content with himself. How many of us will be able to say that?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Take care, <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Moscow</st1:place></st1:City>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'>Tom Hansen<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=2
face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>Moscow</span></font></st1:City><font
size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'>, <st1:State
w:st="on">Idaho</st1:State></span></font></st1:place><font size=2 face=Arial><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Arial'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face=Arial><span style='font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>"If not us, who?<br>
If not now, when?"<br>
<br>
- Unknown</span><o:p></o:p></font></p>
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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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