Liberal media's reaction to death of US Army hero
By Ron Roman
The American liberal media’s reaction to the passing of U.S. Army Vietnam War “hero” Lawrence Colburn on December 13, 2016 has non-liberals like me scratching my bald head. For readers not familiar with much more than the latest news coverage of Beyoncé’s grinding gyrations or Kim Kardashian’s antics, Lawrence Colburn was the last of three heroes of the March 16, 1968 My Lai massacre to die following the deaths of helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and crew chief Glenn Andreotta.
My Lai: one of the saddest (and most sadistic) stories in the annals of U.S. military history. In a four-hour orgy of rape, torture, and sadism over 500 Vietnamese elderly men, women, children, and babies were butchered at the hands of U.S. soldiers. What makes the story remarkable was that Colburn, Thompson and Andreotta put their careers and lives on the line to stop further slaughter by confronting their fellow soldiers with their own machine guns. What makes the latest death of the last of these three heroes even more remarkable is the reaction and coverage of it by America’s Mainstream (i.e., Liberal) Media. Essentially there wasn’t any. Least not from what I saw and heard while in Korea or, when later researching this article, from what was broadcast and disseminated Stateside.
Isn’t it ironic that here in Korea only the U.S. Department of Defense’s quasi-independent military paper, Stars and Stripes, would carry a feature article on it? There’s no shortage of American media outlets in Korea these days. Google “My Lai’s Lawrence Colburn Dies” and find not millions but a scant 151,000 hits. Yes, America’s Big Three liberal newspapers, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, carried his story, but that was about it. Cleveland (Ohio) Channel 19 News covered it, though I didn’t come across any other American national TV or Internet-based news network (like liberal msn.com), radio network, or magazine to do so. In fact, I didn’t see or hear a word of it on any media outlet here in Korea: neither on any US military facility on-base, which I visit daily, or off. Not a word. None on any American Forces Network (AFN) channel. I say this because I’m pretty much a news junkie.
I do remember well initial U.S. news coverage of My Lai and the sickening photos of slaughtered innocents lying bloodied and butchered on the ground. At the time I was a college kid and would later go on to become an American Army soldier and veteran myself before becoming a university professor. After a long cover-up, to the credit of the U.S. Army, Colburn, Thompson, and Andreotta were ultimately vindicated and viewed as heroes, albeit belatedly: Colburn was awarded the Bronze Star, Thompson the Distinguished Flying Cross. (Andreotta was killed in action shortly after the massacre.) An entire generation of Americans went sour on the American military. (As an undergraduate student I remember our university’s ROTC lieutenant colonel getting jumped and beat up by five students.) To this day the memory of the aftermath of the Vietnam War haunts many of my countrymen.
That American liberal media elites would virtually ignore Lawrence Colburn’s passing in light of the fact that they gleefully pounce on any and all purportedly conservative-instigated “incidents,” real or imagined, directed against racial minorities, Hillary Clinton, LBGT members, latte-sucking liberals, etc., says everything about them, eh? Let you readers judge for yourselves.
War is hell, so the cliché goes. All soldiers are not decent, let alone saints. My Lai proved that, as if we didn’t know it. Yet on March 16, 1968, in the village of My Lai, history would be witness to the making of three of the U.S. Army’s greatest heroes, the last one to pass on December 13th of last year. Rest in Peace, Specialist Colburn. You deserve it.
The writer has written miscellaneous articles for The Korea Times. He has taught English for the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) originally since 1996. He can most recently be seen acting as Admiral Forrest Sherman in the Korean War movie “Operation Chromite,” featuring Liam Neeson.