Vietnam-era whistleblower hero dead of cancer at 62: Thompson was the helicopter pilot who, while flying a reconnaissance mission over the South Vietnamese village of My Lai in March, 1968, spotted the bodies of numerous villagers strewn over the landscape. Realizing that a massacre was underway, he landed his copter and evacuated a group of villagers, ordering his gunner to shoot any American soldiers who opened fire on the civilians (none did). He reported what he had seen after returning to base. “‘They said I was screaming quite loud,’ he told U.S. News & World Report in 2004. ‘I threatened never to fly again. I didn’t want to be a part of that. It wasn’t war.'” He ended up testifying before Congress and at the court-martial of Lt. William Calley, the platoon leader at My Lai who was the only American soldier convicted for the massacre. For his trouble, Thompson endured ostracism and death threats, although in 1998 he was awarded the Army’s Soldier’s Medal. He has worked as a veterans’ counselor and continued to speak about the moral and legal obligations of soldiers in wartime, including invited talks at West Point and other military installations. (New York Times )