These extracts are from Philip Zimpardo’s book ‘The Lucifer Effect (how good people turn evil)’ . Zimpardo was the psychologist who defended Chip Frederick, one of those convicted of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He cites several cases of servicemen who broke with the pressure of loyalty to their countrymen to serve what they saw as a higher moral purpose. Are they heroes or Villains? Zimpardo thinks the former since it takes courage to break with ones peers and suffer the consequences. Just interested to know what others think who have served in the military.

Joe Darby at Abu Ghraib

These abuses became known when Sergeant Joe Darby U.S. Army Reservist who served as an M.P. at the Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq. After learning of the abuse Darby was the first person to take steps to alert the U.S. military command.

Not everyone thinks what Darby did was the right thing to do. For many, even in his hometown, Darby’s calling attention to the abuses was seen to be unpatriotic, un-American, and faintly even treasonous. He his wife and mother had to remain in military protective custody for several years in the wake of the many retaliation threats they received.

Hugh Thompson at Mai Lai Vietnam

While this massacre was unfolding a helicopter piloted by Warrant officer Hugh Thompson Jr. which was flying overhead to provide air cover set down to help a group of Vietnamese civilians who appeared to be still alive.

As Thomson and his two-man crew returned to their helicopter, they saw Captain Medina and other soldiers running over to shoot the wounded. Thomson flew his helicopter back over My Lai village, where soldiers were about to blow up a hut full of wounded Vietnamese. He ordered the massacre to stop and threatened to open fire with the helicopters heavy machine gun an any American soldier or officer who refused his order. When Thomson ordered that civilians be taken out of the bunker, a lieutenant (who outranked him) countered that they would be taken out with grenades. Thompson replied "I can do better than that, keep your people in place", he then ordered other helicopters to fly in for medical evacuation.

Thompson became persona non-grata in the military and for punishment was required to fly the most dangerous helicopter missions, eventually being shot down and suffering serious injury. In contrast Lieutenant Calley the only person convicted of the atrocity, was treated as a hero in some quarters with a song dedicated to him and being eventually pardoned.

Both of them did the right thing. But doing the right thing doesn't make you a hero. It makes you the guy who did the right thing.

Zimpardo's view is that if you risk being alienated by the society you live in then you are taking a big risk, just as if you take a risk in battle from being killed or injured. In both cases you act to protect people other than yourself. Therefore, the difference is merely social v physical injury. In fact in Thompson's case it was both.

In my view, Thompson was a hero.

People usually lynch the hero in the end.

Interesting dilemma, and I wouldn´t dream about contradicting TomTom who is the SME on the ARVN part of the subject.

I do tend to agree with 03 though.
They did the right thing, period.
Before signing on the dotted line you should have a clear wiev on where your moral boundaries go IMO.

I wouldn´t use the term hero,s over this.
I know people who have done more, with less credit, never seeking accolades, at greater personal risk.
These are the men I would use that term for...Even if it is just a phrase and don´t mean **** nowadays..

Ain't that the truth KJ? Now if you can kick a ball really well, you're a hero.
pfft.

Actually in this book Zimbardo goes into a lot of detail who and why people should be called hero's. He heavily criticises the celebrity hero culture where someone can be worshipped for winning Big Brother for instance.

Incidentally Zimbardo defended Chip Frederick who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib because he sees him as a scapegoat and because of the Stanford prison experiment in the 70s were mellow college types playing the role of guards abused fellow students in a similar way http://www.prisonexp.org/

In Abu Ghraib the civilian CIA gave the guards permission to 'prepare' the prisoners, however there was no audit trail to the higher levels, particularly to the top politicians who probably knew the consequences of their policy. Personally I think both should have been prosecuted, since an opt out did seem possible, but the officers and politicians were more to blame.

Always remember, if we are going to portray ourselves as "The Good Guys" in this conflict we must be seen to be good, otherwise we will be seen as no better than our opponents.

It's people like Joe Darby who will ultimately show that we really ARE the good guys, regardless of an occasional hiccup here and there. When we discover our mistakes, we do what we can to correct those mistakes.

The thing they did wrong was to allow people to photograph these events, if I was on patrol and some wally started to film some of things we were doing the camera would be thrust into that spot were the sun never shines