1983. Post-military life Thompson became a helicopter pilot for the oil industry, operating in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1988 an English documentary film producer, Michael Bilton, working for Yorkshire Television, managed to contact Thompson via his mother, who was then widowed and living in Texas. At that point Thompson had all but disappeared from public life. Bilton had contacted former crew member Lawrence Colburn, and put Thompson and Colburn in touch with each other after a gap of nearly 16 years. Both Thompson and Colburn had been trying to find each other, but without success. Thompson was living in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Colburn near Atlanta, Georgia. They quickly arranged a reunion. Bilton spent a long weekend with Thompson discussing the events at Mỹ Lai. It proved the beginning of a long friendship which lasted until Thompson's death. Both Thompson and Colburn were interviewed for the film Four Hours in My Lai (1989) (Remember My Lai? on PBS) – which went on to win a British Academy Award and an international Emmy award. The interview showed Thompson relating what he had witnessed at Mỹ Lai: "Here we were supposed to be the guys in the white hats. It upset me". Bilton and his colleague Kevin Sim then began researching a book and Bilton conducted further interviews with Thompson and Colburn. When the book Four Hours in My Lai (1992) was published, it prompted a campaign to have the heroism of Thompson and his helicopter crew recognized. Several senior figures in the U.S. military supported the campaign, as did President George H. W. Bush. Thompson and Colburn were invited to speak to a wide range of audiences about the ethics of warfare including at West Point, a conference in Norway, and at Connecticut College in New London, where they were each awarded an honorary doctorate. In 1998, Thompson and Colburn returned to the village of Sơn Mỹ, where they met some of the people they saved during the killings, including Thi Nhung and Pham Thi Nhanh, two women who had been part of the group about to be killed by Brooks's 2nd Platoon. Thompson said to the survivors, "I just wish our crew that day could have helped more people than we did." He reported that one of the women they had helped out came up to him and asked, "Why didn't the people who committed these acts come back with