received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award. Early life Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. was born on April 15, 1943, in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, to Wessie and Hugh Clowers Thompson. His family is from the Province of Georgia and Great Britain. He identified his paternal grandmother as being of Cherokee descent. Hugh Clowers Thompson Sr. was an electrician and served in the United States Navy during the Second World War. In 1946, the Thompson family relocated from Atlanta to Stone Mountain, Georgia. Thompson's brother and only sibling, Tommie Norman Thompson, was born in 1938 and served in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War. Thompson was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and his family was actively involved in the Episcopal Church. Hugh Clowers Thompson Sr. educated his children to act with discipline and integrity. The Thompson family denounced racism and ethnic discrimination in the United States and assisted many ethnic minority families in their community. Coming from a working-class family, Hugh Clowers Thompson Jr. plowed fields and later worked as an assistant for a funeral mortuary to support his family during his adolescence. Thompson graduated from Stone Mountain High School on June 5, 1961. Following graduation, Thompson enlisted in the United States Navy and served in a naval mobile construction battalion at Naval Air Station Atlanta, Georgia, as a heavy equipment operator. Thompson married Palma Baughman in 1963. In 1964, Thompson received an honorable discharge from the Navy and returned to Stone Mountain to live a quiet life and raise a family with his wife. He studied mortuary science and became a licensed funeral director. When the Vietnam War began, Thompson felt obliged to return to military service. In 1966, Thompson enlisted in the United States Army and completed the Warrant Officer Flight Program training at Fort Wolters, Texas, and Fort Rucker, Alabama. In late-December 1967, at the age of 25, Thompson was ordered to Vietnam and assigned to Company B, 123rd Aviation Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Division. Mỹ Lai massacre intervention On March 16, 1968, Thompson and his Hiller OH-23 Raven observation helicopter crew, Lawrence Colburn (gunner) and Glenn Andreotta (crew chief), were ordered to support Task Force Barker's search and destroy operations in Sơn Mỹ, Quảng Ngãi Province, South Vietnam. Song My Village was composed of four hamlets, Mỹ Lai, Mỹ Khê, Cổ Lũy and Tư Cung, and was suspected by