What is Patriotism?

(initial source: http://hoydenabouttown.com/20110426.9866/lessons-from-my-lai-the-extras/)

On 16th March, 1968, there was a massacre at My Lai, where US soldiers under the command of Lt. William Calley slaughtered the inhabitants of a small Vietnamese village without regard to their noncombatant status.

A helicopter gunship crew commanded by Hugh Thompson Jr. heroically put themselves in danger’s way to save threatened villagers, and also accepted the risk of court-martial when, following Thompson’s commands, they threatened to shoot their fellow US servicemen unless they stopped the slaughter. They then went on to report and testify against their murderous fellow soldiers.

Chief My Lai prosecutor William Eckhardt described how Thompson responded to what he found when he put his helicopter down: “[Thompson] put his guns on Americans, said he would shoot them if they shot another Vietnamese, had his people wade in the ditch in gore to their knees, to their hips, took out children, took them to the hospital…flew back [to headquarters], standing in front of people, tears rolling down his cheeks, pounding on the table saying, ‘Notice, notice, notice’…then had the courage to testify time after time after time.” [source]

As I wrote in 2006:

After the event, Thompson was pilloried for threating to kill American soldiers while Calley was lauded as a strong leader who successfully neutralised a credible threat, to use the depersonalised military lingo. It took years for the truth to come out, and even then only Calley and a few others were court-martialled, even though all indications were that a long chain of command condoning the massacre had existed. Calley and others did what their commanders were careful not to directly order although they made their approbation clear: kill, kill, kill whether they are VietCong or not. Some men who took part later acknowledged that they knew it was wrong but “went along” through group loyalty and fear of the consequences of standing apart.

Thirty years after the massacre, Hugh Thompson was finally awarded the Soldier’s Medal, “for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy”, the closest that the US Army has come to openly acknowledging that there was no military justification for the slaughter at My Lai.

Thompson rejected any imputation that his bravery was unique, taking pains to laud one of the soldiers on the ground, who when threatened with death by his platoon-mates if he didn’t take part in the slaughter, shot his own foot off rather than kill civilians in cold blood. Not having a helicopter, that man had fewer options and no ability to save others as Thompson could, so he mutilated himself for life as the only option he could see to save his own life while not taking other’s lives.

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Reading about the My Lai massacre I was struck not only by what I did not know about the actions of Hugh Thompson, but also by the following commentary in Wikipedia -

Exactly thirty years after the massacre, Thompson, Andreotta, and Colburn were awarded the Soldier's Medal (Andreotta posthumously), the United States Army's highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy. "It was the ability to do the right thing even at the risk of their personal safety that guided these soldiers to do what they did," then-Major General Michael Ackerman said at the 1998 ceremony. The three "set the standard for all soldiers to follow." Additionally on March 10, 1998, Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) entered a tribute to Thompson, Colburn and Andreotta into the record of the U.S. Senate. Cleland said the three men were, "true examples of American patriotism at its finest."

What is, then, patriotism? When is it? How is it? It would seem that patriotism is somehow symbolised here by the very systemic defection I was just noting above; at other times by its absence. Could it be that patriotism is like Capitalism, in that it adjusts, adapts, moulds, usurps?