Ronald Ridenhour

Ronald Lee Ridenhour (April 6, 1946 – May 10, 1998) was a young GI who served in the 11th Infantry Brigade during the Vietnam War, and played a central role in spurring the investigation of the Mỹ Lai massacre.
Life.
Ridenhour was born in Oakland, California, and was raised in Phoenix, Arizona.
A helicopter gunner, Ridenhour heard of the massacre from friends while serving in Vietnam. While still on active duty, he gathered eyewitness and participant accounts from other soldiers. On his return to the United States, he wrote a letter detailing the evidence, which he sent to President Richard Nixon, five senior officials at the State Department and the Pentagon, and 24 members of Congress, spurring a probe that led to several indictments against those involved, and the conviction of William Calley. His own account of learning about the massacre can be found in the article, "Jesus Was a Gook," published in "Nobody Gets Off the Bus: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book".
Ridenhour, a 1972 graduate of Claremont Men's College, went on to become an investigative journalist, winning a George Polk Award in 1987 for his expose of a tax scandal in New Orleans, based on a year-long investigation. He earned the 1988 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary.
He died of a heart attack in 1998, aged 52, while playing handball in Metairie, Louisiana. The Ridenhour Prizes, which "recognize those who persevere in acts of truth-telling that protect the public interest, promote social justice or illuminate a more just vision of society", are named for him.
According to Jonathan Glover's book "Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century", Ridenhour took part in the Princeton version of the Milgram experiment. Subsequent investigations, however, showed that the Ron Ridenhour who took part in the Milgram experiment and the Ron Ridenhour who helped break the story of the Mỹ Lai massacre were two different persons.