Background
Ridenhour was born in Oakland, California, and was raised in Phoenix, Arizona.
Ridenhour was born in Oakland, California, and was raised in Phoenix, Arizona.
Phoenix College; Claremont McKenna College.
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. His own account of learning about the massacre can be found in the article, "Jesus Was a Gook," published in Nobody Gets Office the Business: The Viet Nam Generation Big Book.
He died of a heart attack in 1998, aged 52, 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.
Ridenhour was part of the minority who refused to administer electric shocks that would result in death. He was the only participant who refused to administer any shocks whatsoever.
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 My Lai Massacre are two different individuals.
Glover"s source for treating the two individuals as identical came from Gordon Bear, a social psychologist, who on April 5, 2008 posted a correction to the listserv of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. --Ron Ridenhour in the Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1993.
On his return to the United States, he sent letters to 30 members of Congress and to Pentagon officials, spurring a probe that led to several indictments against those involved, and the conviction of William Calley.