Treasure those who DO have morals and courage in the face of savage, senseless violence On 16 March 1968, an American helicopter pilot called Hugh Thompson flew over the Vietnamese village of My Lai and discovered something that should be compulsory reading for every insecure macho who confuses wearing a uniform with having morals or being a man. American soldiers were massacring Vietnamese civilians. When asked later 'Including babies?', they said, on camera: 'Including babies.' Women, children, elderly people, babies in their mothers' arms. Unarmed human beings being slaughtered by the very men who were supposedly there to defend their freedom. Around 500 Vietnamese would be dead before it was over. Thompson was horrified. He landed his helicopter and confronted the American soldiers. Then he saw more Vietnamese civilians in immediate danger. And he did something extraordinary. He landed his little helicopter between the villagers and the advancing American troops and instructed his two crewmen, Lawrence Colburn and Glenn Andreotta, to OPEN FIRE ON THEIR FELLOW AMERICANS if they tried to murder the civilians. Yes, an American soldier was prepared to shoot American soldiers to protect Vietnamese children from being murdered. And that makes HIM the greatest patriot to me. This wasn't some comfortable declaration of principles from a safe distance. He was right there, surrounded by heavily armed men who had already demonstrated that they were perfectly willing to kill defenceless people. Together, the three men helped evacuate villagers to safety. They also rescued a wounded child from a ditch filled with corpses. Thompson reported what was happening to his superiors, helping bring about an order to stop the killing. And how did the world reward this astonishing display of humanity? Thompson was denounced by some of his fellow Americans. He received hate mail and death threats. The US Army finally awarded him and his crew the Soldier's Medal in 1998. THIRTY YEARS LATER. By then Andreotta had been dead for almost thirty years, killed in Vietnam only weeks after the massacre. What I find so profoundly moving about this story is that Thompson didn't need a committee, an opinion poll, a government spokesman, a superior officer or a panel of experts to tell him that massacring children was wrong. He saw what was happening. He understood. And he acted. There were plenty of American flags and American uniforms at My Lai that morning. The flags didn't prevent the massacre. The uniforms didn't prevent the massacre. The chain of command didn't prevent the massacre. Three men who refused to surrender their conscience to the collective did something to stop it.

S&P 500 PUT OPTIONS JUST HIT THEIR HIGHEST TRADING VOLUME EVER. On Friday, roughly $3.4 trillion in SPX put notional was reported, marking a new record. Around 4.1 million put contracts traded, compared with a 3-month average of 2.4 million. The put/call ratio reached 1.46, showing just how heavily traders were betting on further downside. Meanwhile, over the course of last week, nearly $10 billion flowed into leveraged ETFs, the highest weekly inflow in Goldman Sachs data going back to 2006. Most of the buying was concentrated in 3x semiconductor ETFs, even after an 11% selloff in the sector. Record put buying and record leveraged inflows at the same time mean traders are positioned at extremes on both sides.

BREAKING: Egypt officially deploys troops to Saudi Arabia to fight Yemen's Houthis, with the National Defense Council approving it, and parliament holding an emergency session this afternoon, per MP Bakry. It makes Egypt the largest Arab state to commit troops against the Houthis. Egypt now enters a war against the force controlling Bab el-Mandeb, putting the Suez canal in play.