From: matus [matus@SNET.Net]
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 11:41 PM
To: matus@SNET.Net
Subject: MFD List - Witnessing the Death of a Nation

(A very moving piece published on the 'Thai Laos Cambodia Brotherhood' on
the fall of Saigon and South Vietnam. - Mike)


Witnessing the Death of a Nation....

http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org/why.html

In April of 1975, during the Ford Administration, came the final American
withdrawal.  Predictably, the North Vietnamese violated the 1973 cease fire
that had been hammered out in Paris.  When we had naively settled for a
cease fire in the Paris accords, we had in reality settled for defeat.  The
Communists were patient.  Seeing they could not win a true military victory
with the US, the North Vietnamese had simply bided their time, watching as
we reduced our troop strength in South Vietnam.  Then, when the time was
right, they and the VC began advancing, taking city after city in the South.
By then, they knew the remaining American force was too small to stop them,
and the best the ARVN troops could do was slow them down.  They knew too,
they had outlasted us.   They knew America had absolutely no will to reenter
the fray by sending more troops.  After initial half-hearted resistance, the
ARVN troops panicked, broke ranks and ran.  Hundreds of thousands of
refugees flooded the highways heading South, soldier and civilian alike
fleeing in terror before the onrushing Communist tide.  Saigon would be
their last bastion of refuge from the Communist onslaught - or so they
hoped!   Surely the Americans would send in reinforcements!  Surely they
would preserve Saigon, the seat of government, at all costs!  They were
wrong, of course.  Saigon would in fact, be their Alamo.  For though they
didn't know it then, there was no hope for them.  The die had already been
cast.  America had given up on South Vietnam.  We had washed our hands of
the matter.  America would not send in more troops!

Considering the gravity of the situation, with South Vietnam's government
rapidly losing its grip on power and its military in full retreat, the
"business as usual" atmosphere that still prevailed in the streets of Saigon
in the last days was absolutely surreal!  Yes, they had heard the hamlets in
the countryside were falling, but the population of Saigon seemed unwilling
or unable to grasp that it could actually happen to them.  While the city
went about its daily business, seemingly unconcerned, hurried secret
preparations were being made for an emergency evacuation of all remaining
Americans.  The illusion of calm need be maintained as much as possible, to
forestall the inevitable panic and anarchy that would finally grip the city
in its ante-penultimate hours.  We knew that within days, the North would at
last deliver the Coup de Gras to the Republic of Vietnam.  And Saigon, that
Crown Jewel of the Mekong Delta, quaking and shuddering in her last violent
throes of death, would fall to the communists, even as we were airlifting
out the last 6,000 American troops and civilian advisors.  So it had all
come down to this, the most bitter pill of all - America, crumbling from
within, had defeated herself!  Ho Chi Minh had won the war - not in South
Vietnam, but in the streets, the homes, the college campuses, in the print
media, and the TV news anchor desks of America!  And all the years of misery
and sacrifice, the lives wasted, all of the blood spilled had been for
nothing!

The final pullout was neither graceful nor honorable.   Picture the last
minutes at the US embassy in Saigon.   It can only be described as a scene
of utter chaos.  Throngs of terror filled, panic-stricken South Vietnamese
civilians assail the gates, hoping to find refuge inside the embassy.  Those
Vietnamese that are already inside, swarm the landing pad and desperately
attempt to claw their way aboard, or cling like flies to the skids of the
overburdened choppers as they strain to become airborne.  But the
"lifeboats" are too few to save everyone, as the US ship of state is
sinking.   There's only enough room for American troops and the few
Vietnamese women and children that are their legal dependents.  The men
aboard are forced to kick the hangers-on off in order to just get airborne.
Vietnamese mothers, knowing they cannot go themselves, plead for us to take
their babies with us in our retreat.   For them, especially those who are
half-breeds, the Bui Doi, the "Dust of Life", a life in the States as
orphans will be far better than any possible with their mothers in a
Communist ruled Vietnam.

But as the chopper engines gain speed, the quickening Whump! Whump! Whump!
Whump! of the whirling blades drowns out the screams of those left behind.
Some, having managed to hang on until the choppers are aloft, finally
exhausted, fall to their deaths in the jungle or the sea below.  Just
offshore, aboard the carriers, the choppers disgorge their human cargo onto
the flight decks.   Then, amazingly, the spent Hueys are pushed overboard
into the sea to make room for more incoming flights to land.   But it's a
dire situation, calling for the most desperate of measures!  The cost of the
gear is no consideration at all.  Now, saving as many American lives as
possible is paramount!

Meanwhile, sounds of fighting in Saigon's streets beyond the embassy gates
draw menacingly near.  Inside the gates, terror and confusion reign.  We are
in full fledged, all-out retreat!  As if choreographed, the last choppers
have just lifted off the embassy roof as the gates are crashed, and the
communists surge into the embassy courtyard to raise their flag and
celebrate their victory.  South Vietnam's fate is now sealed.  Any hopes for
their freedom are leaving with the last Americans.  And yes, the
ever-present American media is there to document our final inglorious defeat
for the eyes of the world.   It was a defeat that they, themselves, had
helped to bring about in large measure.

I remember it was gut-wrenching for me to watch it unfold on the evening
news.  I was sickened by it.  I just wanted to cry!  The ugliness of it all
was fodder for Pulitzer winning stories, I guess.  I've often wondered how
many of those in the media were secretly pleased by this outcome.  The
American military establishment had finally gotten its "come-uppance."  No
matter what they said about "Vietnamization" of the war, instead of leaving
victorious, with dignity, we were being chased out of the country, our tails
tucked between our legs with the communists nipping at our heels. God help
our former South Vietnamese allies, whom we left behind to face the
vengeance of the North!  In the days and weeks following the pullout, many
who did not die on that day would later be hunted down and would lose their
lives for having been "the running dog lackeys of the Yankee Imperialists."
The atrocities of My Lai would pale in comparison to the atrocities wrought
when the North finally gained control of the South.   More than 80,000 would
be systematically tracked down and summarily executed by the new regime.
Tens of thousands more would be sent to "re-education camps" where they
would languish for years in virtual slavery.  So this was the "better life"
that some said the Communists would bring to the people of South Vietnam?

The American public had finally gotten what it had been asking for, but
there was no satisfaction in it.  As much as America had seemed to want out
of Vietnam, when we finally managed to disengage from the conflict, it was
sour grapes and bitter wine!   For our defeat by a tiny third-world country
had dealt a tremendous crippling blow to our national pride.  We, the
children of the generation that had defeated the Nazi and Japanese
juggernauts of WWII, had been handed the hard won torch of victory by our
fathers.  That torch had been dropped.  As a result, we would no longer be
able to view ourselves as the invincible international power we had been
before!  And who would be the recipients of the blame for that?  Who else?
America's anger and frustration over the war and its outcome would be
unjustly heaped upon us, the veterans who had unselfishly served in that
war!

Jesus said, "Cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them
underfoot, then turn and rend you."  To far too many Americans, our service
to country had been as pearls before swine.  They did indeed turn on us.
For we who had returned were but living reminders of America's ignominious
defeat!  Someone had to take the blame for it, and what more convenient
scapegoat than the men who had fought the war?  What supreme irony and
injustice!  We who were never allowed to win that war, were ultimately
burdened with the blame for losing it!  It was not for any lack of
dedication or valor or fighting spirit.  In reality, the American people
themselves and the politicians were to blame for that defeat!

I sincerely hope we have learned our lesson - one which we will never
forget.

Bob Wheatley

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