Article

2005-04-30 Southeast Asia

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Posted by Steve White 2005-04-30 11:31:13 AM|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Anybody remember the name of the Marine major who was controlling loading the helos on the roof of the embassy, waving an issue .45?

Serious stones.

Posted by Snump Javiling7225 2005-04-30 2:03:04 PM|| 2005-04-30 2:03:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 I worked with the resettlement effort as a volunteer, starting in May 1975... sort of a combination social-worker, English teacher, driver, organizer, publicist... helping to resettle Vietnamese refugees in my hometown. One of them, just a kid at the time, had been a Viet AF MP, on duty at Tan Sun Nhut. He and the last of the Viet MPs were trying to work crowd control on the very last day, when the North Viets began shelling the airfield, and only helicopters could still fly. He was carried off his feet in a rush of people, and wound up in the doorway of a helicopter, and just on an impulse, threw away his weapon and got on. The heli flew out to the USS Hancock, which was landing them so thick and fast, they were emptying them out and throwing them overboard. Another family I worked with were supposed to be evacuated; the wife had taught English, and the husband was a librarian for USIS. They were waiting at their house with four childred, and the wife's mother... and only got away because the wife's brother was a Viet Coast Guard officer with access to a 100-ft launch. He sent away his crew to fetch their families, and he came to check on his mother. He told his sister and family to not wait a minute longer but come with him. They crammed a hundred people onto that launch. One of the other young men was a Viet AF mechanic; he got out because he was on a plane full of military technicians who flew to Thailand. Americans who had Vietnamese connections went all out during April 1975, sponsering out Vietnamese friends and family so they could get visas and leave. I met this one man who flew to Saigon to get his wife's parents out. He went for them, and came back with them...AND all of his wifes' sisters and brothers and their entire families, six of the inlaw's neighbors, and some total strangers that he took pity on, along the way; eighty+ people, all told.
I swear, I've blogged more about all this than I have heard on NPR, though.

Posted by Sgt. Mom 2005-04-30 2:23:53 PM|| [http://www.sgtstryker.com] 2005-04-30 2:23:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 NPR et al are avoiding the after-fall violence, and that unfortunate "ruralization" in adjoining Cambodia. They've never had an answer for how the savages they supported behaved

Posted by Frank G 2005-04-30 2:51:33 PM|| 2005-04-30 2:51:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Good news is we got Sgt. Moms guys.

Posted by Shipman 2005-04-30 3:24:22 PM|| 2005-04-30 3:24:22 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 Good job SgtM, we would have won the Vietnam War if the Blogosphere had existed in 1975. Wonder just how many Afghan an Iraqi will be alive due the positive efforts of folks like yourself, Rantburg, and the rest of the 'sphere.

Posted by john 2005-04-30 8:50:20 PM|| 2005-04-30 8:50:20 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 There's a prog right now on THS documenting the event. Boy, that now seems like a lifetime ago.

Posted by Bomb-a-rama 2005-04-30 9:47:33 PM|| 2005-04-30 9:47:33 PM|| Front Page Top

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