Joseph Boscia, Captain, US Army, Vietnam 1968-69

I was thunderstruck on Wednesday, April 30, 1975, when someone came into my office in Philadelphia and told me Saigon had fallen.

“All that blood. All that treasure. Both ours and the Vietnamese people’s,” I thought. “How could this happen?”

I’d gone to Vietnam in March 1968 as a captain in the Army. Before that, I’d spent two years in Augsburg, Germany, as a mechanized infantry platoon leader and company commander. While there, I met and married my wife Sue, an American teacher in the Army schools in Augsburg. She knew I would be going to Vietnam, but that didn’t make it any easier.

I hoped to be an infantry commander, but my orders were to serve as a district advisor. After attending the advisor’s course at Ft. Bragg’s Special Warfare School, I left Sue and headed to Vietnam. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of allies and advisees the South Vietnamese would be.

I was assigned to Dai Loc in Quang Nam Province, I Corps, where I was part of a six-man team. Our team house was in the village near the district headquarters. In a nearby hooch was the six-man headquarters for a Marine CAP platoon. On a hill a half mile behind us were the 3^rd Battalion, 7^th Marines. They were tasked with bailing us out if we were hit with a ground attack. That never happened, but we took plenty of mortar rounds that wounded three of our men.

The Vietnamese, military, and civilians were used to dai uys (captains, pronounced “die-wee”) being older. They always had three questions upon meeting me:

How old are you, Dai Uy?

Are you married?

How many children do you have?

They were appalled when I said I had no children. The Vietnamese place great store on families. I explained that I was newly married. They would smile and wish me luck.

I spent the majority of my time working with local schools and religious leaders – a Catholic priest, a Buddhist leader, and a Protestant minister. For the latter, I secured supplies and funds for him to build a school. I also provided supplies for the government schools hit by the VC.

But it was the children who touched my heart. They lived in a war zone, some in hamlets destroyed by the enemy. Yet their spirit was amazing.

After nine months, the province senior advisor pulled me out with only one night’s notice to replace a captain he was unhappy with at the province HQ in Hoi An. As a result, I never had a chance to say goodbye to my Vietnamese friends in Dai Loc and felt badly about that. But my assignment in Quang Nam Province as the S-5 psychological warfare and civil affairs advisor gave me a different look at the war.

The Vietnamese were very generous. I received some wonderful gifts that I still have. A marble name plate from Marble Mountain, mother-of-pearl wall plates, and a beautiful ao dai that a Catholic priest had made for Sue. And of course, there were the Tet cards which I still have.

My prized keepsake though is not my Bronze Star but a letter from the people of Dai Loc. A few weeks after leaving, a Vietnamese man showed up at our compound and gave it to me. It was signed by the district chief, various village chiefs, Catholic priest, Protestant minister, and Buddhist leader, and two school principals.

That Captain Boscia has done his best to help the people of Dai Loc, especially the school children. He has shown his concern and enthusiasm by working unceasingly, without thinking of himself, to realize educational and social projects. He has also proved himself, with charity, and modestly aimed at identifying himself with the Vietnamese people. On behalf of the people of Dai-Loc, and in our own names, we would like to convey to you our deepest gratitude.

I was fortunate. I came home to Sue in one piece. Some of my friends weren’t so lucky.

When we went to Vietnam, we were young and naïve, and believed in our country and leaders. While I didn’t regret my tour, I wasn’t going to go back a second time and get killed in a war we weren’t trying to win. So I resigned my commission. On May 31, 1970, after five years, we sadly left Army life with our new daughter.

I started a career in Mass Transit management (streetcars, buses, subways) in Philadelphia.

On April 30, 1975, I went to my boss, who had been an Army officer in WWII, and told him I had to leave. I was too upset to function anymore that day. He just said, “I understand, go home.”

So I did, and when I arrived, I held Sue tightly and asked, “What was it all for?

Rich Thurmond, Sgt., USMC,  Vietnam 1968-1969

I put Vietnam in the rearview mirror when I came home in 1969 and chose not to dwell on the war, which I saw as a terrible waste of lives. I went to college and got married.

After the Fall of Saigon, I started reading and researching the war I fought. I came to the conclusion that those of us who served did the best we could in a bad situation. The war wasn’t a good idea. I’m proud of my service but believe the Vietnam War was an American tragedy.

Ben Wright, C-130 Aircraft Commander, USAF, April 1975 Saigon Refugee Airlift

In April 1975, I was a C-130 pilot with the 21^st Tactical Airlift Squadron at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. Months earlier, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) began moving south across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). They were tentative at first, testing whether the US would respond. Then, the NVA began rolling through South Vietnam in large numbers.

We followed the news closely from Clark. Armed Forces Radio and Television and Stars and Stripes told us of desperate Vietnamese people fleeing south to avoid the onslaught. It was obvious that South Vietnam would soon fall.

In late April, my 374th Tactical Airlift Wing was tasked for a maximum effort airlift of Vietnamese refugees, especially those who had worked closely with the US. Our wing flew missions around the clock for four days from Clark to Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon, onloading as many people as would fit sardine style onto the aircraft.

The refugees sat on the cardboard-covered cargo compartment floor gripping cargo straps stretched across the hold. We kept engines running as people approved by the US Embassy boarded through the aft ramp and door. As soon as the plane was full (about 220 refugees), we closed up, taxied out, and flew either back to Clark or to Cubi Point Naval Air Station at Subic Bay, Philippines, where refugee camps had been hastily established.

I personally last flew in and out of Saigon around noon on April 28, 1975, which was the last day of fixed wing aircraft operations at Tan Son Nhut.

We lost an aircraft on the ground that night from mortar fire. The aircrew got out on another aircraft that was taxiing out. Mortars followed the aircraft down the runway on takeoff. The runway was heavily damaged, unusable.

After that, the NVA took over Tan Son Nhut and Saigon, and anyone who left did so either by rotary wing or by boat.

Our greatest concern was avoiding the NVA’s Soviet made SAM-7 Strella shoulder fired surface-to-air missiles and 23mm anti-aircraft guns. From a safe altitude, we employed rapid random turn spiraling descents over the air base watching for other aircraft who were making spiraling climbs out of Tan Son Nhut back to a safe altitude. We were also watching for any signs of hostile fire from which we would need to take evasive action.

While the people were being onloaded, the flightdeck crew (pilot, copilot, flight engineer, and navigator) stayed strapped in our seats while the two loadmasters supervised the boarding. While we were on the ground, an intelligence specialist came onboard through the crew entrance door to give us the latest information concerning the location of the NVA and their anti-aircraft capabilities. We were able to land, onload, and takeoff in about 15-20 minutes on the ground.

We were so busy, we didn’t have the opportunity to visit with the refugees and were instructed not to do so. Because we didn’t know much about the people we had as passengers, we had two armed security police onboard to react should any threatening behavior occur. Each aircrew member was also armed and equipped with survival vests. We didn’t have any problems because the refugees were elated to get onboard the aircraft and leave Vietnam.

He also told me that he, as well as his troops and the villagers, knew that the Americans would go home one day — a day that they were dreading.

So, back home, when Saigon fell, I thought about the village and hamlet chiefs that worked with us, our cook and two maids, our interpreters, and my counterpart and his family.  I felt sure that the terrible fate that he had spoken of had fallen on him, his family, and the others. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.

Donald Nemchick, Petty Officer, USN, Southeast Asia 1971-74

I was honorably discharged from the Navy in June of 1974 after having served three years in Southeast Asia onboard the USS Constellation (CVA-64) aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin.

In April of 1975, I was adjusting back to civilian life, excited about the future. On April 30, I watched Ed Bradley of CBS News report on NVA tanks storming Saigon and the chaos of the evacuation. I was not surprised at such disorder at the end of a prolonged war that was never meant to be won. I did not talk about it to fellow veterans and just moved on.

“Don’t mean nothing’” was a slang phrase among Vietnam veterans used to shrug off unpleasant things. Watching the collapse of Saigon, I said to myself, “Don’t mean nothing.”

Many years later, as I read about the failed evacuation and watched the award-winning PBS documentary Last Days in Vietnam, I became angry. The inept ambassador Graham Martin and bureaucrats like Henry Kissinger mishandled the entire end of the war costing too many American and South Vietnamese lives. I’m disturbed that no one was held to account for the debacle. That failure is part of the agony of Vietnam for us veterans. It’s an emotional wound from a war gone wrong.

So, I continue to read first-hand accounts like Bob Drury and Tom Clavin’s Last Men Out: The True Story of America’s Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam  and Ralph White’s Getting Out of Saigon: How a 27-Year-Old Banker Saved 113 Vietnamese Civilians. They help me reflect on a big part of my life.

John Kramer, Chief Master Sergeant, USAF,  1972-1974

On the day Saigon fell, I was on Temporary Duty from my unit, the 548th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron at Hickam Air Force Base (AFB), Hawaii, attending the Defense Sensor Interpretation and Application Training Program at Offutt AFB, Nebraska. Since the school was jointly run by the CIA and DoD, we were able to actively monitor the situation from an intelligence standpoint. We were shocked at how fast the situation escalated and how quickly Saigon fell. Attached is a class photo taken at the school on the day Saigon fell. I am second from the right in the front row as you look at the photo.

Jim Roberts, 1st Lt., US Army, Vietnam April – December 1971

The Fall of Saigon was a hard time for me. I thought of the people I’d worked with at Dong Xoai, a village near the Cambodian border about 50 miles north of Saigon. Dong Xoai was overrun early in the 1975 NVA offensive. I knew the people there were shown no mercy.

I was in Vietnam in 1971.  My Mobile Advisory Team lived with the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Montagnards in the five hamlets that composed the village of Dong Xoai.  Our team worked with and advised the local Regional Force (RF) and Popular Force (PF) units, adding to the economic, public health, and overall welfare of the people.

The VC had “press squads” who would enter a hamlet, take parents hostage and tell the young men that if they did not join the VC, their parents would be killed.  The hamlet chiefs provided intelligence on these units, and we eliminated these squads.  Similar actions fell on the VC tax squad that tried to take money from the villagers.  We helped the RFs and PFs provide a layer of security and safety that was lacking earlier in the war, and the VC threat to the people of Dong Xoai was greatly reduced.

My direct counterpart was the company commander for one of the RF units.  When we were not in the field, we would have tea during the week and help each other with our language skills.  His command of English was better than my Vietnamese.

During our conversations, he told me that his parents fled the North when the Communists took over.  He had been fighting the Vietcong and NVA for over 10 years.  He said that he knew quite well the terrible fate that would befall him and his family if the North ever won the war, but that he and his wife felt it was a risk worth taking.

He also told me that he, as well as his troops and the villagers, knew that the Americans would go home one day — a day that they were dreading.

So, back home, when Saigon fell, I thought about the village and hamlet chiefs that worked with us, our cook and two maids, our interpreters, and my counterpart and his family.  I felt sure that the terrible fate that he had spoken of had fallen on him, his family, and the others. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.