AllMilitary.com

THIS IS ALSO POSTED ON SARGE CHARLIE, PLEASE STOP BY AND CHECK OUT MY BLOG

What is happening, why are our friends and supporters the target of a blood bath, how can this happen, we are America, this cannot happen. But it did………..

Yes, a black day in the history of the United States, we have lost a war yet we never lost a battle. Oh yes we did, we lost the battle in the streets of America, at places like the Mall in Washington DC, at Kent State, in towns across America, we lost a war in America.

Top Photo is Kent State where students were killed by National Guardsmen and the next photo is John Kerry and John Lennon during a war protest.

We, the greatest nation in the world, committed our resources, our soldiers, and yes our pride to a small country in South East Asia, South Vietnam. We spent our treasure, spilled the blood of 58,000 soldiers, and then lost our will to fight, our Congress lost the will to support a friend.

With the death of students at Kent State College in Ohio, the war was lost, America had lost it’s will to continue the fight.

From the mall in Washington, DC to College Towns across the country, mostly young people were demonstrating, including my oldest daughter.

In the summer of 1973 Congress passed a measure prohibiting any U.S. military operations in or over Indochina after August 15. We has trained and supplied the Army of South Vietnam (ARVN), and then we stopped giving them bullets for their weapons, they could not resist the army of North Vietnam, supplied and supported by the Soviet Union and China. The ARVN was overwhelmed and the result was the Fall of Saigon.

An Act of Congress

Prohibits obligation or expenditure of funds “heretofore or hereafter appropriated” to finance the involvement of U.S. military forces in North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia or to provide direct or indirect assistance to North Vietnam “unless specifically authorized hereafter by the Congress.

President Gerald R Ford pleaded in vain with Congress for additional military aid that might at least raise Saigon’s morale. But members of Congress, like most of their constituents, were ready to wash their hands of a long and futile war.

Loading people onto helicopters at the Defense Attache Office: After more than two decades of fighting the Communists, the South Vietnamese army collapsed quickly in early 1975, setting in motion chaotic evacuations like this one from a rooftop in Saigon.

At the American Embassy Vietnamese Nationals were fighting to get across the walls as North Vietnamese Army was entering Saigon. You are looking a desperate people. The have a good idea what is in their future when the Communist take over.

While the Marines guard the gate of the American Embassy, desperate people are willing to try anything to get a ride out of Saigon. Yes the wing flaps and wheel wells on this airplane is full of people. You see, they know what is coming.

Parts of the evacuation was orderly and others tried to fight their way onto the helicopter.

The USS Midway underway to help in the evacuation of Saigon, the next photo is of the deck of the Midway with choppers inbound.

Do you think is was hectic in Saigon can you imagine the deck of the Midway. The lower photo is of a South Vietnamese pilot after landing on the deck with his family, he is being cheered by the crew.

This is the most telling photo of all, a helicopter being pushed overboard to allow room for another to land. This is what it looks like when you cut and run.

MGySgt John J. Valdez
Staff Non Commission Officer in charge
American Embassy, Saigon, R. South Vietnam

Last off the roof of the embassy during the Fall of Saigon

Cpl. Charles McMahon (left) and LCpl .Darwin Lee Judge (right), two American Marines, were the last two U.S. servicemen killed in the Vietnam War. They died in a rocket attack on April 29, 1975, while providing security for the Defense Attache Office during the evacuation of Saigon.

The is the final paragraph of the speech…..

President Ford’s Speech on the Fall of Vietnam,
24 April 1975

We are saddened, indeed, by events in Indochina. But these events, tragic as they are, portend neither the end of the world nor of America’s leadership in the world. Some seem to feel that if we do not succeed in everything everywhere, then we have succeeded, in nothing anywhere. I reject such polarized thinking. We can and should help others to help themselves. But the fate of responsible men and women everywhere, in the final decision, rests in their own hands.

THE OLD SARGE THINKS

Yes, we helped the South Vietnamese help themselves, and then we stopped providing them with the means to defend themselves, and we left. This was a shameful day in Americas history, at least from my point of view, this not the end of the story, what happened to the Vietnamese People that we abandoned will be the rest of the story……….

Bookmark to: