March 12, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in a thrilling, moment-by-moment narrative based on a wealth of recently declassified documents and in-depth interviews, authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable story of the evacuation of Saigon in Last Men Out: The True Story of America's Heroic Final Hours in Vietnam. This closing chapter of the war would become the largest-scale evacuation ever carried out, as improvised by a small unit of Marines. Bob Drury is here to tell the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories in a thrilling
moment by moment narrative. Based on a wealth of recently
declassified documents and in depth interviews, authors Bob Drury and
Tom Claven tell the remarkable story of the evacuation of
Saigon in Last Man Out, The True Story of America's
(00:31):
heroic final hours in Vietnam. This closing chapter of the
ward become the largest scale evacuation ever carried out, as
improvised by a very small unit of marines. Here's Bob
Drury with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
In nineteen seventy three, the United States, South Vietnam and
the Democratic Republican both Vietnam, signed to Paris Peace Accords. Now,
according to those accords, everybody hoped and wished, especially in
the United States, that we were going to have another
Korea situation, that it was going to be a country
divided into there was going to be a DMZ, there
was going to be a peace line for whenever. The
(01:08):
North Vietnamese never had any idea of standing by these accords.
They were constantly probing, probing, probing. They even were allowed
to leave men one hundred and thirty thousand men construction
workers on the soil of the Republic of Vietnam. Finally,
in the fall of nineteen seventy four, led by a
charismatic and strategic and tactical genius and unfortunately named genius,
(01:34):
General Vantien Dung, they decided to invade. They broke the
Paris Peace. Of course, now we knew they were doing this.
We had satellites, we had beef fifty two photos, we
had everything. But Congress was just so sick of the war.
In Vietnam. We were out. We had some men. We
had Marine Security Guards msgs at provincial consulars. We had
a half a platoon in Saigon. We had some advisors
(01:56):
in We were in the middle of recession here in
the United States. We just didn't want to spend any
more money. We just wanted to kind of wipe our
hands of Vietnam. It was a bad deal. Dung didn't
believe that. He thought us capitalist running dogs. We have
something up our sleeve. So he probed at first, sending
out scout teams. They met with no resistance. The South
(02:18):
Vietnamese Army, the Arvins, the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam fell apart. Their officers, deserted men were left leaderless,
nowhere to go, did not know what to do. What
happened was is after a while General Dung, the North
Vietnamese General Dunk, said, you know what, the Americans aren't
going to do anything. He was expecting a B fifty
two strike like the last time North Vietnam had invaded
(02:40):
South Vietnam. It never came. So gradually he picked up
speed and the North Vietnamese army one hundred and fifty
thousand meant more than one hundred fifty thousand men sluiced
through South Vietnam provinces. Cities fell, Play Coup, fell Way
City fell. Dnang, a beautiful little port city of half
m million people, became a swollen, seething cauldron of Arvion deserters,
(03:07):
Arvon retreaters, civilians on the road. The roads were just
as the Arbans. As the South Vietnamese soldiers retreated into Danang,
they raped and they looted, and Danang just became the
swollen city. And finally we decided we have to have
a plan, we have to get people out of here.
What we tried to do is we tried an evac
both a fixed wing and a helicopter out of Danang
(03:28):
fell apart immediately, in large part because our own allies,
our former allies, the Arvins thought we were cutting and running,
which we were, and started firing on the American aircraft
coming in. The MSG unit, the Marine Security Guard Unit,
a small unit in Danang, got it, almost got into
several firefights with their ostensible allies until they were finally
(03:49):
snuck out in the back of a garbage truck. Finally,
a sea lift was instituted. The US and South Vietnam
took as many boats, barges, ships as they could sent
them up there, and it became a total mess. Women
were tossing their babies into the water. Arvin units were
boarding fishing smacks, throwing the civilians overboard, old men and
(04:09):
old women, just throwing them overboard and commandeering these fishing
smacks to get south. It was ugly. There were no
Arvin commanders, no South Vietnam commanders to keep any kind
of order. And we learned something from Danag, and that
was who a sealift from anywhere else is going to
be kind of dicey. So now General Dung he hadn't
planned on taking Saigon until perhaps late in nineteen seventy five,
(04:35):
but most likely in nineteen seventy six, after the rainy season.
Yet here he is, he finds himself. This started in
late nineteen seventy four, in early April, mid April nineteen
seventy five, he finds himself with an army of one
hundred and fifty thousand people in circling Saigon. He's going
back and forth with it. Dung was a smart man.
He knew that now was the time to strike. It
(04:58):
was just what were the American is going to do?
The Americans in Saigon? Now? As I said, there was
this Marine Security Guard battalion, but it wasn't really a battalion.
It's between fifty and sixty people. And three days before
the Seventh Fleet, which was cruising the waters off South
Vietnam and international waters in South China Sea, they sent
in a platoon of Fleet Marines early reaction commando types.
(05:22):
According to the Paris Peace Accords, we weren't allowed to
have more than x amount of soldiers in South Vietnam,
and the MSG's pretty much took up that quota. So
they sent fifty young men and they had them wearing
leisure suits and carrying their guns and uniforms. In Duffel Bags.
I remember Top Valdez who was the NCO in charge
of the MSG's and Saigon. So oh yeah, that's really
going to fool the North Vietnamese. They're never going to
know we're here. And there's all kinds of Americans still
(05:44):
in there, not only civilians, but state departments, Spook, CIA.
There is Army advisors, Air Force advisors, Navy advisors. But
let's face it, the two main players in Saigon right
now are the Ambassador Graham Martin, an elegant man, tall,
shock of white hair. I always had a jaunty cigarette
dangling from his lips. Unfortunately, he was a young man.
(06:07):
He was only in his late fifties, but he looked
about seventy five because he was sick. He was physically sick.
He had walking pneumonia, and he was under the mental
stress that I just can't imagine being under. He not
only the walking duemonia, he was taking drugs for an
old car accident. And he was deluded. Now when I
say diluted, I'm not trying to be pejorative, but he
(06:29):
thought he was the only man. He was the ambassador,
He was the man in charge at South Vietnam. He
thought he was the only man who could cut a
deal with the North Vietnamese who or slowly but surely
encircling Saga, and he would not call for any kind
of evacuation because he thought a deal was imminent. His
powers of diplomacy were going to cut a deal with
(06:51):
the North Vietnamese. And it was delusional. So finally, enough
is enough for General Dung. And he thinks he's going
to poke a little stick at the American skin them
out quicker, because he knows once the Americans go, he's
got the country. He saw what happened to the fourth
largest army South Vietnam had the fourth largest army in
the world. He went through it like you know what,
through a goose. He saw what happened up north. He said,
(07:13):
I'm gonna take Saigon. Then there's troops down in the
bread basket, down in the may Hung Delta. But you
know what, I'm just gonna I'm gonna incircle them and
take them the same way. Let's get these Americans out
of here. I don't want to start another war. I
will if I have to. They're running dogs, he hated us.
They're capitalists running dogs. He hated us, but my orders
are don't start another war. So before the morning of
(07:36):
April twenty ninth, the Ambassador Martin had ordered Jim Keane
to split his MSG detachment. He said, I need extra
people out at the airport. There was a Defense Attach's
office next to the airport, adjacent to the airport. It's
where we had run everything during the Vietnam War. Westmoreland
was stationed there. All the big generals were stationed there.
(07:56):
Now it was still the same buildings, but it just
had advice. And he said, I need men out of
the Dao because if we're going to do a helicopter evacuation,
it's got to be from the Dao. This Defense Attache's
office adjacent to the airport. So Keene's like, no, I
can't split my command. I only have fifty five people.
I can't split my command. And here's something about the msgs.
(08:18):
They're the only branch of the Marine Corps that takes
their orders from a civilian. They're not in the normal
chain of command. So what the State Department says usually
through a Regional Security Officer an RSO stationed at every embassy,
and the RSO said send them out there. The ambassador
wants them out there, send them out there. So Keene
went to Top Valdez and he said, we got to
(08:40):
send sixteen guys out there. If you pick them, Top,
don't get any of my newbies in trouble. Now. There
were a couple kids who had just come into South Vietnam.
Valdez is thinking, you know what, the North Vietnamese want
us out of Saigon so badly. They're never going to
bomb the airport. I'm gonna send all my inexperienced newbies
out there.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And you're listening to a rivening account of the evacuation
of Saigon. You're listening to Bob Drury, co author of
Last Men Out. When we come back, more of this
compelling story, a story you haven't heard probably here on
our American Stories. And we continue with our American stories,
(10:11):
and with Bob Drury telling the story of our evacuation
of Saigon. In the end, he's telling the story of
the last days of Vietnam and the Vietnam War. Let's
pick up where we last left off here again, Bob Drury.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Before dawn on the morning of April twenty ninth, General
Dunk rocketed and shelled the airport with heavy artillery. There
was like six thousand rockets and shells landing every minute.
But one of those shells landed right on a Darwin Judge.
He had been in country two months, Corporal Charles McMahon.
(10:48):
They were manning a guard posts. They were obliterated by
a rocket. The airfields are now, you can't land a
fixed wing. They're cratered. And Mark still in his delusional state,
we could fix this, We could fix this and start
getting the see one thirties in here. He gets back
to the embassy and Major Jim Kean knows his two
(11:09):
men are dead. Now there's two kids, and he says, uh,
I don't want you to report this to the Marine
Corps chain of command. Major Keene says, well, what do
you mean you don't want He said, you take orders
from me. If they find out these guys are dead,
they're going to pull the plug on me. And Keen
is thinking, pull the plug on you. The plug is
already pulled. Plug is pulled for Darwin Judge, plug is
(11:31):
pulled for Charles McMahon. That's when Keen realized he and
Top valves, we're going to have to manage this evacuation
with the Marines they had on hand. Now these msgs,
what happens is commanders take the top one percent. They're
less than one percent of the Marine Corps. The commander
company commanders pluck the top guys in their units. They
(11:52):
have to go through a selection process, and if they
get to MSG school, there's still a thirty or forty
percent attrition rate. So these guys are kids, but they're
tough kids, and they're smart kids, and they're dedicated kids.
These are some of the kids that boom not only
the personal tension between the ambassador and Keene, but now
the city of Saigon is turning into a churning, roiling,
(12:15):
chaotic mess. They have to keep it together. So the
original plan was everybody from the embassy was going to
go over to the Defense Attache's office and we're all
going to helicopter out from there. Well, Keenan Valdez said, Nah,
that's not going to happen. You know, people are going
to run to the flag. We're not gonna be able
to get through these choke streets. Saigon is now like Danang.
(12:35):
There's two million Arvin. Whether you want to call them deserters,
whether you want to call them defeated soldiers, But the
fact is they're walking around with guns and are very
pissed off at the Americans who they're obviously leaving. So
all day this is going on. The ambassador had Henry
Kissinger on his side. Graham Martin and Kissinger were kind
of leftover from Nixon legacy, and they kept saying, if
(12:56):
Nixon were still in office, we'd be given General dun
a good dose him in be fifty two. But Mixon
had been impeached kind of gerald Ford wanted to wash
his hands of it, so Kissinger had the most to lose,
so they kept kept stalling. Finally, the Marine I Command,
the Secretary of Defense and gerald Ford convinced Ambassador Martin
(13:19):
Kissinger it's time to get out. So begins a day
April twenty ninth, nineteen seventy five of just manic helicopters
out in a fifty five hundred feet out of forty
five hundred feet small arms fire the entire time. Is
it coming from arvins? Is it coming from NVA snipers
who are now they could see the NVA. The MSG's
(13:41):
are up on the roof. They're working twenty four hours
shoveling classified information into this brace of furnaces. They could see,
they could look over the roof, they could see firefights
between the MVA and the few Arvins the Army of
the Republic of Vietnam, who are still fighting, who are
still standing tall and fighting. They're watching these firefights while
shovel They shoveled five million dollars in cash into these furnaces,
(14:04):
American cash. Who knows how many Vietnamese piastres. All day
long this goes on. So finally, during the daylight hours
they managed to clear out the Defense Attache's office. The
Fleet Marines send a small platoon over to the embassy.
Now the only thing that's left in the city is
this one little outpost, the United States and em MESSI
(14:27):
three square mile outposts, and the crowds around it, which
had been two thousand, which had been ten thousand, which
had been fifty thousand, are now sixty thousand, and a
lot of them are armed, and a lot of them
are peed off soldiers. So all day long this is
going on, the crowd surging, and some of the stories,
I mean, Jim Keene and Top Beldez and to an extent,
(14:49):
Mike Sullivan are kind of like the little Dutch boy.
They're plugging holes in the dike. Here. Here, they're coming
over the wall. Here, lock that gate, Lock that gate,
and the guys they're standing there and they have to
let in Americans, American reporters, American State Department guys who
maybe were stuck downtown. Anybody's got an American passport, and
third party nationals our allies are Koreans. There's a few
Brits left in town. And they're standing at the gate
(15:11):
and they're lifting people over the gate. And while they're
doing it, people are coming up to them and they're
opening bags of jewels or Kruegerats. Bobby Frame's watching one
time and this woman comes to her husband's making way
through the crowd with his elbows. The woman's carrying something
sure enough to get close. The husband takes it, heaves
(15:32):
it up. It's a baby, gets caught on the barbed
wire on top. One of the MSG's runs up, unhooks it,
but per orders gently drops it back down. Can't take it.
In heartbreaking stories, mister now came up to an MSG
and he got close enough to the gating. He's kind
of a withered old Vietnamese man and he's got an
old Vietnamese army jacket on with a row of medals,
(15:52):
and he pulls a yellowed envelope, creased envelope out of
his pocket and he slips it through and one of
the MSG's opens it up, and it's from the play
Coup Officers Club, dated nineteen sixty seven, and it says,
mister Nah has served not only his country, but the
United States of America. Well please consider that when you
deal with mister Nah. And mister Nah had one arm
(16:14):
and he starts, he holds a thing, and he starts
washed dishes, washed dishes, Officers Club, washed dishes. And I
remember the MSG just turned around and just said, who
am I to play god like this? Who am I
to say? Yes, you can come in? And in the meanwhile,
all the Vietnamese that are in there, it's like a
thousand Vietnamese inside the compound already. They're all the fat cats.
(16:35):
They're the ghost soldiers, the sons of politicians that didn't
have to go into the army, that bought their way out.
Fat cats with suitcases. And you know what's in those suitcases.
They're smuggling out gold, They're smuggling out jewels, they're smuggling
out money and these poor msgs they're on the gates.
And even though they were kids, they had to make
this decision. These are nineteen twenty year old kids put
(16:57):
in this position who joined the Marines. Forget you're not
drafted by the Marines, who joined the Marines to fight
for their country, to fight in Vietnam for their country.
It went on all night. The big Sea Stallions, you know,
the Chinook, the Army Chinook, the helicopter that's emblematic of Vietnam.
They were landing in the parking lot. The ch forty
(17:17):
six Sea Knights were landing on the roof. They had
an assembly line going. The Dao is already empty, so
now it's just the embassy. Jim Keen. The Sea Stallions
are made to carry maybe thirty thirty five Marines. Jim
Keen is packing seventy Vietnamese, smaller, lighter Vietnamese. At first
he was letting him take one bag. After a while,
no bags, no bags. But the crowd, so many people
(17:38):
are sneaking in the crowd doesn't seem like it's getting
any smaller. This goes on all day, all night. They
line up every vehicle, they have to form a ring
of light. And these helicopter pilots were just magnificent. The
only room these big choppers had to come down was
straight down, fill up. Keen would throw seventy five on.
(17:59):
If the guy couldn't get air, he take five off.
The guy got a little there, straight up, one crash,
one crash in boom, there goes your chopper pad and
evacuations over.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
And you've been listening to Bob Drury tell a heck
of a story. And by the way, he is co author,
along with Tom Claven, of the book Last Man Out,
the true story of America's heroic final hours in Vietnam.
And heroic indeed they were remarkable, were these final hours.
And it's a story most Americans don't know and should know.
(18:33):
And that's what we do every day here on our
American stories, is tell stories about what we did, because
if we don't remember what we did, we won't know
who we are. And that's a great quote from Reagan's
last address to the country, his farewell address in eighty nine,
and John F. Kennedy thought similarly about American history. A
great Democrat president and a great Republican. We need to
(18:55):
know our stories. And by the way, Claven and Drury
have told all kinds of stories on this show. Go
to our American Stories dot com to find them. When
we come back, more of this remarkable story our final
days in Vietnam. Here on our American Stories and we
(19:38):
continue with our American Stories and with Bob Drury telling
the story of our final days in Vietnam. Let's go
back to Bob with the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
And finally Gerald Ford sends word to the seventh Fleet.
We said, we got to get the ambassador out of there. Ambassador,
what the hell's he still doing here' supposed we had
there twelve hours ago. You won't leave, President Ford, What
do you mean you won't leave? And this dithering is
going on in Washington when one of my favorite characters
in the book, Jerry Berry, handsome as the day as long,
(20:13):
still is still is? I mean, he looks like a
movie star. He's been flying eighteen straight hours. He lands
on the USS debuke. Marine commandant comes out, The Marine
General in charge of soeveth Fleet comes out and he says,
Colonel Berry, you will take the ambassador out on your
next run. You're a marine colonel, you don't ask a
(20:34):
three star. Why yes, sir, I will is the answer.
He gets in. He's flying in he and his co pilot.
It's dark. They're taking small range fire. There's a monsoon movie.
They can't use the forty five and fifty five hundred
lanes anymore. Now they're flying ground level because they have
to fly under the clouds. What are we gonna do?
And Berry's like, I don't know, I'll figure something. They
(20:54):
land on the roof. He's got the little the scratch
bat here. He scribbles something on it and one of
the ambassa there's personal security unit guards comes up and says, yes,
what's this And he said, direct orders from the President,
I'm not leaving this roof until i have the ambassador.
Sure enough, he's there for a good twenty minutes. The
ambassador comes out. Even at this point, poor decrepit broken
(21:17):
realizes that it's time to go. So then word comes
the MSG's are still manning the gates, they're still manning
the walls. While at the same flight the ambassador goes on.
Jim Keanes gets a message from the fleet button it up.
He goes downstairs to the top valadez and he says,
button it up top top looks over and not only
are there still ten thousand people trying to get in,
(21:37):
but there are for five six hundred people that have
already gotten illegally. Tom doesn't even say anything, just looks
at him, and Keene says, orders, button it up. They
shut the door, They disabled the elevators. They run upstairs,
and by this point there's about sixty of them fleet marines.
A few fleet marines are mixed in with the marine
(21:58):
security guards. Still dark out. They get up to the roof, boom,
everything all hell breaks loose downstairs. The people steal the
heartbreaking thing. People outside the gates stole a fire truck,
broke through the gates, broke through the big mahogany doors
of the chancer in the embassy, and made their way
up the stairs to the sixth floor, where the marines
(22:19):
are like barricaded against them. But some marines are looking
over and the four hundred who were left, who were
supposed to get out, are just standing there. And they
called him sticks. They had them in sticks of like
sixty people a piece. And they're just standing there with
the sticks, with their luggage and with their kids, with
their wives, waiting for the Americans to come and save them.
And once again, I'm telling you, people were broken hearted
(22:39):
up there. So there was a brief pause where the
helicopters stood down because of flying time. An even bigger
marine general in Hawaii, Lou Wilson Medal Ivana Winter. He
put out an order. He said, anybody that doesn't go
and get my marines, I don't care what service through
and I'm court martial now. So they started flying again.
They come in. Jim Keane does a head count. He
(23:04):
realizes even stripped of their vests, stripped of their helmets,
stripped of their weapons. He said, I'm not gonna get
all my men in. I'm not gonna get my msgesus.
He turns the top Valdez. He says, top, give me
ten men I could die with. So these helicopters take off.
Now there's eleven men left on the roof. A few
(23:25):
minutes later, the sun comes up. The irony is several.
It's the most beautiful sunrise that they It's beautifully clear day,
the monsoon clouds have cleared. It's the most beautiful sunrise
that Jim Keane has ever seen in his life. In Washington,
and Rick Kissinger holds a press conference, gets up at
the same podium where two years before he announced peace
(23:49):
in our time after the parish piece accords at the
very same podium, he now announces that all Americans who
wanted to get up South Vietnam are out. When he
said wanted to get out, some reporters remain behind, and
Kissinger seeds at eight talking to him and says, excuse me,
cut shortest press conference, walks off. The aid whispers and
we got eleven marines on account for eleven marines on
(24:11):
accounter for you mean on account for it, we lose
it in the confusion. What happened was when the ambassador
went out at three forty eight am, Jerry Berry's call
sign the tiger is out. The tiger is out of
his cage. In the original evacuation plan, the ambassador was
going to be the last to leave, so they were
still working on that. Oh, the tiger's out of his cage.
(24:32):
There's nobody left, so the hell is the eleven marine
security guards, Keen Valdez, Mike Sullivan, eight kids, eight tough kids,
eight dedicated kids, but eight kids. They're up in this roof.
They barricaded the door. Dawn comes and the small arms
fire just increases. Is it coming from arvins once again?
Is it coming from NVA snipers? Probably a little of both.
(24:56):
Valdez is monkey walking around the perimeter, kind of counting
the weapons. You know, everybody's got an M sixteen, everybody's
got a side arm. We got a couple of shotguns
up here. It looks like we got two fifty cow
machine guns. And he's saying to himself, what is this?
This is nothing. We got one hundred and fifty thousand,
hard and angry NVA soldiers out there. Jim Keane senses
(25:16):
the tension census. His ten other Marine security guards are wondering,
where's our chopper. He calls a meeting. They all get
in a circle. They held up and he says, listen,
here's the deal. General Dunn does not want to start
a war with the United States. If he kills us,
he starts a war with the United States. But you
know what, I've been in action and small units things
(25:38):
go wrong, So there could be a small unit fight.
We don't know what's coming through that door next. It
could be pissed off Arvins, it could be NVA. I
don't want you firing back at anyone. He said, I
want everybody laying low, and I want everybody on their toes.
We're gonna get out of here. We're gonna get out
of here. But he didn't believe in himself. In his
(25:59):
after action report, he wasn't sure. So there's just scenes
a Steve Bauer an MSG from Long Island. He had
smuggled two bottles. He had been carrying him for three
weeks in his rucksack. He had a bottle of Johnny
Walker black and a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. He
calls the MSG's except for Top, Valdez and Jim Keane
around and they kind of sit Indian style on a
circle and they pass the bottles around. Top and Major
(26:21):
Keen are over in the corner. As they're speaking. Keen
looks over and he sees there's something going on in
that circle. The two bottles are whiskey. Top, go see
what's going on. Valdez walks over just in time to
hear Bobby Frayin saying, no Tiger cage is for me,
No Handoi Hilton for me. You know we're gonna take
a vote right now if those guks are gonna take
my dog tags. I want him to have to dig
(26:43):
through a pile of dead gooks before they get their
hands on. And somebody else said, let's take a vote.
It's a unanimous vote. They vote to fight, so they
kind of dispersed. The sun is up down, it's getting hotter.
Bobby Frame gets me fifty. He's got a clear field
of fire, not on the stairwell, but the British Embassy
(27:04):
across the street, where maybe they might take fire from.
Terry Bennington, hard scrabble kid, a hard scrabble he grew up.
He had a Dickens childhood. His mother committed suicide, trying
to kill Terry and his two brothers, but she failed,
but she killed herself. She tried to blow up the house.
His father was an alcoholic who basically rented him out
(27:25):
to subsistent share farmers who kept him feral, barefoot in
a shack to farm tobacco. The Marine Corps was the
only family he had ever known. And he's looking around,
and he's looking around at the ten other Marines that there.
It's like eleven freyed Nerve ends we're all connected. It's
more than being brothers, it's more than loving each other.
We are each other. Dave Norman, a nineteen year old
(27:48):
from Ohio. He's up on the helipad. He's laying. He
can hear the clanking of the Soviet tanks that the
NBA is using. He could hear the treads clanking coming
over the Newport Bridge, and he's thinking, I don't mind
dying with these men. I just wish I could get
to see my mom and dad one more time before
I die. But if I'm going to die, I'm proud
(28:08):
to die with these men. Steve Schuler once earlier in
the day, they had opened the gates to let into
American Reporters, and they had formed a V and Steve
was at the end in his arm and rushed him
with his gun and boom, bayonetted him in there, and
he stuck his finger in there, and he lost consciousness
for a moment or so, stuck a dirty rag in there,
(28:28):
and Top wanted to evacuate him out. He wouldn't evacuate
unless his guys were going to Steve Schuler is now
up on the roof. He's picking through some of the
clothes looking for a clean T shirt, or at least
a not so much dirty T shirt so he could
stuff up the pussy bloody wound he has. I mean,
these men are all alone with their thoughts. Top Baldez
(28:49):
is thinking of his two teenage boys, not much younger
than the guys he's in charge with, and he is
thinking how proud he is. And if we die up here,
somebody better tell this story.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
And a superb job on the production of that story
and the editing by Greg Hangler. And if you want
to read the rest of the story and much more,
pick up Bob Drury's Last Men Out, the true story
of America's heroic final hours in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Again.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Bob co authored this fantastic read with Tom Claven, both
of them regular contributors here on Our American Stories. By
the Way, eleven frayed nerve Nds. Bob said about these
eleven marines, these msgs, it was more than they knew
each other. It was more than they loved each other.
(29:38):
We were each other, he said about these eleven guys.
The story of the Last Men Out of Vietnam here
on Our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories in a thrilling
moment by moment narrative. Based on a wealth of recently
declassified documents and in depth interviews, authors Bob Drury and
Tom Claven tell the remarkable story of the evacuation of
Saigon in Last Man Out, The True Story of America's
(00:31):
heroic final hours in Vietnam. This closing chapter of the
ward become the largest scale evacuation ever carried out, as
improvised by a very small unit of marines. Here's Bob
Drury with the story.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
In nineteen seventy three, the United States, South Vietnam and
the Democratic Republican both Vietnam, signed to Paris Peace Accords. Now,
according to those accords, everybody hoped and wished, especially in
the United States, that we were going to have another
Korea situation, that it was going to be a country
divided into there was going to be a DMZ, there
was going to be a peace line for whenever. The
(01:08):
North Vietnamese never had any idea of standing by these accords.
They were constantly probing, probing, probing. They even were allowed
to leave men one hundred and thirty thousand men construction
workers on the soil of the Republic of Vietnam. Finally,
in the fall of nineteen seventy four, led by a
charismatic and strategic and tactical genius and unfortunately named genius,
(01:34):
General Vantien Dung, they decided to invade. They broke the
Paris Peace. Of course, now we knew they were doing this.
We had satellites, we had beef fifty two photos, we
had everything. But Congress was just so sick of the war.
In Vietnam. We were out. We had some men. We
had Marine Security Guards msgs at provincial consulars. We had
a half a platoon in Saigon. We had some advisors
(01:56):
in We were in the middle of recession here in
the United States. We just didn't want to spend any
more money. We just wanted to kind of wipe our
hands of Vietnam. It was a bad deal. Dung didn't
believe that. He thought us capitalist running dogs. We have
something up our sleeve. So he probed at first, sending
out scout teams. They met with no resistance. The South
(02:18):
Vietnamese Army, the Arvins, the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam fell apart. Their officers, deserted men were left leaderless,
nowhere to go, did not know what to do. What
happened was is after a while General Dung, the North
Vietnamese General Dunk, said, you know what, the Americans aren't
going to do anything. He was expecting a B fifty
two strike like the last time North Vietnam had invaded
(02:40):
South Vietnam. It never came. So gradually he picked up
speed and the North Vietnamese army one hundred and fifty
thousand meant more than one hundred fifty thousand men sluiced
through South Vietnam provinces. Cities fell, Play Coup, fell Way
City fell. Dnang, a beautiful little port city of half
m million people, became a swollen, seething cauldron of Arvion deserters,
(03:07):
Arvon retreaters, civilians on the road. The roads were just
as the Arbans. As the South Vietnamese soldiers retreated into Danang,
they raped and they looted, and Danang just became the
swollen city. And finally we decided we have to have
a plan, we have to get people out of here.
What we tried to do is we tried an evac
both a fixed wing and a helicopter out of Danang
(03:28):
fell apart immediately, in large part because our own allies,
our former allies, the Arvins thought we were cutting and running,
which we were, and started firing on the American aircraft
coming in. The MSG unit, the Marine Security Guard Unit,
a small unit in Danang, got it, almost got into
several firefights with their ostensible allies until they were finally
(03:49):
snuck out in the back of a garbage truck. Finally,
a sea lift was instituted. The US and South Vietnam
took as many boats, barges, ships as they could sent
them up there, and it became a total mess. Women
were tossing their babies into the water. Arvin units were
boarding fishing smacks, throwing the civilians overboard, old men and
(04:09):
old women, just throwing them overboard and commandeering these fishing
smacks to get south. It was ugly. There were no
Arvin commanders, no South Vietnam commanders to keep any kind
of order. And we learned something from Danag, and that
was who a sealift from anywhere else is going to
be kind of dicey. So now General Dung he hadn't
planned on taking Saigon until perhaps late in nineteen seventy five,
(04:35):
but most likely in nineteen seventy six, after the rainy season.
Yet here he is, he finds himself. This started in
late nineteen seventy four, in early April, mid April nineteen
seventy five, he finds himself with an army of one
hundred and fifty thousand people in circling Saigon. He's going
back and forth with it. Dung was a smart man.
He knew that now was the time to strike. It
(04:58):
was just what were the American is going to do?
The Americans in Saigon? Now? As I said, there was
this Marine Security Guard battalion, but it wasn't really a battalion.
It's between fifty and sixty people. And three days before
the Seventh Fleet, which was cruising the waters off South
Vietnam and international waters in South China Sea, they sent
in a platoon of Fleet Marines early reaction commando types.
(05:22):
According to the Paris Peace Accords, we weren't allowed to
have more than x amount of soldiers in South Vietnam,
and the MSG's pretty much took up that quota. So
they sent fifty young men and they had them wearing
leisure suits and carrying their guns and uniforms. In Duffel Bags.
I remember Top Valdez who was the NCO in charge
of the MSG's and Saigon. So oh yeah, that's really
going to fool the North Vietnamese. They're never going to
know we're here. And there's all kinds of Americans still
(05:44):
in there, not only civilians, but state departments, Spook, CIA.
There is Army advisors, Air Force advisors, Navy advisors. But
let's face it, the two main players in Saigon right
now are the Ambassador Graham Martin, an elegant man, tall,
shock of white hair. I always had a jaunty cigarette
dangling from his lips. Unfortunately, he was a young man.
(06:07):
He was only in his late fifties, but he looked
about seventy five because he was sick. He was physically sick.
He had walking pneumonia, and he was under the mental
stress that I just can't imagine being under. He not
only the walking duemonia, he was taking drugs for an
old car accident. And he was deluded. Now when I
say diluted, I'm not trying to be pejorative, but he
(06:29):
thought he was the only man. He was the ambassador,
He was the man in charge at South Vietnam. He
thought he was the only man who could cut a
deal with the North Vietnamese who or slowly but surely
encircling Saga, and he would not call for any kind
of evacuation because he thought a deal was imminent. His
powers of diplomacy were going to cut a deal with
(06:51):
the North Vietnamese. And it was delusional. So finally, enough
is enough for General Dung. And he thinks he's going
to poke a little stick at the American skin them
out quicker, because he knows once the Americans go, he's
got the country. He saw what happened to the fourth
largest army South Vietnam had the fourth largest army in
the world. He went through it like you know what,
through a goose. He saw what happened up north. He said,
(07:13):
I'm gonna take Saigon. Then there's troops down in the
bread basket, down in the may Hung Delta. But you
know what, I'm just gonna I'm gonna incircle them and
take them the same way. Let's get these Americans out
of here. I don't want to start another war. I
will if I have to. They're running dogs, he hated us.
They're capitalists running dogs. He hated us, but my orders
are don't start another war. So before the morning of
(07:36):
April twenty ninth, the Ambassador Martin had ordered Jim Keane
to split his MSG detachment. He said, I need extra
people out at the airport. There was a Defense Attach's
office next to the airport, adjacent to the airport. It's
where we had run everything during the Vietnam War. Westmoreland
was stationed there. All the big generals were stationed there.
(07:56):
Now it was still the same buildings, but it just
had advice. And he said, I need men out of
the Dao because if we're going to do a helicopter evacuation,
it's got to be from the Dao. This Defense Attache's
office adjacent to the airport. So Keene's like, no, I
can't split my command. I only have fifty five people.
I can't split my command. And here's something about the msgs.
(08:18):
They're the only branch of the Marine Corps that takes
their orders from a civilian. They're not in the normal
chain of command. So what the State Department says usually
through a Regional Security Officer an RSO stationed at every embassy,
and the RSO said send them out there. The ambassador
wants them out there, send them out there. So Keene
went to Top Valdez and he said, we got to
(08:40):
send sixteen guys out there. If you pick them, Top,
don't get any of my newbies in trouble. Now. There
were a couple kids who had just come into South Vietnam.
Valdez is thinking, you know what, the North Vietnamese want
us out of Saigon so badly. They're never going to
bomb the airport. I'm gonna send all my inexperienced newbies
out there.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And you're listening to a rivening account of the evacuation
of Saigon. You're listening to Bob Drury, co author of
Last Men Out. When we come back, more of this
compelling story, a story you haven't heard probably here on
our American Stories. And we continue with our American stories,
(10:11):
and with Bob Drury telling the story of our evacuation
of Saigon. In the end, he's telling the story of
the last days of Vietnam and the Vietnam War. Let's
pick up where we last left off here again, Bob Drury.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Before dawn on the morning of April twenty ninth, General
Dunk rocketed and shelled the airport with heavy artillery. There
was like six thousand rockets and shells landing every minute.
But one of those shells landed right on a Darwin Judge.
He had been in country two months, Corporal Charles McMahon.
(10:48):
They were manning a guard posts. They were obliterated by
a rocket. The airfields are now, you can't land a
fixed wing. They're cratered. And Mark still in his delusional state,
we could fix this, We could fix this and start
getting the see one thirties in here. He gets back
to the embassy and Major Jim Kean knows his two
(11:09):
men are dead. Now there's two kids, and he says, uh,
I don't want you to report this to the Marine
Corps chain of command. Major Keene says, well, what do
you mean you don't want He said, you take orders
from me. If they find out these guys are dead,
they're going to pull the plug on me. And Keen
is thinking, pull the plug on you. The plug is
already pulled. Plug is pulled for Darwin Judge, plug is
(11:31):
pulled for Charles McMahon. That's when Keen realized he and
Top valves, we're going to have to manage this evacuation
with the Marines they had on hand. Now these msgs,
what happens is commanders take the top one percent. They're
less than one percent of the Marine Corps. The commander
company commanders pluck the top guys in their units. They
(11:52):
have to go through a selection process, and if they
get to MSG school, there's still a thirty or forty
percent attrition rate. So these guys are kids, but they're
tough kids, and they're smart kids, and they're dedicated kids.
These are some of the kids that boom not only
the personal tension between the ambassador and Keene, but now
the city of Saigon is turning into a churning, roiling,
(12:15):
chaotic mess. They have to keep it together. So the
original plan was everybody from the embassy was going to
go over to the Defense Attache's office and we're all
going to helicopter out from there. Well, Keenan Valdez said, Nah,
that's not going to happen. You know, people are going
to run to the flag. We're not gonna be able
to get through these choke streets. Saigon is now like Danang.
(12:35):
There's two million Arvin. Whether you want to call them deserters,
whether you want to call them defeated soldiers, But the
fact is they're walking around with guns and are very
pissed off at the Americans who they're obviously leaving. So
all day this is going on. The ambassador had Henry
Kissinger on his side. Graham Martin and Kissinger were kind
of leftover from Nixon legacy, and they kept saying, if
(12:56):
Nixon were still in office, we'd be given General dun
a good dose him in be fifty two. But Mixon
had been impeached kind of gerald Ford wanted to wash
his hands of it, so Kissinger had the most to lose,
so they kept kept stalling. Finally, the Marine I Command,
the Secretary of Defense and gerald Ford convinced Ambassador Martin
(13:19):
Kissinger it's time to get out. So begins a day
April twenty ninth, nineteen seventy five of just manic helicopters
out in a fifty five hundred feet out of forty
five hundred feet small arms fire the entire time. Is
it coming from arvins? Is it coming from NVA snipers
who are now they could see the NVA. The MSG's
(13:41):
are up on the roof. They're working twenty four hours
shoveling classified information into this brace of furnaces. They could see,
they could look over the roof, they could see firefights
between the MVA and the few Arvins the Army of
the Republic of Vietnam, who are still fighting, who are
still standing tall and fighting. They're watching these firefights while
shovel They shoveled five million dollars in cash into these furnaces,
(14:04):
American cash. Who knows how many Vietnamese piastres. All day
long this goes on. So finally, during the daylight hours
they managed to clear out the Defense Attache's office. The
Fleet Marines send a small platoon over to the embassy.
Now the only thing that's left in the city is
this one little outpost, the United States and em MESSI
(14:27):
three square mile outposts, and the crowds around it, which
had been two thousand, which had been ten thousand, which
had been fifty thousand, are now sixty thousand, and a
lot of them are armed, and a lot of them
are peed off soldiers. So all day long this is
going on, the crowd surging, and some of the stories,
I mean, Jim Keene and Top Beldez and to an extent,
(14:49):
Mike Sullivan are kind of like the little Dutch boy.
They're plugging holes in the dike. Here. Here, they're coming
over the wall. Here, lock that gate, Lock that gate,
and the guys they're standing there and they have to
let in Americans, American reporters, American State Department guys who
maybe were stuck downtown. Anybody's got an American passport, and
third party nationals our allies are Koreans. There's a few
Brits left in town. And they're standing at the gate
(15:11):
and they're lifting people over the gate. And while they're
doing it, people are coming up to them and they're
opening bags of jewels or Kruegerats. Bobby Frame's watching one
time and this woman comes to her husband's making way
through the crowd with his elbows. The woman's carrying something
sure enough to get close. The husband takes it, heaves
(15:32):
it up. It's a baby, gets caught on the barbed
wire on top. One of the MSG's runs up, unhooks it,
but per orders gently drops it back down. Can't take it.
In heartbreaking stories, mister now came up to an MSG
and he got close enough to the gating. He's kind
of a withered old Vietnamese man and he's got an
old Vietnamese army jacket on with a row of medals,
(15:52):
and he pulls a yellowed envelope, creased envelope out of
his pocket and he slips it through and one of
the MSG's opens it up, and it's from the play
Coup Officers Club, dated nineteen sixty seven, and it says,
mister Nah has served not only his country, but the
United States of America. Well please consider that when you
deal with mister Nah. And mister Nah had one arm
(16:14):
and he starts, he holds a thing, and he starts
washed dishes, washed dishes, Officers Club, washed dishes. And I
remember the MSG just turned around and just said, who
am I to play god like this? Who am I
to say? Yes, you can come in? And in the meanwhile,
all the Vietnamese that are in there, it's like a
thousand Vietnamese inside the compound already. They're all the fat cats.
(16:35):
They're the ghost soldiers, the sons of politicians that didn't
have to go into the army, that bought their way out.
Fat cats with suitcases. And you know what's in those suitcases.
They're smuggling out gold, They're smuggling out jewels, they're smuggling
out money and these poor msgs they're on the gates.
And even though they were kids, they had to make
this decision. These are nineteen twenty year old kids put
(16:57):
in this position who joined the Marines. Forget you're not
drafted by the Marines, who joined the Marines to fight
for their country, to fight in Vietnam for their country.
It went on all night. The big Sea Stallions, you know,
the Chinook, the Army Chinook, the helicopter that's emblematic of Vietnam.
They were landing in the parking lot. The ch forty
(17:17):
six Sea Knights were landing on the roof. They had
an assembly line going. The Dao is already empty, so
now it's just the embassy. Jim Keen. The Sea Stallions
are made to carry maybe thirty thirty five Marines. Jim
Keen is packing seventy Vietnamese, smaller, lighter Vietnamese. At first
he was letting him take one bag. After a while,
no bags, no bags. But the crowd, so many people
(17:38):
are sneaking in the crowd doesn't seem like it's getting
any smaller. This goes on all day, all night. They
line up every vehicle, they have to form a ring
of light. And these helicopter pilots were just magnificent. The
only room these big choppers had to come down was
straight down, fill up. Keen would throw seventy five on.
(17:59):
If the guy couldn't get air, he take five off.
The guy got a little there, straight up, one crash,
one crash in boom, there goes your chopper pad and
evacuations over.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
And you've been listening to Bob Drury tell a heck
of a story. And by the way, he is co author,
along with Tom Claven, of the book Last Man Out,
the true story of America's heroic final hours in Vietnam.
And heroic indeed they were remarkable, were these final hours.
And it's a story most Americans don't know and should know.
(18:33):
And that's what we do every day here on our
American stories, is tell stories about what we did, because
if we don't remember what we did, we won't know
who we are. And that's a great quote from Reagan's
last address to the country, his farewell address in eighty nine,
and John F. Kennedy thought similarly about American history. A
great Democrat president and a great Republican. We need to
(18:55):
know our stories. And by the way, Claven and Drury
have told all kinds of stories on this show. Go
to our American Stories dot com to find them. When
we come back, more of this remarkable story our final
days in Vietnam. Here on our American Stories and we
(19:38):
continue with our American Stories and with Bob Drury telling
the story of our final days in Vietnam. Let's go
back to Bob with the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
And finally Gerald Ford sends word to the seventh Fleet.
We said, we got to get the ambassador out of there. Ambassador,
what the hell's he still doing here' supposed we had
there twelve hours ago. You won't leave, President Ford, What
do you mean you won't leave? And this dithering is
going on in Washington when one of my favorite characters
in the book, Jerry Berry, handsome as the day as long,
(20:13):
still is still is? I mean, he looks like a
movie star. He's been flying eighteen straight hours. He lands
on the USS debuke. Marine commandant comes out, The Marine
General in charge of soeveth Fleet comes out and he says,
Colonel Berry, you will take the ambassador out on your
next run. You're a marine colonel, you don't ask a
(20:34):
three star. Why yes, sir, I will is the answer.
He gets in. He's flying in he and his co pilot.
It's dark. They're taking small range fire. There's a monsoon movie.
They can't use the forty five and fifty five hundred
lanes anymore. Now they're flying ground level because they have
to fly under the clouds. What are we gonna do?
And Berry's like, I don't know, I'll figure something. They
(20:54):
land on the roof. He's got the little the scratch
bat here. He scribbles something on it and one of
the ambassa there's personal security unit guards comes up and says, yes,
what's this And he said, direct orders from the President,
I'm not leaving this roof until i have the ambassador.
Sure enough, he's there for a good twenty minutes. The
ambassador comes out. Even at this point, poor decrepit broken
(21:17):
realizes that it's time to go. So then word comes
the MSG's are still manning the gates, they're still manning
the walls. While at the same flight the ambassador goes on.
Jim Keanes gets a message from the fleet button it up.
He goes downstairs to the top valadez and he says,
button it up top top looks over and not only
are there still ten thousand people trying to get in,
(21:37):
but there are for five six hundred people that have
already gotten illegally. Tom doesn't even say anything, just looks
at him, and Keene says, orders, button it up. They
shut the door, They disabled the elevators. They run upstairs,
and by this point there's about sixty of them fleet marines.
A few fleet marines are mixed in with the marine
(21:58):
security guards. Still dark out. They get up to the roof, boom,
everything all hell breaks loose downstairs. The people steal the
heartbreaking thing. People outside the gates stole a fire truck,
broke through the gates, broke through the big mahogany doors
of the chancer in the embassy, and made their way
up the stairs to the sixth floor, where the marines
(22:19):
are like barricaded against them. But some marines are looking
over and the four hundred who were left, who were
supposed to get out, are just standing there. And they
called him sticks. They had them in sticks of like
sixty people a piece. And they're just standing there with
the sticks, with their luggage and with their kids, with
their wives, waiting for the Americans to come and save them.
And once again, I'm telling you, people were broken hearted
(22:39):
up there. So there was a brief pause where the
helicopters stood down because of flying time. An even bigger
marine general in Hawaii, Lou Wilson Medal Ivana Winter. He
put out an order. He said, anybody that doesn't go
and get my marines, I don't care what service through
and I'm court martial now. So they started flying again.
They come in. Jim Keane does a head count. He
(23:04):
realizes even stripped of their vests, stripped of their helmets,
stripped of their weapons. He said, I'm not gonna get
all my men in. I'm not gonna get my msgesus.
He turns the top Valdez. He says, top, give me
ten men I could die with. So these helicopters take off.
Now there's eleven men left on the roof. A few
(23:25):
minutes later, the sun comes up. The irony is several.
It's the most beautiful sunrise that they It's beautifully clear day,
the monsoon clouds have cleared. It's the most beautiful sunrise
that Jim Keane has ever seen in his life. In Washington,
and Rick Kissinger holds a press conference, gets up at
the same podium where two years before he announced peace
(23:49):
in our time after the parish piece accords at the
very same podium, he now announces that all Americans who
wanted to get up South Vietnam are out. When he
said wanted to get out, some reporters remain behind, and
Kissinger seeds at eight talking to him and says, excuse me,
cut shortest press conference, walks off. The aid whispers and
we got eleven marines on account for eleven marines on
(24:11):
accounter for you mean on account for it, we lose
it in the confusion. What happened was when the ambassador
went out at three forty eight am, Jerry Berry's call
sign the tiger is out. The tiger is out of
his cage. In the original evacuation plan, the ambassador was
going to be the last to leave, so they were
still working on that. Oh, the tiger's out of his cage.
(24:32):
There's nobody left, so the hell is the eleven marine
security guards, Keen Valdez, Mike Sullivan, eight kids, eight tough kids,
eight dedicated kids, but eight kids. They're up in this roof.
They barricaded the door. Dawn comes and the small arms
fire just increases. Is it coming from arvins once again?
Is it coming from NVA snipers? Probably a little of both.
(24:56):
Valdez is monkey walking around the perimeter, kind of counting
the weapons. You know, everybody's got an M sixteen, everybody's
got a side arm. We got a couple of shotguns
up here. It looks like we got two fifty cow
machine guns. And he's saying to himself, what is this?
This is nothing. We got one hundred and fifty thousand,
hard and angry NVA soldiers out there. Jim Keane senses
(25:16):
the tension census. His ten other Marine security guards are wondering,
where's our chopper. He calls a meeting. They all get
in a circle. They held up and he says, listen,
here's the deal. General Dunn does not want to start
a war with the United States. If he kills us,
he starts a war with the United States. But you
know what, I've been in action and small units things
(25:38):
go wrong, So there could be a small unit fight.
We don't know what's coming through that door next. It
could be pissed off Arvins, it could be NVA. I
don't want you firing back at anyone. He said, I
want everybody laying low, and I want everybody on their toes.
We're gonna get out of here. We're gonna get out
of here. But he didn't believe in himself. In his
(25:59):
after action report, he wasn't sure. So there's just scenes
a Steve Bauer an MSG from Long Island. He had
smuggled two bottles. He had been carrying him for three
weeks in his rucksack. He had a bottle of Johnny
Walker black and a bottle of Johnny Walker Red. He
calls the MSG's except for Top, Valdez and Jim Keane
around and they kind of sit Indian style on a
circle and they pass the bottles around. Top and Major
(26:21):
Keen are over in the corner. As they're speaking. Keen
looks over and he sees there's something going on in
that circle. The two bottles are whiskey. Top, go see
what's going on. Valdez walks over just in time to
hear Bobby Frayin saying, no Tiger cage is for me,
No Handoi Hilton for me. You know we're gonna take
a vote right now if those guks are gonna take
my dog tags. I want him to have to dig
(26:43):
through a pile of dead gooks before they get their
hands on. And somebody else said, let's take a vote.
It's a unanimous vote. They vote to fight, so they
kind of dispersed. The sun is up down, it's getting hotter.
Bobby Frame gets me fifty. He's got a clear field
of fire, not on the stairwell, but the British Embassy
(27:04):
across the street, where maybe they might take fire from.
Terry Bennington, hard scrabble kid, a hard scrabble he grew up.
He had a Dickens childhood. His mother committed suicide, trying
to kill Terry and his two brothers, but she failed,
but she killed herself. She tried to blow up the house.
His father was an alcoholic who basically rented him out
(27:25):
to subsistent share farmers who kept him feral, barefoot in
a shack to farm tobacco. The Marine Corps was the
only family he had ever known. And he's looking around,
and he's looking around at the ten other Marines that there.
It's like eleven freyed Nerve ends we're all connected. It's
more than being brothers, it's more than loving each other.
We are each other. Dave Norman, a nineteen year old
(27:48):
from Ohio. He's up on the helipad. He's laying. He
can hear the clanking of the Soviet tanks that the
NBA is using. He could hear the treads clanking coming
over the Newport Bridge, and he's thinking, I don't mind
dying with these men. I just wish I could get
to see my mom and dad one more time before
I die. But if I'm going to die, I'm proud
(28:08):
to die with these men. Steve Schuler once earlier in
the day, they had opened the gates to let into
American Reporters, and they had formed a V and Steve
was at the end in his arm and rushed him
with his gun and boom, bayonetted him in there, and
he stuck his finger in there, and he lost consciousness
for a moment or so, stuck a dirty rag in there,
(28:28):
and Top wanted to evacuate him out. He wouldn't evacuate
unless his guys were going to Steve Schuler is now
up on the roof. He's picking through some of the
clothes looking for a clean T shirt, or at least
a not so much dirty T shirt so he could
stuff up the pussy bloody wound he has. I mean,
these men are all alone with their thoughts. Top Baldez
(28:49):
is thinking of his two teenage boys, not much younger
than the guys he's in charge with, and he is
thinking how proud he is. And if we die up here,
somebody better tell this story.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
And a superb job on the production of that story
and the editing by Greg Hangler. And if you want
to read the rest of the story and much more,
pick up Bob Drury's Last Men Out, the true story
of America's heroic final hours in Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Again.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Bob co authored this fantastic read with Tom Claven, both
of them regular contributors here on Our American Stories. By
the Way, eleven frayed nerve Nds. Bob said about these
eleven marines, these msgs, it was more than they knew
each other. It was more than they loved each other.
(29:38):
We were each other, he said about these eleven guys.
The story of the Last Men Out of Vietnam here
on Our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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