October 25, 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 of goth 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.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
They were constantly probing, probing, probing.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
They even were allowed to leave men one hundred and
thirty thousand men construction workers on the.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Soil of the Republic of Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Finally, in the fall of nineteen seventy four, led by
a charismatic and strategic and tactical genius and unfortunately named genius,
General Vantien Dung, they decided to invade. They broke the
Paris Peace courts. Now we knew they were doing this.
We had satellites, we had be fifty two photos, we
had everything. But Congress was just so sick of the
(01:45):
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 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
(02:07):
didn't believe that. He thought us capitalist running dogs. We
have something of our sleeve. So he probed at first,
sending out scout teams. They met with no resistance. The
South 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
(02:29):
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 that invaded
South Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
It never came.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
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. Danang, a beautiful little
port city of half mi million people, became a swollen,
seething cauldron of Arvion deserters, Arvon retreaters, civilians on the road.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
The roads were just as the Arbans.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
As the South Vietnamese soldiers retreated into Danang, they raped
and they looted, and Danang just became.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The swollen city.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And finally we decided we have to have a plan,
we have to get people out of here.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
What we tried to do is we tried an.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Evact, both a fixed wing and a helicopter out of
Danang 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.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Women were tossing their babies into the water.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Arvin units were boarding fishing smacks, throwing the civilians overboard,
old men and old women, just throwing them overboard and
commandeering these fishing smacks to get south.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
It was ugly.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
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, but most likely in nineteen seventy six
(04:37):
after the rainy season.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yet here he is. He finds himself.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
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 was just what were the American is going to do?
The Americans in Saigon?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Now?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Early reaction commando types.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
They're never going to know we're here.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
And there's all kinds of Americans still 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.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Tall, shock of white hair.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I always had a jaunty cigarette dangling from his lips. Unfortunately,
he was a young man.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
He was only in his late fifties, but he looked
about seventy five.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
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 dumonia, he was taking drugs for an old car accident.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And he was deluded.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Now when I say diluted, I'm not trying to be pejorative,
but he thought he was the only man. He was
the ambassador, He was the man in charge of 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.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
His powers of diplomacy were going to cut a deal
with the North Vietnamese. And it was delusional. So finally
enough is enough for General Dung.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
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, 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
(07:18):
gonna I'm gonna incircle them and take them the same way.
Let's get these Americans.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Out of here.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
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 April
twenty ninth, the Ambassador Martin had ordered Jim Keane to
split his MSG detachment. He said, I need extra people
(07:45):
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. West Morland
was stationed there. All the big generals were stationed there.
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.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Got to be from the Dao.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
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.
They're the only branch of the Marine Corps that takes their.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Orders from a civilian. They're not in the normal chain
of command.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
The ambassador wants them out there, send them out there.
So Keene went to.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Top Valdez and he said, we got to send sixteen
guys out there.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
You pick them Top. Don't get any of my newbies
in trouble. Now.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
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's
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.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
They were obliterated by.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
A rocketd neirfields are now you can't land a fixed wing.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
They're cratered.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
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 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
(11:20):
find out these guys are dead, they're going.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
To pull the plug on me.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
And Keen is thinking, pull the plug on you. The
plug is already pulled. Plug is pulled for Darwin Judge,
plug is pulled for Charles McMahon. That's when Keen realized
he and top val Dez, 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
(11:44):
one percent.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
They're less than one percent of the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
The commander company commanders pluck the top guys in their units.
They 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.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
These are some of the.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
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, chaotic mess.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
They have to keep it together.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
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 choked streets. Saigon
is now like Danang. There's two million Arvin. Whether you
want to call them deserters, whether you want to call
(12:40):
them defeated soldiers.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But the fact is they're walking.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
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 the left over
from Nixon legacy, and they kept saying, if Nixon were
still in office, we'd be given General Dunk a good
dose them in be fifty two. But Nixon had been impeached,
(13:04):
kind of gerald Ford wanted to wash his hands of it,
so Kissinger had the most to lose, so.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
They kept kept stalling.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Finally, the Marine High Command, the Secretary of Defense, and
gerald Ford convinced Ambassador Martin Kissinger it's time to get out.
So begins a day April twenty ninth, nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Of just manic helicopters out in.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
The MSG's are up on the roof.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
They're watching these firefights.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
While they shoveled five million dollars in cash into these furnaces,
American cash.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Who knows how many Vietnamese piastres. All day long this
goes on.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
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 Embissia three square mile outposts, and the
crowds around it, which had been two thousand, which had
(14:33):
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
Valdez and to an extent, Mike Sullivan are kind of
like the little Dutch boy.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
They're plugging holes in the dike. Here.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Department guys who maybe were stuck downtown.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Anybody's got an American passport, and third party nationals our
allies are Koreans.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
There's a few Brits left in town.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
And they're standing at the gate and they're lifting people
over the gate. And while they're doing it, people are
coming up to them and they're opening.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Bags of jewels or Kruegerats.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Bobby Frayd'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, they get close. The
husband takes it, heaves 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.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Can't take it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
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,
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
(16:01):
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
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
(16:23):
am I to play god like this?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Who am I to say? Yes, you can come in?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And in the meanwhile, all the Vietnamese that are in there,
there's like a thousand Vietnamese inside the compound already.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
They're all the fat cats.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Don't forget, you're not drafted by the Marines.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Who joined the Marines to fight for their country, to
fight in Vietnam for their country.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
It went on all night.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
The Sea Stallions are made.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
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 are sneaking
in the crowd doesn't seem like it's getting any smaller.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
This goes on all day, all night.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
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.
If the guy couldn't get air, he take five off
if the guy got a little there, straight up, one crash,
(18:04):
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.
The ambassador, what the hell's he still doing here' supposed
we had twelve hours ago.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
He won't leave, President Ford, what do you mean you
won't leave?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
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, 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, and Marine General in charge of soeveth Fleet
comes out and he says, Colonel Berry, you will take
(20:29):
the ambassador out on your next run.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
You're a marine colonel.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
You don't ask a three star why, Yes, sir, I will,
is the answer he gets.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
And he's flying in he and his co pilot. It's dark.
They're taking small range fire.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
There's a monsoon movie and they can't use the forty
five and fifty five hundred lanes anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
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 land on the roof.
He's got the little the scratch bat here.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
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
realizes that it's time to go. So then word comes
(21:21):
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,
but there are for five six hundred people that have
already gotten illegally. Tom says, doesn't even say anything, just
(21:44):
looks at him, and Keene says, orders button it up.
They shut the door, they disabled the elevators.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
They run upstairs, and.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
By this point there's about sixty of them fleet marines.
A few fleet marines are mixed in with the marine
security guards.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Still dark out.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
They get up to the roof, boom, everything all hell
breaks loose downstairs.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
The people steal the heartbreaking thing.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
And they called him sticks.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
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 up there. So
there was a brief pause where the helicopters stood down
because of flying time. An even bigger marine general in Hawaii,
(22:49):
Lou Wilson Medal Ofvana Winter.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
He put out an order.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
He said, anybody that doesn't go and get my marines,
I don't care what service through and I'm court martialing.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
So they started flying again. They come in. Jim Keane
does a head count.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
He realizes even stripped of their vests, stripped of their helmets,
stripped of their weapons. He said, I'm not going to
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.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
It's the most beautiful sunrise that.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
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
in our Time after the Parish piece of cords, at
the very same podium, he now announces that all Americans
who wanted to get up South Vietnam are out.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
When he said wanted to get out. Some reporters remain behind.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
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 accounted for eleven
marines on accounter for you mean on accounted 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
(24:23):
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.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Oh, the tiger's out of his cage.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
They're up in this roof. They barricaded the door.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Dawn comes and the small arms fire just increases. Is
it coming from arvins once again? Is it coming from
NBA snipers?
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Probably a little of both.
Speaker 2 (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've got a couple of shotguns
up here. It looks like we got two fifty cal
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 and just in time
to hear Bobby Frayan 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 can 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 Frayan 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.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
He had a Dickens childhood.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
His mother committed suicide, trying to kill Terry and his
two brothers, but she failed, but she killed herself.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
She tried to blow up the house.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
His father was an alcoholic who basically rented him out
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.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
We are each other. Dave Norman, a nineteen year old
from Ohio. He's up on the helipad. He's laying.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Don't mind dying with these men.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
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 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,
(28:24):
and he lost consciousness for a moment or so, stuck
a dirty rag in there, and Top wanted to evacuate
him out. He wouldn't evacuate unless his guys were going
to Steve Schuler.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Is now up on the roof.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
With their thoughts.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Top Baldez 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 3 (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 ends, 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 of goth 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.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
They were constantly probing, probing, probing.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
They even were allowed to leave men one hundred and
thirty thousand men construction workers on the.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Soil of the Republic of Vietnam.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Finally, in the fall of nineteen seventy four, led by
a charismatic and strategic and tactical genius and unfortunately named genius,
General Vantien Dung, they decided to invade. They broke the
Paris Peace courts. Now we knew they were doing this.
We had satellites, we had be fifty two photos, we
had everything. But Congress was just so sick of the
(01:45):
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 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
(02:07):
didn't believe that. He thought us capitalist running dogs. We
have something of our sleeve. So he probed at first,
sending out scout teams. They met with no resistance. The
South 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
(02:29):
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 that invaded
South Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
It never came.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
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. Danang, a beautiful little
port city of half mi million people, became a swollen,
seething cauldron of Arvion deserters, Arvon retreaters, civilians on the road.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
The roads were just as the Arbans.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
As the South Vietnamese soldiers retreated into Danang, they raped
and they looted, and Danang just became.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The swollen city.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
And finally we decided we have to have a plan,
we have to get people out of here.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
What we tried to do is we tried an.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Evact, both a fixed wing and a helicopter out of
Danang 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.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Women were tossing their babies into the water.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Arvin units were boarding fishing smacks, throwing the civilians overboard,
old men and old women, just throwing them overboard and
commandeering these fishing smacks to get south.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
It was ugly.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
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, but most likely in nineteen seventy six
(04:37):
after the rainy season.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yet here he is. He finds himself.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
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 was just what were the American is going to do?
The Americans in Saigon?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Now?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
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.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Early reaction commando types.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
They're never going to know we're here.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
And there's all kinds of Americans still 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.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Tall, shock of white hair.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I always had a jaunty cigarette dangling from his lips. Unfortunately,
he was a young man.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
He was only in his late fifties, but he looked
about seventy five.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
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 dumonia, he was taking drugs for an old car accident.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
And he was deluded.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Now when I say diluted, I'm not trying to be pejorative,
but he thought he was the only man. He was
the ambassador, He was the man in charge of 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.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
His powers of diplomacy were going to cut a deal
with the North Vietnamese. And it was delusional. So finally
enough is enough for General Dung.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
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, 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
(07:18):
gonna I'm gonna incircle them and take them the same way.
Let's get these Americans.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Out of here.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
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 April
twenty ninth, the Ambassador Martin had ordered Jim Keane to
split his MSG detachment. He said, I need extra people
(07:45):
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. West Morland
was stationed there. All the big generals were stationed there.
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.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Got to be from the Dao.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
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.
They're the only branch of the Marine Corps that takes their.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Orders from a civilian. They're not in the normal chain
of command.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
The ambassador wants them out there, send them out there.
So Keene went to.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Top Valdez and he said, we got to send sixteen
guys out there.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
You pick them Top. Don't get any of my newbies
in trouble. Now.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
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.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
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's
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.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
They were obliterated by.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
A rocketd neirfields are now you can't land a fixed wing.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
They're cratered.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
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 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
(11:20):
find out these guys are dead, they're going.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
To pull the plug on me.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
And Keen is thinking, pull the plug on you. The
plug is already pulled. Plug is pulled for Darwin Judge,
plug is pulled for Charles McMahon. That's when Keen realized
he and top val Dez, 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
(11:44):
one percent.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
They're less than one percent of the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
The commander company commanders pluck the top guys in their units.
They 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.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
These are some of the.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
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, chaotic mess.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
They have to keep it together.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
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 choked streets. Saigon
is now like Danang. There's two million Arvin. Whether you
want to call them deserters, whether you want to call
(12:40):
them defeated soldiers.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
But the fact is they're walking.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
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 the left over
from Nixon legacy, and they kept saying, if Nixon were
still in office, we'd be given General Dunk a good
dose them in be fifty two. But Nixon had been impeached,
(13:04):
kind of gerald Ford wanted to wash his hands of it,
so Kissinger had the most to lose, so.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
They kept kept stalling.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Finally, the Marine High Command, the Secretary of Defense, and
gerald Ford convinced Ambassador Martin Kissinger it's time to get out.
So begins a day April twenty ninth, nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Of just manic helicopters out in.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
The MSG's are up on the roof.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
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.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
They're watching these firefights.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
While they shoveled five million dollars in cash into these furnaces,
American cash.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Who knows how many Vietnamese piastres. All day long this
goes on.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
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 Embissia three square mile outposts, and the
crowds around it, which had been two thousand, which had
(14:33):
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
Valdez and to an extent, Mike Sullivan are kind of
like the little Dutch boy.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
They're plugging holes in the dike. Here.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
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.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
Department guys who maybe were stuck downtown.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Anybody's got an American passport, and third party nationals our
allies are Koreans.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
There's a few Brits left in town.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
And they're standing at the gate and they're lifting people
over the gate. And while they're doing it, people are
coming up to them and they're opening.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Bags of jewels or Kruegerats.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Bobby Frayd'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, they get close. The
husband takes it, heaves 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.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Can't take it.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
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,
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
(16:01):
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
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
(16:23):
am I to play god like this?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Who am I to say? Yes, you can come in?
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And in the meanwhile, all the Vietnamese that are in there,
there's like a thousand Vietnamese inside the compound already.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
They're all the fat cats.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
Don't forget, you're not drafted by the Marines.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Who joined the Marines to fight for their country, to
fight in Vietnam for their country.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
It went on all night.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
The Sea Stallions are made.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
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 are sneaking
in the crowd doesn't seem like it's getting any smaller.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
This goes on all day, all night.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
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.
If the guy couldn't get air, he take five off
if the guy got a little there, straight up, one crash,
(18:04):
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.
The ambassador, what the hell's he still doing here' supposed
we had twelve hours ago.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
He won't leave, President Ford, what do you mean you
won't leave?
Speaker 2 (20:06):
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, 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, and Marine General in charge of soeveth Fleet
comes out and he says, Colonel Berry, you will take
(20:29):
the ambassador out on your next run.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
You're a marine colonel.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
You don't ask a three star why, Yes, sir, I will,
is the answer he gets.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
And he's flying in he and his co pilot. It's dark.
They're taking small range fire.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
There's a monsoon movie and they can't use the forty
five and fifty five hundred lanes anymore.
Speaker 3 (20:48):
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 land on the roof.
He's got the little the scratch bat here.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
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
realizes that it's time to go. So then word comes
(21:21):
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,
but there are for five six hundred people that have
already gotten illegally. Tom says, doesn't even say anything, just
(21:44):
looks at him, and Keene says, orders button it up.
They shut the door, they disabled the elevators.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
They run upstairs, and.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
By this point there's about sixty of them fleet marines.
A few fleet marines are mixed in with the marine
security guards.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Still dark out.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
They get up to the roof, boom, everything all hell
breaks loose downstairs.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
The people steal the heartbreaking thing.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
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 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.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
And they called him sticks.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
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 up there. So
there was a brief pause where the helicopters stood down
because of flying time. An even bigger marine general in Hawaii,
(22:49):
Lou Wilson Medal Ofvana Winter.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
He put out an order.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
He said, anybody that doesn't go and get my marines,
I don't care what service through and I'm court martialing.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
So they started flying again. They come in. Jim Keane
does a head count.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
He realizes even stripped of their vests, stripped of their helmets,
stripped of their weapons. He said, I'm not going to
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.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
It's the most beautiful sunrise that.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
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
in our Time after the Parish piece of cords, at
the very same podium, he now announces that all Americans
who wanted to get up South Vietnam are out.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
When he said wanted to get out. Some reporters remain behind.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
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 accounted for eleven
marines on accounter for you mean on accounted 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
(24:23):
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.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Oh, the tiger's out of his cage.
Speaker 2 (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.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
They're up in this roof. They barricaded the door.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Dawn comes and the small arms fire just increases. Is
it coming from arvins once again? Is it coming from
NBA snipers?
Speaker 3 (24:54):
Probably a little of both.
Speaker 2 (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've got a couple of shotguns
up here. It looks like we got two fifty cal
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 and just in time
to hear Bobby Frayan 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 can 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 Frayan 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.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
He had a Dickens childhood.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
His mother committed suicide, trying to kill Terry and his
two brothers, but she failed, but she killed herself.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
She tried to blow up the house.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
His father was an alcoholic who basically rented him out
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.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
We are each other. Dave Norman, a nineteen year old
from Ohio. He's up on the helipad. He's laying.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Don't mind dying with these men.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
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 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,
(28:24):
and he lost consciousness for a moment or so, stuck
a dirty rag in there, and Top wanted to evacuate
him out. He wouldn't evacuate unless his guys were going
to Steve Schuler.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Is now up on the roof.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
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.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
With their thoughts.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Top Baldez 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 3 (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 ends, 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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