Today marks the fall of Saigon to forces of the People's Army of Vietnam. It is the 35th anniversary of the end of one of the longest & most divisive conflicts of the C20th. We are as far from the end of that war as we were in 1980 from the end of WW2, yet it continues to be a subject of bitterness & contention in a way that WW2 & Korea (which was as unpopular as Vietnam) have never been.
I am from the school of thought that believes the war was not won & lost in Washington, but in Hanoi & especially Saigon. I believe that the RVN was an unlikely proposition from the start that was most likely doomed before the first American combat unit set foot in Vietnam. The extremely slim chance that American intervention might change the outcome was doomed by an ill concieved strategy, inappropriate tactics & a poor understanding of friend & foe alike.
None of this makes the final outcome any the less tragic, especially for those Vietnamese who didn't want to live under communism. They deserved better than the nation created in their name. Their pain continues & is encapsulated in the words of a local pathologist I sometimes visit who simply told me 'I have no country to go home to'.
*Trivia: Admiral George 'Steve' Morrison, father of the Doors lead singer, organised the relief effort for the Vietnamese evacuees on Guam.
Some famous images:
An Air America chopper evacuates people from atop the Pittman Apartments.
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A PAVN Tank enters the grounds of the Presidential Palace.
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A mural in the Saigon Museum giving a somewhat prosaic rendition of the taking of the Presidential palace.
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I am from the school of thought that believes the war was not won & lost in Washington, but in Hanoi & especially Saigon. I believe that the RVN was an unlikely proposition from the start that was most likely doomed before the first American combat unit set foot in Vietnam. The extremely slim chance that American intervention might change the outcome was doomed by an ill concieved strategy, inappropriate tactics & a poor understanding of friend & foe alike.
None of this makes the final outcome any the less tragic, especially for those Vietnamese who didn't want to live under communism. They deserved better than the nation created in their name. Their pain continues & is encapsulated in the words of a local pathologist I sometimes visit who simply told me 'I have no country to go home to'.
*Trivia: Admiral George 'Steve' Morrison, father of the Doors lead singer, organised the relief effort for the Vietnamese evacuees on Guam.
Some famous images:
An Air America chopper evacuates people from atop the Pittman Apartments.
[ATTACH]20592[/ATTACH]
A PAVN Tank enters the grounds of the Presidential Palace.
[ATTACH]20589[/ATTACH]
A mural in the Saigon Museum giving a somewhat prosaic rendition of the taking of the Presidential palace.
[ATTACH]20593[/ATTACH]
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