Last Days in Vietnam Page #5

and piles and piles of

paper began coming out.

And we began shredding.

There was a small building

where we handled the pay

for the Vietnamese who

worked for the embassy.

And in this building,

there was over $1

million in U.S. currency.

So we had to send a message to the Navy,

who sent it to the Treasury Department,

who came back and said, "Destroy it. "

So I assigned a few Marines

to get rid of the money.

And I said, "Oh, by the way,

we're gonna lock you in there. "

It took them eight hours

to burn a million dollars.

That morning,

fear and desperation

were the order of the day.

But I had a job to do,

and it was an important

job to do, I thought,

to deny the enemy the South

Vietnamese Naval ships.

We had expected, frankly,

a longer time period to get ready.

We had been told by people

in our intelligence community

that we might have as

long as the 4th of May,

but the North Vietnamese

were closing in quite tightly,

and clearly it was time to

send the signal to leave.

I knew this,

but I didn't know how many civilians

were gonna be on board.

I had no idea.

I was the first one into the embassy.

And my only mission at this time,

this is early in the afternoon,

was to bring the Ambassador out.

It was actually a mission that

was called "Embassy Snatch. "

I was just supposed

to get the Ambassador.

I land and I said to the people,

I said, "I'm here to

get the Ambassador. "

Well, not quite.

The Ambassador refused to

leave until he could get

as many Vietnamese on as

many choppers as possible.

The evacuation of Vietnamese happened

because Graham Martin

wanted it to happen.

So they loaded some

Vietnamese onto my helicopter

and because I'm supposed to

have the Ambassador on board,

we go right to the command

ship, the USS Blue Ridge.

We land on the Blue Ridge,

General Carey comes out,

wants to know where the Ambassador is.

I said, "Well, he didn't get on. "

I mean, I don't know

who I'm supposed to tell,

but I told everybody I was

supposed to get the Ambassador

but the Ambassador didn't get on.

So that starts the lift.

Like I say, we had 75

Marine Corps helicopters.

You and your wingman

would fly into the embassy,

get your passengers loaded,

and fly back out to the ships.

It was a little over

an hour back and forth.

On the USS Kirk, our mission was

to protect the helicopters moving

from the embassy out

to the aircraft carriers

and back and forth.

We were very close to the action.

You could stand there on the deck

and you could watch it all happening.

We thought that the USS

Kirk was just going to be

an observer to this whole thing

and when all of a sudden

on radar we started

seeing these little blips

coming out from the shore.

I really don't know where to start.

We looked up at the horizon

and all you could see

were helicopters all heading toward us.

These were not Marine Corps helicopters.

They were small helicopters,

the little Hueys,

which were never part

of the evacuation plan.

But they were flying over top of us.

We were watching them fly

over top over and over and over again.

We viewed them as enemy until

we could verify who it was.

Then we realized that these

were South Vietnamese trying to escape.

I figured if we could save one,

at least we'd save 15, 20 people.

They were packed in there like sardines.

So I made the decision.

Land the helicopter.

One of our sailors could

speak rudimentary Vietnamese.

So we put him on the radio

and he started broadcasting.

"This is ship 1087.

Land here. "

So, we got his attention.

He came flying over and

landed on our flight deck.

And it turned out that

the pilot, he was the pilot

for the deputy chairman of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Real high up.

And he had the general with

him, who was a two-star general,

and the two-star general's

nephew, three women,

and about four children.

It was a big deal for us.

When it landed, we got everything off.

And I looked up because

there were five, six,

seven stacked up ready to land.

Turned out all throughout

the southern part of Vietnam

there were South Vietnamese

Army and Air Force installations

with one or two or three

or four helicopters.

And those helicopters were flyable.

Their pilots were there.

And when they realized that

the evacuation was happening

and they weren't going to

be part of it, they said,

"Oh yeah, we are. "

These young Vietnamese pilots

would go to their homes,

land right in their front

yards, pick up their families

and anybody else, and head out to sea,

hoping they can rendezvous with a ship.

Well, we're one of the

first ships they saw.

Our flight deck will only take

one helicopter at a time landing.

There are no wheels on them.

They just have skids.

We couldn't think of what else

to do and these other planes

were looking for a place to land

so we just physically pushed them.

Of course, this was a big old

helicopter, thousands of pounds,

so we had to figure out

how to get it 15 feet over

to the edge of the flight deck.

You don't have time to

think about what you did,

you just had to do it.

So, we open up our flight

deck and they begin to land,

one right after the other.

Some of them were

shot at, holes in them.

Most of the Vietnamese

who came out, I'm talking

about the flight crews,

they were heavily armed,

all with side arms,

some with M-16 rifles.

They had no idea what was

going to happen so they came out

ready for anything, really.

So we had to disarm them.

None of them had ever

landed on a ship before.

They were Vietnamese Air Force.

Everybody had a gun and we took

all the guns away from them.

Then about five minutes later

another one came in and landed.

And we pushed his

airplane over the side.

That was the second one.

I helped push that one over, too.

Then the third plane came in.

It landed also.

We pushed it over the side.

So meanwhile, we've thrown three

helicopters in the water so far.

This is incredible.

I know you probably

don't believe any of this,

but it's all true.

By late afternoon,

the chopper flow at the

embassy really started.

And each time a bird came in,

here would go another 40, 50 people.

But did the right mix of people get out?

You know, who says that

these were the people

who either deserved or

should have gone out?

At the embassy a lot of

the people who got out

happened to be good wall jumpers.

The choppers started coming

in at ten-minute intervals.

One would land on the roof

and one would land on the parking lot.

They would put all the

Vietnamese in groups,

they would search them,

and if they had any weapons

all those weapons were

thrown into the swimming pool.

And as soon as the chopper

would land they would be brought

into the restricted area

where a couple of the Marines

would escort them into the aircraft.

Then they would raise

the ramp up and take off.

I remember I talked to my friend

and he said, "Oh, it's our turn now.

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