Last Days in Vietnam Page #6

We're almost there. "

You know, so we're all excited.

And I remember very

distinctively that every time

the helicopter coming

down it just blew us away.

We have to kind of duck down

to fight with the wind of the chopper.

Three of the choppers that

came in each landed a platoon

of 40 Marines from the task force.

And they had to be brought in

because we didn't have enough

Marines in the embassy security

guard to secure the walls.

I went with my wife to the embassy.

A lot of people, they clenched

to the top of the wall,

but they couldn't get in.

Each gate was besieged like that,

although the side gate was the

principal place where they came.

People holding letters saying,

you know, "I worked for the Americans.

Please let me in. "

Journalists were arriving and

counting on being recognized

to be let in by the Marines.

There was a sea of people

wanting to get out by helicopters.

But, well, they looked up

at the helicopters leaving

and I could see their eyes.

Desperate eyes.

My dad flew a Chinook helicopter

in the South Vietnamese Air Force.

He had been waiting for

orders but his captain had,

you know, basically just left.

So he and some other pilots

picked out the best

Chinooks and took off.

He said it was the

Wild West at this point.

Just you and your horse and

you just do what you had to do

to survive and take care of your family.

He had given my mom a heads-up

that if she did hear a

Chinook coming, to get ready.

I was six and a half years old.

I can still hear the rumbling,

a very, you know, familiar

rumbling of a Chinook.

When you hear the Chinook

coming, you know it's coming.

I knew my dad was coming.

In Saigon, during my childhood,

it was like, say, living

in the middle of busy L.A.

So, there's really not a

big area to land the Chinook.

So he came in and

landed in a play field.

Caused a lot of wind,

caused a lot of commotion.

My mom grabbed my little sister,

who was about six months at that time,

and I have a little brother who was

about three or four

years old, and myself.

We quickly ran into the

Chinook and we all flew off

out into the Pacific Ocean.

My dad was afraid for

not having enough fuel,

afraid for a lot of things.

He was just flying blind.

And then he saw a ship out there.

In the middle of the

day, after we had taken

those first helicopters aboard,

this huge helicopter called a Chinook,

it came out and tried

to land on the ship.

And oh, we almost... the thing

almost crashed onboard our ship.

This big Chinook showed up.

There's no way he could land

on Kirk without impacting the ship.

He would have killed everybody

on this helicopter plus my crew.

It was way too big to land.

We thought that the

helicopter would just fly away.

But as the ship was moving

forward probably four, five,

six knots, something like

that, the pilot communicated

that he was running low on fuel.

He opened up the port side of

the helicopter and he hovered

across the stern of the Kirk.

Then, all of a sudden,

here comes a human.

One by one, we jump out.

I jumped out, my brother jumped out.

My mom was holding my

sister, obviously very scared.

And she just, you know, just

trustingly, just with one hand,

with her right hand, holding on

with her left to brace herself,

you know, just dropped my baby sister.

One fella is standing there

and he said he looked up

and he saw this big bundle

of stuff come flying out

and it was a baby.

It was the

one-year-old baby.

And then the mother jumped

out and he caught her, too.

Then the pilot flew out on

our starboard, right side.

He hovered with his wheels

in and out of the water.

He hovered there for like

ten minutes and we couldn't

figure out what he was

doing and it turned out

what he was doing was

taking his flight suit off.

Here's a man flying a twin

rotor helicopter by himself,

and at the same time he's

taking off a flight suit.

How you do it, I've

talked to helicopter pilots

and they can't figure out how

he did that, you know, how...

like a Houdini, trying

to get out of this thing.

And finally, he made the

helicopter roll to the right

as he stepped out the door on the left.

Just thunderous loud noise.

The shrapnel is just blowing up.

And suddenly just quiet.

And he pops up.

And he's alive.

And he swam away.

And the helicopter was

only about 20 feet from him

when it hit the water; it was amazing.

We went out and picked him up.

He was none, no worse for the wear.

He was a little bit wet.

Only one unfortunate thing is

he had some small bars of gold,

which was all his worldly possessions,

that were in his shirt

pocket and it sank.

So he lost everything.

He didn't own a thing but his underwear

when he finally came aboard the ship.

He was a tremendous pilot.

The guy was just so cool and calm.

We've so far taken a

total of 17 helicopters.

We ended up with 157

people aboard this ship.

And that crew was very special.

They went, they took their

money, went to the Navy exchange

and commissary, bought all the

clothes and food they could get,

took it up and gave it to the

refugees they had befriended.

They were unbelievable.

We laid mats and all kinds

of blankets and stuff out

on the deck for the babies.

And there were all kinds

of... there were infants

and children and women,

and oh, it was a scene

I'll never forget.

We were happy.

My mom was just, you know, wow.

Symbolically, it was like,

you know, the first step

onto not American soil,

but American freedom.

When we started the evacuation

we were very, very excited about it.

Then your next emotion probably was

just determined to get this job

done and get these people out.

And then, later as it

went on you became fatigued

and frustrated that you could

never make a dent in the amount

of people that were

coming out of the embassy.

You'd ask questions like, was

the crowd getting any smaller?

"When are we going to

finish this?" you know.

And they'd say,

"You know, we're under

orders from the Ambassador.

We're doing the best we can. "

Carrier pilots were saying,

look, it's an

uncontrollable sea of people

and Ambassador Martin

has lost his objectivity,

that Ambassador Martin

is trying to evacuate

all of Saigon through the U.S. embassy.

But he was doing his best

under terrible circumstances.

JOSEPH McBRIDE:
Ambassador Martin

was dragging out the evacuation

as long as he could

to get as many South

Vietnamese out as possible.

Each helicopter took about 40 people.

He knew that once the

Americans were gone,

the evacuation would be over.

So they just put one or

two Americans on each one.

You're very tired and you're

not seeing an end to this thing.

So I got the word out,

"You know, we could

use some help out here.

We only have 75 helicopters. "

And the word comes back, "No.

No, Marine pilots don't get tired. "

Back at the embassy under

the Ambassador's direction,

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