Last Days in Vietnam Page #8

and seeing what I had seen

as a radar display in person.

There were dozens of ships.

And not just Vietnamese naval ships,

but also civilian ships.

And they were all totally

crammed with people.

There are no words to describe

what a ship looks like that holds 200

and it's got 2,000 on it.

I don't think anybody really

understood the magnitude of it

until we looked at what

we got in front of us.

It looked like something out of Exodus.

Our mission was to help the

ships into international waters.

But now they had all these people.

My reaction is, "How the

hell are we going to do this?"

Most of the Vietnamese Navy

ships were dead in the water,

some were anchored,

some were just adrift.

So, we sent over our

engineering, technical people

to see what we could do to

help them and get them underway.

We had worked a plan out to sail

the ships to the Philippines.

And the Kirk was going to escort them.

But the fact that they're

going to be crammed

with an unknown number of civilians

was somewhat problematic.

The U.S. government already

had a refugee problem

with the U.S. Naval ships.

This was another 30,000 or

more people to deal with.

We were up all night talking about it.

And I'm convinced that if we

sent them back or took them back

they would have killed them all.

And Armitage decided to bring them.

And he didn't get permission

from Washington to do that.

I thought it was a lot

easier to beg forgiveness

than to get permission.

So the decision was made.

And they all went with us.

We had finally got out

the last of the refugees

that we could get out.

Now we had to evacuate the Marines.

They were all inside the

embassy building except for us.

I was still on the embassy

grounds with two of my sergeants

and I said, "You two stay right with me.

Don't leave my side. "

We slowly walked backwards

to the embassy door

and a couple of

Vietnamese came towards me.

I said, "We have no more helicopters.

"That's it.

"I'm sorry.

We cannot take you. "

And they began to argue with me.

They spoke good English, too.

"We can ride in your helicopter. "

I said, "I'm sorry, no more. "

So we spun around and

slammed these huge doors,

and we locked it from behind.

I kind of fall asleep off and on,

but what gets me woke up is the noise.

It's a different noise.

So I kind of look up.

And the first thing in my sight was

I didn't see that soldier

there anymore on that wall.

There were people throwing

blankets or jackets

and materials over the barbed wire

so they can climb over

the wire to come in.

It was like, "Where are the soldiers?"

We were going up the stairs.

Below me I could hear feet

running on the stairway.

When we got to the roof, Master

Sergeant Valdez was there.

He says, "We got everybody?"

"Yeah. "

I said, "Man, there's somebody

chasing me up those stairs. "

There were wall lockers up on the roof

and those big fire extinguishers

with wheels so we tilted

all those wall lockers

and the fire extinguishers,

put them against the door.

There was a little window there

that we could see them in there,

al the Vietnamese trying

to get to the roof.

The Marines started going

out as choppers came in.

Then all of a sudden choppers all cease.

There was 11 of us still left there.

The briefing was delayed until

the evacuation was completed

and the last helicopters

are now in the air.

The President commends the

personnel of the armed forces

who accomplished it, as well

as Ambassador Graham Martin

and the staff of his

mission who served so well

under difficult conditions.

We were told that Martin had

left on the last helicopter

and that the evacuation had ended.

I'm confident that every

American who wanted to come out

is out.

So we held a briefing.

Well, turned out not to

be the last helicopter

because there was another

horrendous screw-up.

There were no helicopters.

You know, we were just

kind of sitting down around

looking at each other,

wondering, you know,

what's going to happen here,

you know, whether they

truly had forgotten about us.

So I got on my radio and I began

saying, "U.S. Navy, U.S. Navy,

American embassy, request

extraction immediate. "

And I repeated this

over and over and over.

The only option we had

was sit on the stupid roof

like a sitting duck.

And I kept thinking, "Where

are the North Vietnamese?"

About 7:
45 in the morning

you could start seeing

North Vietnamese coming down the road.

My thoughts were, "What's

to keep them from bombing

the top of the embassy roof

and blowing us off," you know?

A tank is going to take one shot.

If it hits the building, you're gone.

So I didn't like the

idea of being up there,

but where else are you going to go?

Finally I looked out

and I saw a black dot.

When that chopper landed,

I told the Marines,

"Go. Get in. "

I was the last one out.

And as I was putting my foot

on the ramp, I fell down,

and I'm just hanging on

and the ramp's going up.

The ramp is closing

and I did what I was trained

in my first tour... count.

So I went, "One, two, three,

four, five, six... ten.

"Ten?

"One, two, three,

four, five, six... ten.

Ten. "

And I looked at the crew chief

and I said, "Put it down. "

I knew I was missing one man.

I remember looking at the ramp

and two hands were over the top of it.

So the Marines just kind of grabbed me

and then just pulled me in.

We left, by my watch,

at 7:
58 Saigon time.

And we were the last 11.

My cameraman, Neil Davis,

and I decided to stay.

We saw the last helicopter

leave from the roof.

We then tried to scramble

into the embassy ourselves.

Neil got to the roof.

I did not.

And he saw dozens of Vietnamese

just sitting on the helicopter

pad on the roof of the embassy,

waiting, wanting to get out.

And of course no more

helicopters were going to come.

I didn't join them.

I actually... scared.

If the Communists come in,

the last thing we want them to see us

is in the American embassy.

So we get out.

People were coming in

and out of the buildings.

Literally, anything that

could not be fastened down

or was not fastened down

was being taken away.

Any souvenirs from

the Ambassador's office

were taken away.

Almost brick by brick the

embassy was being dismantled.

It was ordinary looting.

But more than that, I think it

was just frustration and anger

and an opportunity to get

back, perhaps, at the Americans

because in the view of

many in that crowd that day,

we had deserted them.

NBC news correspondent Jim Laurie

is one of the few Americans

still left in Saigon,

in the city when President

Duong Van Minh went on the radio

and told the Viet Cong

that his country would

surrender unconditionally

and that he had told its

army to lay down its arms.

Here from Saigon radio hookup

is Laurie's report on the surrender.

In the words of General Minh,

"We are here to hand over

the power of government to you

in order to avoid bloodshed. "

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