March 27, 2025 • 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 deth Vietnam signed to Paris Peace Accords. Now,
according to those accords, everybody hoped and wished, as 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.
(01:08):
The North Vietnamese never had any idea of standing by
these accords. They were constantly probing, probing, probing. They even
were allowed to leave men one hundred and thirty thousand
men construction workers on the soil of the Republic of Vietnam. Finally,
in the fall of nineteen seventy four, led by a
charismatic and strategic and tactical genius and unfortunately named genius,
(01:34):
General Vantian Dung, they decided to invade. They broke the
Paris Peace courts. Now we knew they were doing this.
We had satellites, we had beef fifty two photos, we
had everything. But Congress was just so sick of the
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
(01:55):
advisors in We were in the middle of the recession
here in the United States. 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
didn't believe that. He thought us capitalist running dogs. We
have something up our sleeve. So he probed at first,
sending out scout teams. They met with no resistance. The
(02:18):
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
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
(02:40):
South Vietnam. It never came. So gradually he picked up
speed and the North Vietnamese army one hundred and fifty
thousand met more than one hundred and fifty thousand men
sluiced through South Vietnam provinces. Cities fell, Plaikup, fell, Way
City fell. Dnang, a beautiful little port city of half
a minillion people, became a swollen, seething cauldron of Arvin deserters,
(03:07):
Arvon retreats, civilians on the road. The roads were just
as the Arvians. As the South Vietnamese soldiers retreated into Danang,
they raped and they looted, and Danang just became the
swollen city. And finally we decided we have to have
a plan, we have to get people out of here.
What we tried to do is we tried an evac
both a fixed wing and a helicopter out of Danang
(03:28):
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 liift 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. Women
were tossing their babies into the water. Arvin units were
boarding fishing smacks, throwing the civilians overboard, old men and
(04:09):
old women, just throwing them overboard and commandeering these fishing
smacks to get south. It was ugly. 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,
(04:35):
but most likely in nineteen seventy six, after the rainy season.
Yet here he is. He finds himself. 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
(04:58):
was just what were the Americans going to do? The
Americans in Saigon?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Now?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
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 the South China Sea, they sent in a platoon
of Fleet Marines early reaction commando types. According to the
Paris Peace Accords, we weren't allowed to have more than
(05:25):
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
fall the North Vietnamese. They're never going to know we're here.
And there's all kinds of Americans still in there, not
only civilians, but state departments, Spook, CIA. There is Army advisors,
(05:50):
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, tall, shock of white hair.
I always had a jaunty cigarette dangling from his lips. Unfortunately,
he was a young man. He was only in his
late fifties, but he looked about seventy five. Because he
(06:10):
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 demonia,
he was taking drugs for an old car accident. And
he was deluded. 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
(06:32):
in charge of South Vietnam. He thought he was the
only man who could cut a deal with the North
Vietnamese who were slowly but surely encircling Saga, and he
would not call for any kind of evacuation because he
thought a deal was imminent. His powers of diplomacy were
going to cut a deal with the North Vietnamese. And
(06:52):
it was delusional. So finally, enough is enough for General Dong,
and he thinks he's going to poke a little stick
at the Americans to get it 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.
(07:14):
Then there's troops down in the bread basket, down in
the may Hung Delta. But you know what, I'm just
gonna I'm gonna encircle them and take them the same way.
Let's get these Americans out of here. 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
(07:38):
Martin had ordered Jim Keane to split his MSG detachment.
He said, I need extra people 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 Moreland was stationed there. All
the big generals were stationed there. Now it was still
the same buildings, but it just had advisors. And he said,
(08:00):
I need men out of the Dao because if we're
going to do a helicopter evacuation, it's got to be
from the dao. This Defense Attach's office adjacent to the airport.
So Keyne'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 orders from a civilian.
(08:22):
They're not in the normal chain of command. 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. The ambassador wants them out there.
Send them out there. So Keene went to Top Valdez
and he said, we got to send sixteen guys out there.
If you pick them, Top, don't get any of my
(08:43):
newbies in trouble. Now. 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. They're never going to bomb the airport. I'm
going to send all my inexperienced newbies out there.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And you're listening to a riveting 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 the guard posts. They were obliterated by
a rocket. The airfields are now, you can't land a
fixed wing. They're cratered. And Martin, still in his delusional state.
We could fix this, We could fix this and start
getting to see one thirties in here. He gets back
to the embassy and Major Jim Kean knows this. Two
(11:09):
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 find out these guys are dead,
they're going to pull the plug on me. And Keen is.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
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 vol
deys 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 one percent. They're less
(11:45):
than one percent of the Marine Corps. The commander company
commanders pluck the top guys in their units.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
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.
These are some of the 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,
(12:15):
chaotic mess. They have to keep it together. 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 a helicopter out from there. Well, Keenan Valdez said, Nah,
that's not gonna happen. You know, people are going to
run to the flag. We're not gonna be able to
get through these choked streets. Sigon is now like Danang.
(12:35):
There's two million Arvin whether you want to call them deserters,
whether you want to call them defeated soldiers, but the
fact is they're walking around with guns and they 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 leftover from Nixon legacy, and they kept saying,
(12:56):
if Nixon were still in office, we'd be given General
dun a good dose in vite in B fifty two.
But Nixon had been impeached. Kind gerald Ford wanted to
wash his hands of it, so Kissinger had the most
to lose, so they kept kept stalling. Finally, the Marine
High Command, the Secretary of Defense, and gerald Ford convinced
(13:18):
Ambassador Martin Kissinger it's time to get out. So begins
a day April twenty ninth, nineteen seventy five of just
manic helicopters out in 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. The
(13:40):
MSG's are up on the roof 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 NVA and the few Arvins the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam, who are still fighting,
who are still standing tall and fighting. They're watching these
firefights while the sho They shoveled five million dollars in
(14:02):
cash into these furnaces, American cash. Who knows how many
Vietnamese piastres. All day long this goes on. 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
(14:23):
in the city is this one little outpost, the United
States Emissia three square mile outposts, and the crowds around it,
which had been two thousand, which had 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
(14:44):
is going on, the crowd surging, and some of the stories,
I mean, Jim Keen and Top Baldez and to an extent,
Mike Sullivan are kind of like the little Dutch Boy.
They're plugging holes in the dike. Here. 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 Department guys who
maybe were stuck downtown. Anybody's got an American passport, and third
(15:05):
party nationals our allies are Koreans. There's a few Brits
left in town. 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 bags
of jewels or Kruegerats. Bobby Fraind'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,
(15:29):
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. Can't take it. 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
(15:49):
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 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
(16:10):
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 am I
to play god like this? Who am I to say yes,
you can come in? And in the meanwhile, all the
Vietnamese that are in there, it's like a thousand Vietnamese
(16:32):
inside the compound already. They're all the fat cats. 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
(16:54):
this decision. These are nineteen twenty year old kids put
in this position who joined the Marines. Dont forget, you're
not drafted by the Marines, who joined the Marines to
fight for their country, to fight in Vietnam for their country.
It went on all night. 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
(17:17):
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. The Sea Stallions
are made 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
(17:38):
are sneaking in the crowd doesn't seem like it's getting
any smaller. This goes on all day, all night. 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.
(17:59):
If the guy couldn't at air, he take five off.
The guy got a little air straight up. One crash,
one crash in boom, Here 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 americanstories 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 continue with our
(19:39):
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've got to get the ambassador out of there. Ambassador,
what the hell's he still doing? Here's supposed to twelve
hours ago. He won't leave, President Ford, what do you
mean you won't leave? 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
(20:14):
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 seventh Fleet comes out and he says, Colonel Berry,
you will take the ambassador out on your next run.
You're a marine colonel. You don't ask a three star why, Yes, sir,
(20:36):
I will, is the answer he gets. And he's flying
in he and his co pilot. It's dark. They're taking
small orange fire. There's a monsoon movie. They can't use
the forty five and fifty five hundred lanes anymore. Now
they're flying ground level because they have to fly unto
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. He scribbled
(20:58):
something on it and he one of the ambassad personal
security unit guards comes up and says, yes, what's this?
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
(21:18):
time to go. So then word comes the MSG's are
still manning the gates. They're still manning the walls. While
at the same flight, the ambassador goes on Jim Keyes
gets a message from the fleet button it up. He
goes downstairs at the top Valdez, 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 four five, six hundred people that have already
(21:40):
gotten illegally. Tom says, doesn't even say anything, just looks
at him, and Keene says, orders button it up. They
shut the door, they disabled the elevators. They run upstairs,
and by this point there's about sixty of them fleet marines.
Few fleet marines are mixed in with the marine security guards.
Still dark out. They get up to the roof, boom,
(22:03):
everything all hell breaks loose downstairs. The people steal the
heartbreaking thing. 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
(22:24):
supposed to get out, are just standing there. And they
called him sticks. 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
(22:48):
marine general in Hawaii, Lou Wilson Medalvana Winter. He put
out an order. He said, anybody that doesn't go and
get my marines, I don't care what service through and
I'm court martialing. So they started flying again. They come in.
Jim Keane does a head count. He realizes even stripped
of their vests, stripped to their helmets, stripped to their weapons.
He said, I'm not going to get all my men in.
(23:10):
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 minutes later, the sun comes up.
The irony is several. It's the most beautiful sunrise that
(23:33):
they It's beautifully clear day, the monsoon clouds have cleared.
It's the most beautiful sunrise that Jim Keane has ever
seen in his life. In Washington, and Ray 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 accords, at the very same podium, he
now announces that all Americans who wanted to get up
(23:55):
South Vietnam are out. When he said wanted to get out.
Some reporters remain behind, and Kissinger seeds at eight talking
to him, says, excuse me, cut shortest press conference, walks off.
The aid whispers and we got eleven marines on accounted for,
eleven marines unaccounted for, you mean unaccounted for. We lose
it in the confusion. What happened was when the ambassador
(24:17):
went out at three forty eight am, Jerry Berry's call
sign the tiger is out. The tiger is 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. Oh, the tiger's out of his cage.
There's nobody left, so that the hell is the eleven
red security guards, Keen Valdez, Mike Sullivan, eight kids, eight
(24:42):
tough kids, eight dedicated kids, but eight kids. They're up
in this roof they barricaded the door. Dawn comes and
the small arms fire just increases. Is it coming from
arvins once again? Is it coming from MVA snipers? Probably
a little of both. Valdez is monkey walking around the perimeter,
kind of counting the weapons. Everybody's got an M sixteen,
everybody's got a side arm. We've got a couple of
(25:03):
shotguns up here. It looks like we got two fifty
cow 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
the tension census. His ten other Marine security guards are wondering,
where's our chopper. He calls a meeting. They all get
(25:23):
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
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
(25:46):
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
after action report, he wasn't sure. So there's just scenes.
As Steve Bauer an MSG from Long Island, he had
smuggled two bottles. He had been carrying them for three
(26:08):
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
Keen are over in the corner. As they're speaking. Keene
looks over and he sees there's something going on in
that circle, the two bottles of whiskey. Top go see
(26:28):
what's going on. Valdez walks over just in time to
hear Bobby Frayan saying, no tiger cages for me, No
Handoi Hilton for me. You know we're gonna take a
vote right now. If those guks are going to take
my dog tags. I want them to have to dig
through a pile of dead gooks before they can get
their hands on them. And somebody else said, let's take
a vote. It's a unanimous vote. They vote to fight,
(26:53):
so they kind of dispersed. The sun is up down,
it's getting hotter. Bobby Frayan gets behind fifty. He's got
a clear field of fire, not on the stairwell, but
the British embassy across the street, where maybe they might
take fire from. Terry Bennington, hard scrabble kid, a hard
scrabble he grew up. He had a Dickens childhood. His
(27:14):
mother committed suicide, trying to kill Terry and his two brothers,
but she failed, but she killed herself. She tried to
blow up the house. 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
(27:36):
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. We are each other. Dave Norman,
a nineteen year old from Ohio. He's up on the helipad.
He's laying. 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,
(28:00):
I don't mind dying with these men. 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,
(28:22):
and he stuck his finger in there, 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
is now up on the roof. 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.
(28:44):
I mean, these men are all alone with their thoughts.
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. Again. Bob co
authored this fantastic read with Tom Craven, both of them
(29:20):
regular contributors here on Our American Stories. By the Way,
eleven frayed nervends. Bob said about these eleven marines, these msgs,
it was more than they knew each other. It was
more than they loved each other. We were each other,
he said about these eleven guys, the story of the
(29:45):
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 deth Vietnam signed to Paris Peace Accords. Now,
according to those accords, everybody hoped and wished, as 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.
(01:08):
The North Vietnamese never had any idea of standing by
these accords. They were constantly probing, probing, probing. They even
were allowed to leave men one hundred and thirty thousand
men construction workers on the soil of the Republic of Vietnam. Finally,
in the fall of nineteen seventy four, led by a
charismatic and strategic and tactical genius and unfortunately named genius,
(01:34):
General Vantian Dung, they decided to invade. They broke the
Paris Peace courts. Now we knew they were doing this.
We had satellites, we had beef fifty two photos, we
had everything. But Congress was just so sick of the
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
(01:55):
advisors in We were in the middle of the recession
here in the United States. 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
didn't believe that. He thought us capitalist running dogs. We
have something up our sleeve. So he probed at first,
sending out scout teams. They met with no resistance. The
(02:18):
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
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
(02:40):
South Vietnam. It never came. So gradually he picked up
speed and the North Vietnamese army one hundred and fifty
thousand met more than one hundred and fifty thousand men
sluiced through South Vietnam provinces. Cities fell, Plaikup, fell, Way
City fell. Dnang, a beautiful little port city of half
a minillion people, became a swollen, seething cauldron of Arvin deserters,
(03:07):
Arvon retreats, civilians on the road. The roads were just
as the Arvians. As the South Vietnamese soldiers retreated into Danang,
they raped and they looted, and Danang just became the
swollen city. And finally we decided we have to have
a plan, we have to get people out of here.
What we tried to do is we tried an evac
both a fixed wing and a helicopter out of Danang
(03:28):
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 liift 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. Women
were tossing their babies into the water. Arvin units were
boarding fishing smacks, throwing the civilians overboard, old men and
(04:09):
old women, just throwing them overboard and commandeering these fishing
smacks to get south. It was ugly. 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,
(04:35):
but most likely in nineteen seventy six, after the rainy season.
Yet here he is. He finds himself. 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
(04:58):
was just what were the Americans going to do? The
Americans in Saigon?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Now?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
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 the South China Sea, they sent in a platoon
of Fleet Marines early reaction commando types. According to the
Paris Peace Accords, we weren't allowed to have more than
(05:25):
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
fall the North Vietnamese. They're never going to know we're here.
And there's all kinds of Americans still in there, not
only civilians, but state departments, Spook, CIA. There is Army advisors,
(05:50):
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, tall, shock of white hair.
I always had a jaunty cigarette dangling from his lips. Unfortunately,
he was a young man. He was only in his
late fifties, but he looked about seventy five. Because he
(06:10):
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 demonia,
he was taking drugs for an old car accident. And
he was deluded. 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
(06:32):
in charge of South Vietnam. He thought he was the
only man who could cut a deal with the North
Vietnamese who were slowly but surely encircling Saga, and he
would not call for any kind of evacuation because he
thought a deal was imminent. His powers of diplomacy were
going to cut a deal with the North Vietnamese. And
(06:52):
it was delusional. So finally, enough is enough for General Dong,
and he thinks he's going to poke a little stick
at the Americans to get it 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.
(07:14):
Then there's troops down in the bread basket, down in
the may Hung Delta. But you know what, I'm just
gonna I'm gonna encircle them and take them the same way.
Let's get these Americans out of here. 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
(07:38):
Martin had ordered Jim Keane to split his MSG detachment.
He said, I need extra people 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 Moreland was stationed there. All
the big generals were stationed there. Now it was still
the same buildings, but it just had advisors. And he said,
(08:00):
I need men out of the Dao because if we're
going to do a helicopter evacuation, it's got to be
from the dao. This Defense Attach's office adjacent to the airport.
So Keyne'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 orders from a civilian.
(08:22):
They're not in the normal chain of command. 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. The ambassador wants them out there.
Send them out there. So Keene went to Top Valdez
and he said, we got to send sixteen guys out there.
If you pick them, Top, don't get any of my
(08:43):
newbies in trouble. Now. 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. They're never going to bomb the airport. I'm
going to send all my inexperienced newbies out there.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And you're listening to a riveting 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 the guard posts. They were obliterated by
a rocket. The airfields are now, you can't land a
fixed wing. They're cratered. And Martin, still in his delusional state.
We could fix this, We could fix this and start
getting to see one thirties in here. He gets back
to the embassy and Major Jim Kean knows this. Two
(11:09):
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 find out these guys are dead,
they're going to pull the plug on me. And Keen is.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
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 vol
deys 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 one percent. They're less
(11:45):
than one percent of the Marine Corps. The commander company
commanders pluck the top guys in their units.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
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.
These are some of the 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,
(12:15):
chaotic mess. They have to keep it together. 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 a helicopter out from there. Well, Keenan Valdez said, Nah,
that's not gonna happen. You know, people are going to
run to the flag. We're not gonna be able to
get through these choked streets. Sigon is now like Danang.
(12:35):
There's two million Arvin whether you want to call them deserters,
whether you want to call them defeated soldiers, but the
fact is they're walking around with guns and they 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 leftover from Nixon legacy, and they kept saying,
(12:56):
if Nixon were still in office, we'd be given General
dun a good dose in vite in B fifty two.
But Nixon had been impeached. Kind gerald Ford wanted to
wash his hands of it, so Kissinger had the most
to lose, so they kept kept stalling. Finally, the Marine
High Command, the Secretary of Defense, and gerald Ford convinced
(13:18):
Ambassador Martin Kissinger it's time to get out. So begins
a day April twenty ninth, nineteen seventy five of just
manic helicopters out in 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. The
(13:40):
MSG's are up on the roof 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 NVA and the few Arvins the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam, who are still fighting,
who are still standing tall and fighting. They're watching these
firefights while the sho They shoveled five million dollars in
(14:02):
cash into these furnaces, American cash. Who knows how many
Vietnamese piastres. All day long this goes on. 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
(14:23):
in the city is this one little outpost, the United
States Emissia three square mile outposts, and the crowds around it,
which had been two thousand, which had 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
(14:44):
is going on, the crowd surging, and some of the stories,
I mean, Jim Keen and Top Baldez and to an extent,
Mike Sullivan are kind of like the little Dutch Boy.
They're plugging holes in the dike. Here. 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 Department guys who
maybe were stuck downtown. Anybody's got an American passport, and third
(15:05):
party nationals our allies are Koreans. There's a few Brits
left in town. 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 bags
of jewels or Kruegerats. Bobby Fraind'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,
(15:29):
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. Can't take it. 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
(15:49):
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 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
(16:10):
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 am I
to play god like this? Who am I to say yes,
you can come in? And in the meanwhile, all the
Vietnamese that are in there, it's like a thousand Vietnamese
(16:32):
inside the compound already. They're all the fat cats. 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
(16:54):
this decision. These are nineteen twenty year old kids put
in this position who joined the Marines. Dont forget, you're
not drafted by the Marines, who joined the Marines to
fight for their country, to fight in Vietnam for their country.
It went on all night. 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
(17:17):
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. The Sea Stallions
are made 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
(17:38):
are sneaking in the crowd doesn't seem like it's getting
any smaller. This goes on all day, all night. 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.
(17:59):
If the guy couldn't at air, he take five off.
The guy got a little air straight up. One crash,
one crash in boom, Here 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 americanstories 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 continue with our
(19:39):
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've got to get the ambassador out of there. Ambassador,
what the hell's he still doing? Here's supposed to twelve
hours ago. He won't leave, President Ford, what do you
mean you won't leave? 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
(20:14):
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 seventh Fleet comes out and he says, Colonel Berry,
you will take the ambassador out on your next run.
You're a marine colonel. You don't ask a three star why, Yes, sir,
(20:36):
I will, is the answer he gets. And he's flying
in he and his co pilot. It's dark. They're taking
small orange fire. There's a monsoon movie. They can't use
the forty five and fifty five hundred lanes anymore. Now
they're flying ground level because they have to fly unto
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. He scribbled
(20:58):
something on it and he one of the ambassad personal
security unit guards comes up and says, yes, what's this?
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
(21:18):
time to go. So then word comes the MSG's are
still manning the gates. They're still manning the walls. While
at the same flight, the ambassador goes on Jim Keyes
gets a message from the fleet button it up. He
goes downstairs at the top Valdez, 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 four five, six hundred people that have already
(21:40):
gotten illegally. Tom says, doesn't even say anything, just looks
at him, and Keene says, orders button it up. They
shut the door, they disabled the elevators. They run upstairs,
and by this point there's about sixty of them fleet marines.
Few fleet marines are mixed in with the marine security guards.
Still dark out. They get up to the roof, boom,
(22:03):
everything all hell breaks loose downstairs. The people steal the
heartbreaking thing. 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
(22:24):
supposed to get out, are just standing there. And they
called him sticks. 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
(22:48):
marine general in Hawaii, Lou Wilson Medalvana Winter. He put
out an order. He said, anybody that doesn't go and
get my marines, I don't care what service through and
I'm court martialing. So they started flying again. They come in.
Jim Keane does a head count. He realizes even stripped
of their vests, stripped to their helmets, stripped to their weapons.
He said, I'm not going to get all my men in.
(23:10):
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 minutes later, the sun comes up.
The irony is several. It's the most beautiful sunrise that
(23:33):
they It's beautifully clear day, the monsoon clouds have cleared.
It's the most beautiful sunrise that Jim Keane has ever
seen in his life. In Washington, and Ray 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 accords, at the very same podium, he
now announces that all Americans who wanted to get up
(23:55):
South Vietnam are out. When he said wanted to get out.
Some reporters remain behind, and Kissinger seeds at eight talking
to him, says, excuse me, cut shortest press conference, walks off.
The aid whispers and we got eleven marines on accounted for,
eleven marines unaccounted for, you mean unaccounted for. We lose
it in the confusion. What happened was when the ambassador
(24:17):
went out at three forty eight am, Jerry Berry's call
sign the tiger is out. The tiger is 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. Oh, the tiger's out of his cage.
There's nobody left, so that the hell is the eleven
red security guards, Keen Valdez, Mike Sullivan, eight kids, eight
(24:42):
tough kids, eight dedicated kids, but eight kids. They're up
in this roof they barricaded the door. Dawn comes and
the small arms fire just increases. Is it coming from
arvins once again? Is it coming from MVA snipers? Probably
a little of both. Valdez is monkey walking around the perimeter,
kind of counting the weapons. Everybody's got an M sixteen,
everybody's got a side arm. We've got a couple of
(25:03):
shotguns up here. It looks like we got two fifty
cow 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
the tension census. His ten other Marine security guards are wondering,
where's our chopper. He calls a meeting. They all get
(25:23):
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
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
(25:46):
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
after action report, he wasn't sure. So there's just scenes.
As Steve Bauer an MSG from Long Island, he had
smuggled two bottles. He had been carrying them for three
(26:08):
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
Keen are over in the corner. As they're speaking. Keene
looks over and he sees there's something going on in
that circle, the two bottles of whiskey. Top go see
(26:28):
what's going on. Valdez walks over just in time to
hear Bobby Frayan saying, no tiger cages for me, No
Handoi Hilton for me. You know we're gonna take a
vote right now. If those guks are going to take
my dog tags. I want them to have to dig
through a pile of dead gooks before they can get
their hands on them. And somebody else said, let's take
a vote. It's a unanimous vote. They vote to fight,
(26:53):
so they kind of dispersed. The sun is up down,
it's getting hotter. Bobby Frayan gets behind fifty. He's got
a clear field of fire, not on the stairwell, but
the British embassy across the street, where maybe they might
take fire from. Terry Bennington, hard scrabble kid, a hard
scrabble he grew up. He had a Dickens childhood. His
(27:14):
mother committed suicide, trying to kill Terry and his two brothers,
but she failed, but she killed herself. She tried to
blow up the house. 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
(27:36):
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. We are each other. Dave Norman,
a nineteen year old from Ohio. He's up on the helipad.
He's laying. 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,
(28:00):
I don't mind dying with these men. 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,
(28:22):
and he stuck his finger in there, 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
is now up on the roof. 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.
(28:44):
I mean, these men are all alone with their thoughts.
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. Again. Bob co
authored this fantastic read with Tom Craven, both of them
(29:20):
regular contributors here on Our American Stories. By the Way,
eleven frayed nervends. Bob said about these eleven marines, these msgs,
it was more than they knew each other. It was
more than they loved each other. We were each other,
he said about these eleven guys, the story of the
(29:45):
Last Men Out of Vietnam. Here on Our American Stories,
Host
Lee Habeeb
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