dedicated to the memory of Corporal Charles McMahon
and Corporal Darwin Judge and all the past and
present members of the Marine Security Guards.
The number one veterans radio program, Veterans
Radio. And now, here's your host for today, Dale
Throneberry. Good morning America and welcome
to Veterans Radio on a beautiful day here in
Michigan and all across the country. We've got
a great program for you. We're going to be talking
about the fall of Saigon and the last men out.
It's a new book coming out I believe probably
today authored by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin and
we're going to be having them on after our first
break and we got pictures on the webcast if you're
interested in looking at that just go to Veterans
Radio and click on watch us live. It's going
to be, I found it a rather fascinating book.
I was talking to a friend this morning, actually
I was talking to Gary this morning and I was
saying after I read it that that was a part of
my life that I had blocked out because April
30th, 1975 is when the last helicopter flew off
the top of the United States Embassy and ended
our involvement in Vietnam. It's a really strong
story. Running our board this morning is our
air boss, Bob Gould. Good morning, Bob. Airborne!
Airborne all the way. And we've got a number
of other people hiding out back there. Gary Lilly
is going to be running the photos through the
webcast. CVs can do. And Kai is back there running
all of our music and everything else. Yeah, he's
doing his morning over there. We're doing just
fine. Radio is great. Live radio is amazing.
We come right up to the last second. Oh, this
isn't working. Oh, there it goes. OK, it's working
now. So we're going to be doing that. I'm going
to go right into our first break here in just
a moment, get Bob getting ready for it. And we're
going to be coming back. We're going to be talking
with Bob Jury and Tom Clavin and Steve Shuler
about the last men out, the last helicopter off
the roof of the embassy in Saigon on 30th of
April 1975. We'll be right back. Vietnam is the
topic today and we're going to be talking about
the last aircraft out of Vietnam and the last
Marines off the roof of the embassy and we're
going to be talking with the authors of the book,
The Last Men Out. I'm going to show you on the
webcast here. And first, joining me on the line
are the authors. And first of all, we're going
to have Bob Drury and Tom Glavin. And Bob and
Tom, welcome to Veterans Radio. Good morning,
Mr. Strombury. I believe you're talking to people.
We have a really bad connection. I'm sorry. I
just seem to have lost you. OK. Well, we'll give
you a call back. Why don't you hang up and we'll
give you a call right back. Right? So who's left
on the line? Tom, you're still there? Yes, I'm
here. Okay, Tom. We're going to be calling Bob
back to get him on line, but I wanted to welcome
you to Veterans Radio. Thank you for having us
on. It should be. I'm hoping it's... You've written
a number of other books, and you currently write...
Are you still contributing to the New York Times?
No, I haven't for a few years, mostly because
I'm focusing on book work. Okay. I'm sorry I
wasn't able to do my homework this morning. We
had a couple of technical glitches here. Tell
me some of the other books that you've been involved
with. Well, there's a book that I did last year
that was a biography of the baseball player Roger
Maris. Some people remember him, not only with
the New York Yankees, but he had a few successful
years with the St. Louis Cardinals also. That
one is actually the paperback version of that,
just from coming out. Bob and I have collaborated
on two previous books. One was called Halsey's
Typhoon, which is a World War II story. Then
we followed that with a book called Last Stand
of Fox Company, which is about a company of Marines
in the Korean War. Okay. We're going to have
to talk about that because I remember reading
Halsey's Typhoon. I said, this is something we
need to talk about on the air. We need to get
a hold of you. Yeah. Actually, there's a connection
when we get Bob back on the line. There's a connection
between Halsey's Typhoon and how the Last Man
Out book actually with the original concept for
it came about. Okay, we've got Bob back on the
line. Bob, welcome back to Veterans Radio. I'm
sorry about that. I am back on the line, yes.
Are you in New Jersey? Yes, I am. In Manisquan?
I am. Do you know it? I was born in Spring Lake.
Oh, the Irish Riviera, eh? Yeah, well, Spring
Lake Heights, you know. Close enough. It is very
close. Thank you very much. No, my aunt lived
on Church Street in Manisquan. Sorry everybody,
you know, got to do a little reminiscing back
here. We're right up the street from Church Street.
OK. It's a great place to be from. I'll see you
tomorrow, sir. I was just talking with Tom about
the other books that you've collaborated on.
And I wanted to start off with you, Bob, about
what made you decide to write this story? Well,
in my day job, so to speak, I work for Men's
Health magazine. And I'm downrange a lot. I've
been in Iraq. a dozen times. I got to tell you,
Dale, I'm a pretty good researcher. But if you
threw me in the Library of Congress or the National
Archives or the Jerry Ford Museum, you'd have
to come and get me in about six months with a
miner's light on your hat. Whereas Tom goes into
these places and he just finds the nub of the
story. And he did some research and he said,
did you know, now I don't want to give away the
ending of the book, but he said, did you know
this happened? I said, no, I had no idea. Whether
it was Halsey's typhoon, whether it was the last
stand of Fox company, or now with last men out,
Tom and I, I guess you would say our MOS, is
we like to take stories that have ordinary men
in extraordinary circumstances. And these were
certainly extraordinary circumstances for these
Marine security guards that were trapped in Saigon
in 1975. Absolutely, and that's a line that we
use all the time as we tell stories about ordinary
people who have done extraordinary things. And
Tom, tell me a little bit about the Marine Security
Guard. I wasn't that familiar with them. Well,
yeah, I just want to interject something, just
to add to something that Bob said is, you know,
your show is, everybody across the country can
hear it, but you're in Michigan, and there's
a connection there to Last Man Out because when
our first book came out, Halsey's Typhoon, we
were both on book tours, but we went separately
to different parts of the country. One of my
stops was at the Gerald Ford Museum in Grand
Rapids and where they have the stairway from
the last day of Saigon, the stairway that was
used to climb up onto the roof and get those
people onto the helicopter from the iconic photograph.
And I remember being taken on a tour there and
those people are not familiar with the Gerald
Ford Library in Ann Arbor and the museum in Grand
Rapids there. They're really wonderful places
and a great staff out there. I remember being
taken around a little bit and somebody saying,
you know, there's a really good story involved
in the fall of Saigon. And I immediately said,
oh yeah, I know it, just like we all sort of
know the story. And actually it turned out that
we didn't. Bob and I went on this voyage of discovery
to find out that there's a lot we certainly did
not know about the last day in Saigon. And so,
you know, by doing some research and talking
to the people involved and, you know, as Bob
will point out, too, the gentlemen we got to
meet and talk to who were actually involved in
the last days, the Marine Security Guards, were
really generous with their time and with their
recollections. And obviously, you know, this
book wouldn't exist if they were not so generous
with their recollections. Well, I was talking
with your publicist yesterday. And after I had
read the book, I said it was a time period. I
had blocked that whole time out intentionally
or unintentionally. I didn't even think about
it. But as I read the book and read about all
of the screw -ups that were going on and the
miscommunications, it just got me more and more
upset about our exit from Vietnam. Because the
real story in here, of course, is the Marine
detachment there, the last 11 guys to get off
the roof. But the side stories are all of the
interagency conflicts and bullying and not talking
to anybody and trying to save face and so on
and so forth that are really... Deception. Deception.
I mean, the CIA was deceiving, yeah. And I've
got Steve Shuler on the line. I just want to
bring him on for just a second. Steve, welcome
to Veterans Radio. Hey, glad to be here. I'm
sure you're glad to be anywhere, right? Really,
especially today. When we go back and we look
at the picture and when you first read the book,
Steve, when I talked to you, Steve was on the
roof that last day. You were a Marine on the
roof on April 30th of 1975. What was going through
your mind at that time? Peace. The only thing
you could remember was how peaceful and quiet
looking over the whole city was. There was no
one moving, nothing going on. It was an eerie
feeling because you didn't know what the heck
was going on, but you knew something was going
on. And it was just a quiet little moment that
you didn't know what was going to happen and
when. Well, that's for sure. And you guys were
very brave. I'm going to ask you to hold on the
line, Steve. We're going to get back to you and
talk more about what was actually happening to
you at the time. But I want to come back. We're
talking with the authors of Last Men Out, Bob
Drury and Tom Glavin. kind of give you a historical
perspective of what was happening in Saigon at
the time. The United States Marines or the official
government deployment, I guess, of where people
were is that they were evacuating people, weren't
they? Yes, they were. There was the Operation
Frequent Wind. What's that? No, go ahead. You
take it. Yeah, Operation Frequent Wind was the
name of the of the operation that was that there's
actually people and the the epicenter of the
that was the u .s. embassy in saigon and What
they set up was that there's actually two places
There's a DAO compound by the airport or in the
airport and then there was a landing spot set
up a couple landing spots in the embassy compound
and so the the American personnel were being
evacuated. There were a lot of Vietnamese civilians
who are being evacuated And it was the job of
the Marine security guards to sort of basically
provide that security, and especially if possible,
get people, get the helicopters down, landed,
get people on the helicopters, get them to take
off, okay, next helicopter in. It was hour after
hour of exhausting work to try and get as many
people as possible out of there because they
didn't know at any moment that the North Vietnamese
troops were going to enter the city and shut
everything down. Mr. Thurmbury, Drury here. I'm
sure the humble Steve Schuler will disagree.
But I have to add that in the total confusion,
in the total, the breakdown of communications,
the deception that you mentioned earlier, it
was the MSGs, the Marine Security Guards, who
more or less acted as the rock. They more or
less took control and said, even though there
were people higher on the food chain, so to speak,
the ambassador, the ambassador's staff, it was
the MSG contingent that just said, this is what
we're going to do, this is how we're going to
get as many people out as we can, and this is
how we're going to take control. of the situation.
I'm sure Sergeant Shuler is blushing as he listens
to me say this, but he failed to mention to you
that when he was on that roof, he had a bayonet
wound in his side. That's right. He's too humble
to mention that, but I thought I would bring
that up. I was going to get to that, but I think
it's so important. We've got to remember that
we had promised the Vietnamese that if the North
invaded that we were going to go to their rescue
or we were going to go help them. And we didn't,
unfortunately. And the NVA that was coming down
all the way from I Corps, all the way through,
and there had already been one evacuation out
of Da Nang that had gone kaflui, it sounded like.
And this general, the NVA general, what's his
name? General Dung. Yeah, General Dung. Unfortunately
named General Dung. Right, yes. But he had Saigon
surrounded, didn't he? He had 150 ,000 troops.
They had washed through the Republic of Vietnam
as if they opened the sluices to a dam. And I
tell you what, there's another book to be written.
Tom and I, in our setup, alluded to this, actually
mentioned it, but why the Paris Peace Accords
allowed North Vietnam to keep 130 ,000 troops.
across the DMZ in the Republic of Vietnam after
those papers were signed, I'll never know. And
when they decided to break the Paris Peace Accords
and they swept down, General Dung, who was a
master strategist and a master tactician, he
expected more of a fight. He had told his superiors
at the Hanoi Politburo that they would probably
take Saigon in 1976. They didn't expect to just
run through South Vietnam and encircle Saigon
the way he did. And I think it was a shock to
everybody. It was certainly a shock to President
Ford and to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
and to Ambassador Graham Martin. And as I said,
I keep coming back to this, but the more that
we speak about this, the more you just remind
me that it was the MSGs, the Marine Security
Guards. They were pretty much the only people
that kept their heads. Well, and that was Major
Keene, correct? That was Major Keene, correct.
I'm sure Steve Shuler could speak to Major Keene
much better than Tom Orion. We're going to get
to him, too. I'm trying to set this picture because
there were a number of different stories going
on at the same time. You had the airport up at
Benoit -Tonsonut that was rocketed, so therefore
it was useless, and Operation Frequent Wind ended
up with the helicopters, which was something
like Plan E. Yeah, Option 4. And they decided
that they were going to take these people out
by helicopter, and there just weren't enough
of them, and there wasn't enough time. You're
exactly right. You're exactly right. It was just
mass confusion. And when the Marines came in,
a contingent, a company of Marines came in from
the 7th Fleet and landed at, we should mention
that the DAO stands for Defense Attaché's Office,
and that was kind of a U .S. It was an extension.
It was about six miles away from the embassy,
but it was almost an extension of the embassy.
And that's where the Marines from the fleet flew
into. And there were simultaneous evacuations
going on, both from the airport. The DAO was
attached to the airport and the embassy. And
finally, by about four o 'clock in the afternoon,
they cleared out everyone from the DAO and that
left the embassy as kind of the Alamo of Saigon.
Well, we're going to get to that in just a minute.
We're talking with the authors of Last Man Out,
Bob Drury, Tom Clavin, and Steve Shuler, who
was there. And this is a book that, for Vietnam
veterans especially and for history buffs, this
is something you need to read because it's going
to open up, it's going to come up with more questions.
that you just never knew about. If you want to
get in on this conversation on Veterans Radio,
give us a call here at 877 -573 -7825. That's
877 -573 -7825. I wanted to talk just briefly
about what was going on south of Saigon at the
same time, because I thought this was a really
interesting story down in Canto, which was in
IV Corps for civilians and for people that were
in there, with the aptly named McNamara. Tom,
tell me about McNamara and Hasty too. Well, McNamara
is kind of a little bit of a, maybe you could
say a larger than life character. He was, I believe
at the time he was in his late 40s. He was a
veteran diplomat. He had had postings at places
all around the world. He knew his business, but
he was also kind of a ball vivant. He, I think
when Sergeant Hastie first encountered him, he
had a drink in one hand and a lady friend in
the other. He was somebody who enjoyed things,
but he also was a very serious, very smart guy.
He knew that he couldn't depend on the plans
that were already in place in case the North
Vietnamese suddenly rushed towards Canto and
Saigon. So he sort of had this ad hoc little
flotilla at the ready. Sergeant Hastie was his.
They called him sort of like a John Wayne. He
was only 24 years old at the time, but somewhat
inexperienced Marine. He later on in his career
got a lot of experience all around the world.
But they together put this little flotilla together
and put the several hundred Vietnamese civilians
on there, and they started down the river. And
because they were supposed to have helicopters
that were going to take them out of there, but
when they found out that the CIA took them, they
were left kind of stranded. And they started
down the river and had quite the adventure to
reach the open sea, which included being stopped
by Vietnamese, being fired upon, going through
a gauntlet of fire. And that's, again, a story
that a lot of people wouldn't know about the
last couple of days in Saigon, that this little
impromptu fleet saved several hundred Vietnamese
lives, including to a contingent of Marines and
the Council there, McNamara. And I'm very happy
to say that Council McNamara is alive and well,
lives in the Washington D .C. area. Well, it's
a fascinating story. And again, I encourage our
listeners to go out and get this book. It's called
Last Man Out. There are so many different subplots
going on inside of it. I think you'll find it
just absolutely riveting. to me about McNamara
and Hasty going down the river being shot at
by the friendlies and the bad guys. I mean, you
could certainly understand the Vietnamese being
a little upset. Hey, you guys said you were going
to take us out and now you're not. And pirates
and they encountered pirates also. I remember
when I first interviewed, uh, uh, it was a Colonel
Hasty by then he was just back from Afghanistan
and he said, well, let me see my list of things
to worry about as we were floating down. It was
about a 70 mile run, a four hour run. It turned
out to last much longer, as you've read the book,
you know this. And he said, I was worried about,
I guess, the North Vietnamese, the Viet Cong,
the South Vietnamese turning on us, currents,
pirates, weather, and shoals, in that order,
and we hit every one of them. And then they popped
out into the South China Sea with the promise
that a ship would be there to pick them up, and
it wasn't there. It wasn't there, yeah. What
an adventure. Terry McNamara's pirate fleet.
Terry and the Pirates. That's what we called
it. Absolutely. I just wanted to mention that
story to him. And as you mentioned, I believe
it was Sergeant Hastey at the time. And we have
a picture up on the webcast of him shooting at
somebody with an M60 machine gun. Well, they
had just been stopped by the South Vietnamese
who boarded. They didn't know what was going
on. And the South Vietnamese... allegedly were
looking for draft -age Vietnamese that they weren't
going to let escape. But in truth, they were
very, very angry at any American who was leaving
the country after the promises we had made. And
what happened was Terry McNamara, the consul
at Canto, had the foresight. He demanded that
the patrol boat captain, he demanded that he
speak to his superior. So they were hauled up
for like two hours in the middle of the river.
Finally, the superior, the Commodore, got there.
And Terry McNamara threw his arm around him and
said, ah, remember three weeks ago when I got
your wife and your children and your entire family
out of South Vietnam and over to Guam. And the
Commodore, the South Vietnamese Commodore just
kind of sheepishly smiled and said, yes, sir,
I remember that very well. You're free to go
on your way. It's not, you know, right. That's
always who you know. Exactly. Exactly. We expected,
you know, as Hastie said. The way that Hasey
had his hand, he had his safety off, he had his
M -16 in a burlap bag, and he was ready to start.
There were six other Marines, six other Marine
security guards from Canto on this little flotilla,
this little pirate fleet. And he had his M -16
in a burlap bag, and he was, you know, are we
going to shoot it out here with our ostensible
allies, our former allies? And the next thing
you know, he sees Terry McNamara with his arm
around the Commodore shoulder chatting, and he
said, I was waiting for somebody to break out
champagne flutes. Well, we always look at the
humor in these events, especially when we survive
them. It's much better that way. Let's go back
into Saigon. Tom, I'm going to bring you on and
talk about the idea of what was going on around
the embassy at the time. At the end of April,
there are no airline flights going out any longer.
It's all done by helicopter. What is the embassy
like? Well, what the big challenge the Marines
and Jury Guards faced was to try and maintain
order in the midst of surrounding chaos. The
embassy had sent out, there were Marines and
other personnel manning these buses going out
into the city to try and pick up American personnel
and press reporters. The Vietnamese who were
told they were going to be able to be transported
out of the city, out of the American Embassy
compound. And so there were these buses trying
to get through these streets that would choke
with people. You had Vietnamese soldiers who
were very scared because they knew that everything
was over and they were just firing randomly into
the air. They were stealing clothing and taking
off their uniforms off and putting on civilian
clothes, hoping that They would go undetected
when the North Vietnamese came in. There were
just traffic jams. There were a lot of people
just wandering around, not knowing what was going
to happen. As it turned out, when the North Vietnamese
troops entered the city, there were not these
mass slaughters, but people feared that that's
what was going to happen, that literally thousands
of civilians were just going to be put up against
walls and shot. And so the American embassy was...
It's supposed to be kind of like the eye of the
hurricane. As time went on, there were thousands
of people who gathered around the embassy, pressing
against the gates. They could see the helicopters
coming in and landing, picking people up and
taking them off. And there was all these hopes
that they would be part of that evacuation. And
as time went on, they realized their hopes started
to diminish. They were replaced by anger. The
marine security guards had to be worried about
at what point might there be some kind of coordinated
effort to just break through into the compound
and once that was done, the evacuation would
come to a close. So every minute was tense because
you really didn't know what might happen the
very next minute. And at one point there was,
you know, Bob mentioned before about Sergeant
Shuler having a bayonet wound and he could, you
know, I'm sure remember that very clearly what
happened. They were trying to get somebody into
the compound and the gates opened a little bit
and some people poured through. That was a real
shaky moment because they were able to get the
gates closed again, if not, and the Sea of Humanity
could have poured into the embassy and that would
have put everything to a stop. There were also
heartbreaking moments, Mr. Thromer. I just thought
I'd throw that in. I remember the MSG's telling
us about elderly soldiers coming up. showing
old yellowed letters saying, Mr. Na served the
Republic of Vietnam and the United States of
America very well, but he didn't have the right
papers to give to the embassy. John Gillane told
us about, he was lifting people over the gate
and men were coming up to him and showing him
bags full of jewels and bags full of gold Krugerons,
get me in, please get me in. And all the MSGs
that we spoke to just felt so horrible. about
playing God, that they felt they were playing
God. You can come, you can't. You can come, you
can't. You have the right papers, you don't.
And it was just a horrible, horrible decision
that they had to make. There were so many decisions
in reading in the book, and we're talking with
the authors of Last Man Out and Sergeant Steve
Shuler, who was there. We're going to talk with
Steve after we take our next break. I want to
talk about some of the incidents, including your
meeting with that bayonet through the fence.
If you want to get in on the conversation, give
us a call here at 877 -573 -7825. We're talking
about the last days in Saigon, the last helicopters
off the top of the embassy, and I can say that
I landed on that embassy myself when I was there,
and it's not a very big landing pad. Where did
you fly, Dale? What kind of bird did you fly?
And we'll be right back after this message you're
listening to Veterans Radio. I love listening
to that old music. We're talking with the authors
of Last Men Out, the true story of America's
heroic final hours in Vietnam. We're talking
with Bob Drury and Tom Clavin and also Sergeant
Steve Shuler. And I want to bring Steve onto
the program. Steve, they alluded to what happened
to you when you let somebody in. Can you tell
me what your memory of that is? Yeah, about 20
minutes before that. about this came up to me.
I was up on a roof burning and you were burning
documents. They were trying to burn every document
that they could find at that point, correct?
Correct. That had been a two -week project. We
had started two or three weeks before all of
this. There was just tons of classified information
that had to be shredded and burned. Including
money? Including at one point, yeah, including
a few million dollars that came up with They
had it destroyed. They couldn't get out. So,
all right. So, you've been doing that for two
weeks. Now you're coming off the roof and you're
down by the fence. What happened? Everybody got
rotated up and did a tour up on a burn detail.
So, Todd Valdez came by and tapped a few guys
on the shoulders and told us to go down by the
CRA gate, which where at the time the crowd was
building and building and there were a lot of
Americans, mostly secretaries or employees of
the different government agencies that were trying
to get through the crowd and you could see that
you passed an American passport so they were
trying to pluck them out of the crowd to get
into the compound and at one point they had to
open the gate there were several of them and
the Marines just came out and pushed out and
made like a V formation like in another typical
riot formation and they got the people in and
as they were closing it up coming back in Out
of the corner of my eye I saw this motion and
to the right of me was Sergeant Bennington. Apparently
there was some Arvin that was just grunted and
discharged through the crowd with a bayonet on
his rifle and at the very last second I saw him
out of the corner of my eye but Sergeant Bennington
saw him before I did and hit him with his rifle
and he got me about, you know, he just... The
tip of his bayonet just barely penetrated me,
but he got me and the guy went flying back and
they just pulled the formation back in and closed
the gate back up. And I think that was the last
time that we were authorized to actually open
the gate. And then the Marines started standing
on the Marine's shoulders trying to lean over
the top of the gate to pull people up through
it. There were a lot of examples in the book.
You guys do a great job of... telling us what
was happening at the time, but they were passing
people over, they were throwing kids over. They
were throwing babies over. It was desperation
on everyone's behalf. There was just total chaos.
I can't even imagine how chaotic that must have
been. I'm sure that's something that you live
with every single day, I would think. Can any
of you jump in here? I just want to talk briefly
and make sure that we talk about Corporal Charles
McMahon and Corporal Judge that were up at the
DAL, we'd like to talk about them for a second.
Well, they were two very young men who were somewhat
inexperienced. When they got to the Saigon, Sergeant
Juan Valdez, who's a major character in the book,
He sent them out to the airport thinking that,
well, you know, maybe that's a safer place for
them. He said, I didn't want to take a chance
of putting them in a harm's way. And they, but
unfortunately what happened is on the morning
of April 29th, the North Vietnamese began to
do some shelling of the airport. Excuse me, what
happened was that one of their shells Hit the
the guardhouse over the where they were stationed
and they were both They were both killed instantly.
So and as it turned out They were the last two
American troops killed in Vietnam There was actually
a couple of subsequent deaths later later that
that night because there was a helicopter that
went down that was part of the evacuation operation
that killed a couple of guys, but but That was,
to this day, and Sergeant Schuler could certainly
speak to this, but I went to a year ago, there
was a 35th anniversary reunion of the MSGs at
Quantico, and what the number of them were talking
about is the remorse they still feel to this
day about the deaths of those two young men.
especially since they were sort of newbies. It
wasn't like they were griddle veterans and the
effort was made to try and protect them a bit
and not put them in harm's way. Just a great
misfortune that that particular North Vietnamese
shell at that particular spot at that particular
time. That was the irony of irony. At one point
the ambassador, Ambassador Martin, ordered Top
Valdez and Major Keen to split their MSG deployment.
a couple dozen 16, 18 MSGs out at the DAO to
stand security. And neither Keene nor Valdez
thought that this was a good idea. They both
knew what was coming down the road. And they
said, as soon as we split our, as soon as we
split this unit up, we're never gonna see those
guys again, meaning that they would have to get
out on their own. But since it was an order from
the State Department and the MSGs took their
orders from the State Department, unlike any
other unit in the Marine Corps, they were under
the aegis of the civilians. He said, okay, well
listen, I'm going to send my most inexperienced
hands down to the airport. Because if the North
Vietnamese really want us out of this country,
there's no way they're going to shell the airport.
And Charles McMahon, in particular, had only
been in country for one week. And Darwin Judge
had been in country for several weeks. And they
said, well, get rid of these guys. Send them
down the airport. They'll be safer down the airport.
And the next thing you know, a rocket killed
them both. Well, I know that there's an association
for the last survivors of Saigon. One of you
want to tell our audience what that website might
be? I found a lot of information on there myself.
Yeah, I would recommend, this is Tom speaking,
I would recommend that people go to the fallofsaigon
.org and spell it just as it sounds, fallofsaigon
.org and it's a... uh... there's a false i got
association that that uh... that runs it and
it's got a lot of information on the aircraft
photograph it's got uh... it's got actual letters
that were sent by president ford and and and
secretary of state kissinger and others uh...
you could you could be a photograph of major
key and james keen and uh... and many of the
many of the other msg's uh... who was who were
there in saigon uh... that and will put in the
last helicopters to leave it at that And it also
has a scholarship fund for both the McMahon and
Judge that the Fall of Saigon Association runs.
And so I think that'd be good if people found
out more about that. Well, they can do that.
Go to thefallofsaigon .org and we'll try to get
that up on our website. I want to go back to
Steve right now. Steve, tell me about Major Keen.
Tell me about him. He seems like a fascinating
man. He was. He was... I definitely would not
have been in his shoes, but he was... Probably
one of the best commanding officers you could
ask for. And he was hard, but he demanded a lot.
But there was a lot on his shoulders. And he
told you to do something. You went over and you
did it. And you kept doing it until he came back
and told you not to. He was running around the
whole time in a golf shirt, wasn't he? He was
actually stationed in Hong Kong. On the Marine
Security Program, you only see an officer twice
a year. Oh, all right. They come up for semi
-annual inspections. You know, they do the PFT,
all your Marine Corps testing, written tests
you have to take, the refreshers, and then they
run you through the evacuation plans at the MSC.
It's a three -day inspection, and they do it
twice a year. So when he received his phone call,
he happened to be in Hong Kong at the time, and
all he did was just grab a couple items, got
on a plane, and flew in the Saigon. He was there
for a while. He had on his back what he wore
for several weeks. I know that things get rather
testy and odorific, I guess, could be the term
that you might want to use with that. You had
all of these people crammed into the embassy.
Bob, I'm going to go back to you. The ambassador
really kind of kept procrastinating. What did
he hope for? Why did he not get people out sooner?
He was almost like a Lear character, a King Canute
raging against the tides. He thought that he
was the only man that could get the North Vietnamese
to sit down at the negotiating table and so an
orderly transition could be made. And he was
a sick man. He was physically sick. He was walking
around. I have walking pneumonia. He had injuries
from an old car, a car collision. He was on medications.
He just did not look good, and the officers around,
the military people around him, both in Saigon
and on the 7th Fleet, eventually started to wonder,
what is with Ambassador Martin? What's going
on? What does he think he can accomplish by procrastinating,
by not calling for this evacuation sooner? I
mean, the North Vietnamese, they're giving us
a calling card. They're shelling the airport.
They're going to start shelling the city any
moment. What does Martin think he's doing? And
I would say that he did have good intentions.
but they were just misplaced. And he was, towards
the end, I think, a lack of sleep, the medications
he was on, his injuries, his walking pneumonia.
It turned him a bit delusional, where he thought
that if he could just get the right man on the
phone, or if Kissinger could just buy him some
more time, or if the new president of South Vietnam,
Big Min, could be in contact with the Politburo
in Hanoi, Martin could step in and kind of save
the day for the South Vietnamese. Now, I want
to say underlying this delusion that I'm calling
it was a sense of honor, was a sense that we
have promised these people that we are their
allies, that if the North invades, we will back
them up. And he had that in the back of his mind
the entire time. So it wasn't quite that he was
just stark raving mad. It was he was trying to
act on this honor, but everyone around him knew
it was just too late to act on that. And we've
got to get out of here. Well, he was talking
to Washington. Washington was talking to Thon.
Kissinger's talking to Ford. President Ford,
I guess, had made the executive decision that
we just need to get out of here. Correct. Correct.
And in fact, it was kind of a ruse. Jerry Berry,
the 46th pilot, the C -9 that landed on the roof,
he pretended that he had written orders from
the President Ford that Ambassador Martin must
depart. And he wouldn't leave the roof. He wouldn't
fly off the roof of his helicopter until he had
Martin aboard. And of course, he did not have
written orders. He just kind of had jotted something
down on a piece of paper. But at that point,
it was just so, as Steve says, it was just so
chaotic that anything went and Jerry Berry was
ordered to get the ambassador out of there and
by hook or by crook. And he got him out by hook.
That's true. We're coming up on another break
and we'll be right back. We're going to finish
this up. We're talking with the authors of Last
Men Out. the story of the last day in Saigon.
You're listening to Veterans Radio. We'll be
right back. I don't know what you want to call
it. Anthem, I guess you could say of the Vietnam
War. We're talking with the authors of Last Man
Out, Bob Drury, Tom Glavin, Sergeant Steve Shuler,
who was there at the time. And we're going to
kind of finish it up here because this program
seems to run out of time so quickly. Bob, I'm
going to go back to you for just a second. So
let's repaint this picture a little bit about
the embassy is The last flights are out. The
ambassador is finally gone. What's next? Well,
there's a contingent of marine security guards
and a platoon of marines has landed at the embassy
once the DAO has been evacuated over by the airport.
So now you just have the embassy. It's the last
bastion, a little island of, well, I can't even
say it was an island of sanity, an island of
safety in a chaotic city. The city is... There's
plumes of smoke all over the city. There's looters.
There's firefights. There's a few Arvin troops,
South Vietnamese troops still holding out. And
here we are in this, it was not calm, but it
was probably the calmest place in Saigon. So
at one point Major Keane says, all right, there's
still, there's still evacuees. That was the hardest
thing for these MSGs. There was still several
hundred, four or 500 evacuees inside the embassy
compound, but they have orders from the seventh
fleet. We're only sending in 16 more helicopters.
Keane does a quick head count. He realizes that's
going to take the entire American contingent
out. So he orders Top Valdez, shut her down.
So all the Marines, they kind of form a semi
-circle and they start backing into the Chancery,
the main building of the embassy. When they get
there, suddenly a lull comes over the crowd.
The crowd has just been yelling in chaos and
suddenly it's silent. And it takes the crowd
about 10 seconds to realize they're leaving without
us. This is it. And the Marines... get into the
embassy. They start running up the stairs. They
disable the elevators. They run up the stairs.
They're locking the gates at each stairwell behind
them. Now they're on the roof. It didn't take
more than a minute before the gates to the embassy
compound to come down. The crowd drove a fire
truck through the front door. Now there's Marines
on the roof. I'd say there's about 50. One helicopter
comes in. Actually, there's more than 50. One
helicopter comes in, takes a contingent. Another
helicopter comes in. They're shedding their flak
jackets. They're shedding their helmets. They're
trying to squeeze in as many as they can. And
Major Keen realizes, you know what? We're not
going to get everybody out on these two helicopters,
the last two helicopters. And so he goes to Top
Valdez, Master Sergeant Valdez, and he says,
Top, give me 11 good men I could fight with.
Or 10 good men, counting Keen. There was 11 left
on the roof. And Steve Schuler was one of those
men. And so there's 11 men. Helicopters are gone.
Total chaos. They hear the... The enemy, the
North Vietnamese are closing, coming into the
city. They can hear the tanks. They can see the
tanks. The crowd around the embassy has broken
into the embassy and they're clawing their way,
trying to get to the roof. And there's 11 Marines
sitting on the roof, wondering, watching the
sun come up and wondering, did they forget about
us? Or what's going on? Are they coming back
for us? And of course, Major Keene and Todd Valdez
were, yes, they're coming back for us. Of course
they're coming back for us. But there was doubt
in everyone's mind, a little bit of doubt. And
it was a scary situation. And I got to tell you,
Dale, if any of your readers want to find out
what happened, why don't you think they have
to read the book? I think they do have to read
the book. But Steve, I want to bring you back
on. You were part of that 11, and you had a little
ritual that you did up there. I think we can
share this little story about the passing of
the bottle. The passing of the bottle. They got
to a certain point where... you're in God's hand,
whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen. So,
Corporal Bauer happened to have, he was the bar
in CL, he happened to have two bottles of Johnny
Walker's scotch, one red and one black. So everybody
sat around with their backs against the walls
and yeah, corked the bottles and passed them
around. I think those two bottles got three,
I think everybody got three or four drinks of
pulls off of it. That was it. We sat there and
said, this is it. Well, this was your Alamo moment,
wasn't it? That was the Alamo moment. Right.
This is what we're going to do. We're going to
fight it out if we have to. I've got a question
coming up real quick from somebody on the air.
I've got Ed from Wyandotte, Michigan. Ed, welcome
to Veterans Radio. Thank you. Thanks for taking
the call. Real quickly, were there other embassies
that you had to coordinate with, or were there
other embassies trying to get their people out,
or was this just entirely a U .S. situation?
The Brits had evacuated a week earlier. The French
had cut a separate deal with Hanoi. And I would
suppose there was a Korean contingent from the
Korean embassy. And they were, they don't call
the Koreans the Irish of Asia for no reason.
They kind of bullied their way into the compound.
They tried to get to the front of the line and
tried to get on the first choppers that were
coming in. Major Keene stopped that. He said
to them, you're last in, you're last out. They
eventually all got out. Actually, no, several
of the Koreans were left behind, but most of
them got out. And the other embassies had all
kind of cut their separate piece with the North
Vietnamese. And anyone who was our ally, such
as the Brits, they were long gone. Okay. All
right. Thank you, Ed, for calling. You're welcome.
All right. So we're up on the roof. What's happening
is Alamo Mona. Why were there delays in these
helicopters coming in and out? I want you guys
to get into a little bit of the bureaucracy of
that real quickly. We've got a couple of minutes.
Well, I could answer that for you real quick
is that when Captain Barry's helicopter left
with the Ambassador on board, there was a phrase
he used, you know, the tiger is out, the tiger
is out. And that was supposed to tell the 7th
Fleet that the Ambassador was on the helicopter
and left the Embassy. And that was actually interpreted
also as meaning that with the Ambassador was
the last Marine so that there was no one left
at the Embassy at all. And so there was that
belief for some time that everybody was out and
that no one knew that there were still those
11 Marines on the roof of the Embassy. it took
a little while for that to dawn on somebody back
at the flea hey wait a minute you know we still
got guys they aren't so they have to scramble
and uh... and uh... send a helicopter are back
for them and and certainly hope uh... a couple
of things hope that those eleven marines will
still there when the uh... helicopter arrived
and also because it was those that took off so
suddenly uh... what they found out on uh... while
helicopters in the area that was really low on
gas so i think that that It had to get to Saigon
and back and hope that it had a lot of Marines
on board on the way back. In the fluidity of
the situation, Dale, the original plan, you mentioned
Plan E before, Option 4. Well, Option 1, the
ambassador was going to be the last man out.
Okay. And there was a bureaucratic foul -ups
red tape. Okay, the ambassador's out. Everybody
else must be out too, right? And it took them,
as Tom said, it took them a while to realize.
In fact, I don't know, black humor, I suppose,
is the best way to describe this. Henry Kissinger
actually had a press conference in Washington.
And he told the press, every American who wants
to be out, because there were some reporters
who stayed behind, but every American who wants
to be out of Saigon has been evacuated from Saigon.
And he walked off the stage and an aide whispered
into his ear, no, Mr. Secretary, we still have
Marines on the roof. And he went ballistic. He
made me look like a fool in front of the press.
And it was just indicative of the chaos. That's
true. I've also got somebody on the line here.
I've got Joel from New Jersey. Joel, welcome
to Veterans Radio. You got a question? Yes. My
name is Joel. I'm a disabled Air Force Vietnam
veteran from Agent Orange. Two interesting points
is that the current Air Force Chiefs of Staff,
General Norton Schwartz, flew some of the last
fixed wing evacuation flights. out of Tonso Nguyen,
which is interesting. That's quite a career.
The other interesting thing is CBS News broadcaster
Betty, actually it's Nguyen she pronounced it,
Nguyen. Her father and mother, her father was
a Navy Vietnam veteran who stayed in Vietnam
and married a Vietnamese woman as a little child.
Her mother, father and her. made one of the last
flights out of Saigon on an Air Force transport.
She used to work for CNN. She worked for CBS
News. As a matter of fact, she was on this morning.
It still comes back to the present in the terms
of a little girl who is now a famous news broadcaster
and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General
Norton Schwartz. I guess he was piloting one
of those big C -130s right before they started
shelling the airport. That was plan B. Plan A,
plan B, plan C. Plan B was we're going to get
everybody out of fixed wing. We're going to strip
down our C -130s and we're going to just have
an assembly line of C -130s landing. But once
the North Vietnamese shell Thompson at the airport,
that plan went out the window. Thank you very
much. One of the interesting things, I was talking
to Steve Schuler yesterday. We were having a
private conversation. He said something like,
well, it's history now. Even though it's the
anniversary, it's history. And I guess everybody's
forgotten it. And I don't think everybody has
forgotten it. I think this American Dunkirk,
so to speak, that took place 36 years ago today,
I think it's relevant even today as to, A, not
only MSG's we have stationed around the world
in harm's way and with what's going on in the
Mideast in North Africa. but also with our planned
withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. And I
think there's a parallel. And I certainly hope
we've learned something. I think so. We've got
to end it right there, gentlemen. Thank you so
very much for being on Veterans Radio today.
Thank you. Make sure you get the book, folks.
Last Man Out, Bob Drury, Tom Glavin. Thank you
both very much for being on Veterans Radio. Steve
Shuler, thank you also. We'll be back next week
with another fascinating story about American
veterans. We will not ever let you forget. Until
then, you are dismissed. Not all views and opinions
expressed on Veterans Radio reflect the views
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