All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. And
now, your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
And good afternoon, America. My name is Dale
Throneberry and I am your host today on Veterans
Radio and it is our privilege to be... in your
living room, or at least in your ears, wherever
they may be, to talk about veterans and veterans'
stories and veterans' affairs and veterans' issues
that are going on around the world. And we want
you to participate in the conversation today,
so feel free to give us a call here at WAAM at
734 -822 -1600. We're going to be talking about
the Veterans History Project, and many of you
are familiar with that, and I'm very excited
to talk to our guest. With that, Ed Runkle, in
just a moment, and to let you know how you can
go about recording your veteran stories or your
relatives' veteran stories and store them in
the Library of Congress, which is really kind
of cool when you think about it. I did this a
number of years ago, and I can just go into the
Library of Congress, and my grandson did this.
typed in grandpa's name and then came up and
interviewed and talked all about what I was doing
when I was in the service. So this is a great
opportunity for many of you out there. We're
going to be talking about how you can record
stories of your relatives and can upload them
to the Library of Congress. And I think it's
a pretty neat experiment or program that they
have out there. The second half of the program
we're going to be talking about the last days
in Vietnam. There's a documentary that is going
to be shown on PBS this coming Tuesday evening.
Check your local PBS station for the time exactly.
It's 9 o 'clock Eastern and it's a documentary
about when they had to evacuate Vietnam and I'm
really excited to talk to our guest Colonel Stuart
Harrington who was there at the time and is an
active participant in the documentary which by
the way was directed and produced by Rory Kennedy,
Bobby Kennedy's daughter. It's a very powerful
documentary. I had the privilege of watching
it the other night. You can download it onto
your computer and we'll talk more about different
ways that you can get a hold of it. But for those
of you that were in Vietnam, I think it's really
important that you hear this story. It's a story
of honor. It's a story of gumption. There are
heroics going on there. There are promises kept,
some promises not kept. It's an emotional roller
coaster and I'm anxious to talk to Colonel Harrington
when we get to that at the bottom of the hour.
But right now, joining us on Veterans Radio is
Ed Ruckel. And Ed, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Well, thank you very much, Dale, and a pleasure
to be with you today. I've been looking forward
to the conversation. I know you have. If I'm
mispronouncing your name, I wanted to make sure
I had it right. It's Ruckel, right? No, Ed Ruckel's
just fine. Okay, Ed Ruckel is an Air Force veteran.
Were you career Air Force? Absolutely. Actually,
I'm a Canadian boy that served with the United
States Air Force for over 20, from 61 through
81, and then returned back to Canada here in
Windsor in 1988. So, I went through flight school
with a number of guys from Canada and I thought
that was always a fascinating story. What are
you coming over here for? You could avoid this
whole thing. It's just kind of stay home considering
that there were people from our country that
were going there to get away from this whole
war thing. So, did you ever end up serving overseas?
Actually, I went all over the world, but I never
went to Vietnam. And part of that was because
I was Canadian. didn't get the various clearances
apparently, whatever. They sent me to Osan, Korea
in 1970, so I lucked out. I didn't have to go
to Vietnam, but many Canadians did. They did,
they did. Sometimes I wonder if it's lucking
out or not, but it was an experience, let's put
it that way. Actually one that I don't think
I would want, I wouldn't want to repeat it, but
I'm grateful that I went through it. Well, I
think about 33 ,000, if my number served me correctly,
did serve from Canada and the other nations,
Australia and so on, in the early days of NAMM.
And then, of course, they pulled back and the
Americans took it over and whatever happened
there, it just happened. Well, that's true. I
was lucky. I didn't have to go. We worked with
the Australians quite a bit in the area of operation
that I was in and that was quite the adventure
for me meeting up with some Australians. They
do some serious beer drinking. I guess I couldn't
even clean that up. I couldn't clean that up
anyway. That they do. And they would challenge
us to participate with them and it was not a
contest at all. They just... But anyway. All
right, Ed, I'm really excited to talk to you
today about this veterans history project and
I was reading something off of the other website
that you gave me that's on the flyer and up on
our website. It's about the veterans tributes
and these numbers are fascinating to me and I
think that this is going to be imperative and
kind of accelerate the need to record these stories
is that your mission statement for the A veteran's
tribute says, according to a 2013 census, there
are approximately 19 .6 million military veterans
in the United States. When we started this program
in 2003, there were almost 25 million. That's
6 million veterans who have passed away in the
last 10 years. So we've got a little urgency
here with our story then. So tell me all about
this Veterans History Project. Well, the Veterans
History, it's kind of ironic because I here about
a year and a half ago, I went over to the VA
just to get a VA card. I didn't plan on doing
Veterans History. I really didn't know much about
it at all and that was a year and a half ago.
Went over, got my VA card and before I knew it,
I was a volunteer. And I was asked to capture
veteran stories and send them off to the Library
of Congress, the Veterans History Project there.
And I thought, well, that seems like a kind of
a cool idea. I was looking for something to do,
eh? So I started it and got it going. And this
was at the John Dingell VA Center down on John
R. in Detroit. And that's only about 15 minutes
for me once I cross the border, right? And then
it went over there and started to work with it.
And I was actually started with the veterans
on the sixth floor of the John Dingle VA. And
that's the long term World War II guys. And I
had the opportunity to meet many of them. And
one in particular was Louis Calvin Huff. Buck
was his name. He was 96 years old. actually walked
with George Patton back in the 30s and was also
one of the G1 staff to the 92nd Infantry, the
Black Buffalo Soldiers. So he had a tremendous
amount of history and he was my first story to
capture and send off to the Library of Congress.
And it just went on from there. And then I realized
that I was missing about 96 % of my veterans.
because I was up on the third floor trying to
capture them at the VA Medical Center there in
their media room and that took me off of the
floor and I was missing just a wealth of history
that was walking past me down on the main floor
of the VA. About 600 veterans a day go through
that VA and in one shape form or another and
that covers all branches of the service and I've
just met a tremendous amount of veterans lately
and that's where the veterans tributes came in.
I thought I could catch short stories from them
on the fly, if you will. So that's basically
what began and it took off. And today I have
about 91 veterans who have signed up to tell
either a long or an extended story. And extended
stories are stories that actually meet the 30
-minute rule set by the Library of Congress.
If it's less than 30, they usually don't take
it, okay? And a lot of veterans don't believe
they can tell a story and go that long, but they
can. And I didn't look at the criteria. Veterans
had to be in a war or a combat zone, because
many of us, I didn't serve in the combat zone.
I was in over 20 years and didn't serve in the
combat zone. But it doesn't mean that we, you
know, weren't going to go into a combat zone.
I think that's the risk and people have to understand.
So anyway, I started to collect stories from
any veteran that had a pulse in 98 .6 and it
started to work pretty good. And today we've
got close to almost a hundred. And I think 21
had been sent off to the Library of Congress
and another seven or eight in the next week or
two. That's going to be going. We're going to
take a quick little break here, Ed. And when
we come back, I want to kind of go through a
pretend interview. All right. And just to let
our audience know that what the questions are
that you ask and all the other people that ask
that are participating in the Veterans History
Project as the recorders. So we'll be right back
with Ed Runkle here on Veterans Radio to be talking
about the Veterans History Project. So stay tuned.
We'll be right back. And we're back on Veterans
Radio, and that's the Universal Soldier. And
the reason that I picked that particular tune
for a bump music today is because we are talking
about the Veterans History Project with Ed Ruckel,
who is a United States Air Force retired after
20 years. And just before we took the break,
Ed mentioned something, oh, that he was in the
service for 20 years, but he didn't get into
combat. And that doesn't matter to me. It never
matters to us here on Veterans Radio because
All of us signed up, some voluntarily, some not
necessarily quite so voluntarily. But we signed
up to do our duty and we did it. Wherever we
were assigned, that's where we went. And we were
always on edge that we might be sent somewhere
else. And so you just never know. And even though
you may not have been in combat, there are so
many great stories out there, Ed, from people
that I have met doing this program for the last
11 years that are just as powerful. as any story
that I've heard from somebody who's been, you
know, been getting shot at. Correct. Yeah, you're
absolutely right. And many veterans actually
don't think they have a story to tell because
they haven't been in combat. That is, you said
so well there is when you work, that thing that
makes the military so special is that when you
go to work in the morning as a soldier, as an
airman or whatever, You don't know if you're
coming back home. You could very well be deployed
and I was in SAC for three years and you could
very well not get home for months. So those are
the prices that are paid and those are the stories
we try to capture. Every debt has a story and
once they get them talking there's something
else. That is true and I think that you know
probably all of us have stories of you know even
if just basic training stories. I mean it's such
a culture shock. for probably you know 95 % of
the of the men and especially the women who go
through basic training that There has to be a
story there because you are you are meeting people
that you would never meet in your everyday life
Correct think about you know just think about
you know where these men and women were from
and in my experience I went I I'm from New Jersey
originally and I ended up going to basic training
in Fort Polk, Louisiana I had never been to Louisiana,
and no offense to anybody who's listening from
Louisiana, but you guys talk funny. And I couldn't
understand anything that anybody was saying.
And the drill sergeant, he had something against
my family. I'm not sure where they, you know,
the things that he would say to us on a regular
basis. But some of those men that I met there
turned out to be lifelong friends. Yeah, you're
absolutely right. You make a good point there,
and I'm currently working with the Mumford Point
Marines. They go back into World War II, and
I'm currently gathering a story in the cloud
-based application that I have, and I'm talking
with a 93 -year -old Mumford Point Marine, African
-American gentleman, who is the oldest living
Mumford Point Marine, period. What is a Mumford
Point Marine? Mumford Point Marines, this is
the story, in 1942, World War II, Roosevelt mandated
that all the military would integrate African
Americans into the Corps and the other branch
services as well. The Corps didn't want them.
So when they went to Cap Lejeune to get their
basic training, they didn't train with the white
soldiers at Cap Lejeune. They stuck them out
at Mumford Point, out near the swap lands. And
that's where they trained them as a separate,
totally separate unit. They were still Marines,
but they weren't integrated as such. And that's
the Mumford Point Marines. Well, I know they're
a story in itself. Oh, absolutely. I know they're
great stories because we had we have done some
stories with the Tuskegee Airmen. These were
the other buddies, yep. Right, and there are
so many Tuskegee Airmen that live in the Detroit
area that none of us were really aware of it
until we came across Colonel Armstrong, I think
his name is, and he was the one that we've had
on the program a couple of times and just fascinating
stories. So let me get into this little interview
process. So let's suppose that my uncle Joe was
in Korea, and I want to interview him. I've heard
about the Veterans History Project. How do I
go about doing this? Well, the first thing you've
got to do, and this is how I do it now, and there's
a number of different tactics that you can use,
but the Library of Congress, the Veterans History
Project, has what they call a field kit. And
if you go to www .libraryofcongress .com, you
can download that field kit. And that walks an
interviewer, which I am, with the VA system,
that has the questions and gives you an idea,
a guide, if you will, of what to do and when
to do it. And really the interview process covers
five or six categories of questions. which are
usually asked by an interviewer. And it starts
with just a brief introduction, right? And it
gets an idea of where he was born and where the
veteran lived and what year he was born, his
mother, his father, brothers and sisters, things
like that, where he went to school. And then
it goes on up into his early days of the military.
The first thing that has to be done is we have
to get a signed signature of release forms signed
by the veteran if he's still alive. And if not,
by his executor or the son or daughter, right,
who has or is empowered to sign on his behalf.
And once that's signed, the interviewer takes
it over and they start working with the veteran
and or his son or daughter collecting things
like that, memorabilia, tapes, whatever they
may have and starts to catalog and correlate
and put them all together on behalf of the veteran.
The idea is to catch them soon. Well, they're
still alive. I lost Buck Huff on the 31st of
December this last year. And, you know, these
veterans, we lose a World War II veteran every
three minutes. So there's not many left. No,
we've got to get them, and the Korean veterans
are following quickly behind, and even the Vietnam
veterans are starting to fall by the wayside.
Well, you've got to figure the average Vietnam
guy, the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War,
the average Vietnam guy is 69. Yes, we are. Yeah,
we are, that's for sure, yeah. Hard to believe,
right? Where did that time go? I don't know.
I always tell everybody, you know, that I'm I've
got a 20 -year -old mind stuck in a 69 -year
-old body. And it's difficult. But I was going
to say, you've got a, I'm looking at the website
now for the kit. And anybody can do this, folks.
Just go to, actually just type in and Google
Veterans History Project and it will take you
right to all of these forms that you will need
to get for the history project itself. And there
are many people like Ed around the country that
are recording these things. In fact, we have
a gentleman here in the local Ann Arbor Ypsilanti
area, that's Bill Villano. And Bill works with
the Ypsilanti District Library, I believe it
is, and has been recording veterans for, gosh,
as long as I've known him, so almost 10 years.
And he unfortunately couldn't make the program
today, but he wanted to make sure that if you...
Want more information here, especially in our
local area, you can just give him a call. Let
me just briefly, real quick, everybody get your
pencils out. It's Bill Villano, V -O -L -L -A
-N -O, and his email is W -M -J -V, W -M -J -V
at ymail .com, the letter ymail .com. So Bill,
there's your plug for you. Right. And I'll be
willing to help too if they want to send me an
email and say, hey Ed, I'm having trouble or
whatever, I'd be glad to assist and help and
that's all free for the vets and anyone trying
to capture a veteran's story. I might add too,
Dale, that they don't have to go to a VA to get
this done. Right. It can be done anywhere. It
just so happens that I'm with the VA and I use
that as my watering hole, which it is, okay?
You can go anywhere. Just do it. Follow the rules.
And you won't have to worry about them sending
it back, because they do. There's certain formats
that have to be met and certain audios that have
to be met and things like that. So it's all in
the kit. Well, actually, yes. And mine was done
at a local high school. And there are many history
teachers out there that are utilizing the Veterans
History Project as a way of introducing their
students to local veterans. And they find out
that you know, the older gentleman that sits
down at the local coffee shop and so on turns
out to be a B -17 pilot who has amazing stories
and just nobody asks them. So here's an opportunity
not only for you as the veteran to get your story
up because I think you guys, men and women, don't
know how fascinating these stories are and 20
years from now, 30 years from now, 100 years
from now People are going to be able to go into
the Library of Congress, type in your name, and
they're going to hear your story. So your great,
great, great grandchildren will be able to hear
your voice explaining whatever it was that you
did. I think that's important to history, too,
in maintaining freedom. Also for vets with PTSD
that have, you know, extreme PTSD, it's good
therapy for them to tell their story and they
enjoy it. So there's all sorts of benefits. There
are, and I think it's, again, it's fascinating
to know it is helpful, it is cathartic sometimes.
For some people, I was talking to someone the
other day and he just opened up and started telling
me this amazing story about when he had been
in the service and when he was done he said,
I haven't told anybody that story in 40 years.
There you go, there you go. And these are valuable
stories, they're valuable lessons actually to
be learned with these Ed, I think. And, you know,
we keep, I don't know, telling people, you know,
if you don't know your history, you're going
to repeat it. And so we have to figure out a
way to get these people to know that going to
war is the last possible thing anybody ever wants
to do. And so you need to talk to these men and
women who have been there. And one of the concerns
and complaints about this current political situation
going on you know, in Washington is that there
are not enough veterans in the Senate and the
House of Representatives. So there's not enough,
you know, there's not this calming voice in the
background that says, hey, you know, before you
send these guys off to whatever standard it is
that you're going to send them to, think about
it. Because are you going to be the one that
goes and tells mom and dad, you know, really
sorry that, you know, but your, you know, your
son or daughter has died as a result of our mission.
You're right. You're right. That was a little
editorial, folks. I'm sorry about that. Well,
that's all right. You're dead to point, for sure.
An interesting story, too, is a part of the history,
especially World War II, because there'll never
be another war like World War II. No, there won't.
Just the magnitude of the war alone. And young
people today, the youth generation, doesn't get
the message about what it was like, the scope.
I just finished interviewing a good friend of
mine, Rich Prashan. He's a B -17 commander, full
colonel down at Pima Air Museum in Tucson, Arizona.
And he was interviewed by a young news reporter
who asked him, you know, just a quick question
and didn't really have a clue and said, well,
just give me an idea just how big was this? You
know, he was talking about a mission. March the
6th was the first daylight bombing into Berlin
in 1944. And he said, we'll give you an idea.
There were a thousand B -17s in the air. He said
the jet stream coming off of those, that's the
contrails, was 94 miles long. Can you ever imagine
seeing a thousand B -17 bombers coming toward
you? There's the scope. Oh my God. I mean, you
just look at that magnitude and then you look
at the African, you know, the Indian, the Native
Americans. I'm taking a couple of those guys
that are on Walpole Island. These are Marines,
right? And these guys serve with a hundred and
some of them served with 173rd airborne. Check
that one out and see what, you know, the Holocaust,
that was Vietnam and the loss of life. Charlie
company is another one and their tape, their
stories are getting taped. Well, Ed, I'm sorry,
we have run out of time for this segment of the
program, but I want to thank you very much for
being on Veterans Radio and I encourage everybody,
at least in the Detroit area, you know, if you're
at their VA and you see this guy hanging around
with a tape recorder, go on up and talk to him.
Get your story told. And around the country,
we need to get your stories recorded and we want
to continue doing this. Thank you very much,
Ed, for being on Veterans Radio. You're welcome,
David. It was a pleasure and an honor. Thank
you very much. We're going to be taking a break
here at the bottom with the news. We're going
to be coming back and talking about the last
days in Vietnam. When we come back after the
news and the Medal of Honor segment, you're going
to hear Richard Nixon's voice. Don't panic. He's
not coming back. But he's going to be talking
about the end of the Vietnam War. So stay tuned.
You're listening to Veterans Radio. We'll be
right back after the news. The Medal of Honor
is the highest award for valor in combat given
a member of the Armed Forces of the United States.
There had been over 3 ,400 recipients of the
nation's highest award. This is one of them.
First Lieutenant Jack Jacobs, although seriously
wounded, made repeated trips across an open rice
paddy, evacuating wounded and their weapons.
Details after this. Jacobs served as an assistant
battalion advisor in Kien Phong Province, Republic
of Vietnam. The battalion was advancing when
it came under intense heavy machine gun or mortar
fire. Jacobs called for and directed airstrikes
on the enemy positions. Due to the intensity
of the enemy fire and heavy casualties to the
command group, including the company commander,
the attack stopped and the friendly troops became
disorganized. Wounded by mortar fragments, Jacobs
assumed command of the company, ordered a withdrawal
from the exposed position, and established a
defensive perimeter. Despite heavy bleeding from
head wounds that impaired his vision, Jacobs
returned under intense fire to evacuate a seriously
wounded advisor to safety, where he administered
life -saving first aid. He then returned through
heavy automatic weapons fire to evacuate the
wounded company commander. Jacobs made repeated
trips across the fire swept open rice paddies,
evacuating wounded and their weapons. On three
separate occasions, Jacob drove off Viet Cong
squads who were searching for allied wounded
and weapons. single -handedly killing three and
wounding several others. His actions saved the
lives of a U .S. advisor and 13 allied soldiers.
The Medal of Honor series is a production of
Veterans Radio. And we're back on Veterans Radio,
and that was President Richard Nixon talking
about that we have ended the Vietnam War with
honor in 1973. Two short years later, the North
Vietnamese invaded the South. and we ended up
having to evacuate Saigon. Today's lesson, I
think, is going to be very interesting. Today's
program, I'm back in my professorial mode here
for suddenly. But today's program is about the
last days of Saigon and the last days of the
Vietnam War. If you want to get in on the conversation
here, give us a call here at Veterans Radio at
734 -822 -1600 or you can call us toll free at
844... 838 -1600. That's 844 -VET -1600. Joining
us on our line right now is Colonel Stuart Harrington,
and let me just give you a little background
on this gentleman. He did some really cool stuff.
I'm always impressed by some of our guests. Colonel
Stuart Harrington retired as a native of Mount
Lebanon, Pennsylvania, graduated from Duquesne.
political science, commissioned as a second lieutenant
in the United States Army Intelligence Corps.
Then he went on to get a master's degree in international
relations and then he ended up getting a PhD
in international relations, completing course
in language requirements and all these other
things. Ended up, let's see, he called active
duty as a counter -intelligence officer with
duties in Vietnam, Europe, Middle East, Asia,
Latin America, became a German and Vietnamese
linguist. Holy mackerel, served four years in
Vietnam, eight years in Germany, and he was one
of the last members of the U .S. Army to leave
Vietnam as he departed the roof of the United
States Embassy. Colonel Harrington, welcome to
Veterans Radio. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure
to be here. It's a real pleasure to talk to you.
Just to remind our audience, we did a program
back in 2012 about the evacuation of Saigon.
And it's a book called Last Men Out, The True
Story of America's Heroic Final Hours, which
was a very exciting story. And when I got an
opportunity to watch the documentary, The Last
Days of Vietnam, I said, oh, I know a couple
of these people. We talked to them on our program
and learned all about this. Excuse me just a
second. When you were in Vietnam, four tourists
to me is crazy, but as a career officer I suppose
that would happen. How did you get there first
time? What was the first time you were in Vietnam?
I was ordered to Vietnam the first time in January
1971 while the war was still on and I was sent
over there as a captain, the Indonesian linguist.
as an intelligence officer working as an advisor
to the South Vietnamese military at the tip of
the Parrots Peak on the Cambodian border. And
I stayed. I actually extended twice, so my 12
-month tour wound up being about a 22 -month
tour before I went back in mid to late August
of 72. And then you went back in 75 again? Actually,
I was back in the States for A little bit less
than a year, and I was back over there in August
of 73 and stayed until I was actually supposed
to be there until August 75, but the North Vietnamese
had other ideas. So I evacuated from the embassy,
as you said, on the 30th of April, 75. So second
tour was, again, another almost two -year stint
from August 73 to 30th of April, 75. Well, let's
bring our audience kind of up to speed on this.
I just played the little segment of President
Nixon announcing that the war has ended with
honor and so forth and that we were going to
defend South Vietnamese' right to remain a democracy.
And less than two years later, the North Vietnamese
came down and we didn't go. Could you explain
that to us a little bit? Well, as you know by
73 timeframe when the Paris agreement was signed
the American public had become totally disenchanted
with the war it just seemed to them that it went
on and on it also seemed to them that our army
and our Marines and our forces on the ground
didn't quite have a clue as to what we were doing
and That's another debate. I would argue and
a lot of people argue that at the beginning we
didn't but we finally figured it out after Teta
68 But by the time we figured out what was called
for, public opinion had already eroded. The media
had turned against the war. And out of that,
you got Richard Nixon's election and the Paris
agreements, a promise to end the war. And that
promise was carried out by the Paris agreements.
They were fatally flawed. We took all the remaining
Americans out of Vietnam. So there was no American
military presence other than 50 of us. in the
so -called Defense Attaché Office, but it left
the North Vietnamese sitting astride huge tracks
of South Vietnamese territory. So the Paris Agreement,
which was essentially negotiated by the Nixon
administration by Dr. Kissinger, almost at the
point of the gun of public relations, I mean,
it was clear that the war had to be ended, that
we had to get our prisoners back, and that there
was little... sympathies or patience for the
South Vietnamese by that time? Well, that's true.
I remember I was in Vietnam in 1969 and actually
I was out in your area of the country quite a
bit during that time period. And when I came
back, I did not stay and they came down one day
and they said, you know, guys can stay in for
the rest of your lives or you can get out today.
And I was a warrant officer, so I got out. I
started following it again, and I found that
when, you know, President Nixon announced the
end of the war, everybody was, you know, all
happy and, well, probably not everybody, but,
you know, a lot of people were happy that we
were finally getting out and that we were getting
in our POW's home. And correct me if I'm wrong,
though, and this is the thing that upset me when
I watched the documentary, was that it was promised
that if South Vietnam was attacked again, that
we would come back, at least with weapons and
everything, and... and protect them, correct?
Yes, more or less. The Paris Agreement contained
the authority for any of the signatories, especially
meaning the North Vietnamese and us, to replace
weapons and equipment on a one -for -one basis.
So if equipment, if the ceasefire didn't hold,
if there was attrition of weapons and equipment
or things wore out, one -for -one replacement
of arms was permitted. President Nixon went a
step further because President Thieu, the South
Vietnamese president, was very, very unwilling
to sign up to this ferris agreement which took
the Americans home and left the North Vietnamese
in his backyard. The president promised the South
Vietnamese in writing that should the North Vietnamese
violate the ceasefire in a substantial way, the
United States would respond with, quote, full
force. to deal the North Vietnamese a retaliatory
blow. So the President made a promise, which
unfortunately our system being our system, he
can make, but the money and the ability to carry
out that promise rested with the Congress. And
the Congress was simply not in a mood to sign
up to that kind of a bargain. However, Nixon
didn't tell the Congress about his letter to
the South Vietnamese when he wrote it. you know,
came about and Nixon's gone and they bring back,
you know, President Ford is brought in and the
time is already flying by, 15 minutes left. So
let's get down to those last days, Colonel. We're
talking with Colonel Stuart Harrington who was
in Saigon on the last days when they decided
that they'd better evacuate and you had some
issues because there didn't seem to be any plan.
Well, the difficulty was that our ambassador
appointed by the president was extremely headstrong
and adamant that he was not sent to be the ambassador
to the Republic of Vietnam to be the last ambassador.
He had lost a stepson in combat in Vietnam. He
was absolutely determined that somehow that this
was going to have a better than bad ending. And
he persuaded himself that the North Vietnamese
either didn't have the capability or the will
or in any event would humiliate Washington by
overturning the Paris Agreement by a conventional
invasion of South Vietnam. So when that happened
and when it became abundantly clear to almost
any observer that the North Vietnamese in the
form of 16 divisions were charging down the countryside,
you know, the Highway 1 in broad daylight. They
were indeed intent upon overturning the ceasefire.
The ambassador was in denial and evacuation,
which he deemed as an unthinkable thing based
on his belief that somehow it would work out.
There would be a political settlement. But evacuation
was something that we didn't plan for. We didn't
talk about it. We didn't utter the E word because
of his fear that if the word got out that he,
Ambassador Martin, and his mission were focusing
on an evacuation, that this would cause panic
and loss of any hope on the part of the South
Vietnamese. So we were very constrained. It was
evident on the one hand that an evacuation and
plans for an evacuation to include threatened
South Vietnamese who had thrown in their lot
with the United States was in order. Yet, the
Ambassador was adamant that thou shalt not when
it came to discussing evacuation. Just to remind
everybody that coming up on this coming Tuesday
on the 28th, the last days of Vietnam, the documentary
by Rory Kennedy is going to be shown on your
local PBS station and that's the reason why we
have Colonel Harrington on Veterans Radio today
to talk about this. In fact, there's a whole
series of programming the next couple of days
on PBS to talk about Vietnam and I would encourage
people to check it out just to see. I mean, you
may not agree with the politics of the documentaries
and so forth, but I think they're great learning
lessons. You've got one coming up tomorrow night
about the draft. This is something that we have
mentioned on Veterans Radio. Dick Cavett, for
the people our age, we all know who he is. For
the younger people, he was sort of like the I
don't know. He wasn't as funny as John Stewart,
but he had interviews with many, many people
during the Vietnam era and he's going to replay
those. And they also talk about the time when
the 1960s died, as they said. So the North Vietnamese
are coming down Highway 1. I can remember this
like it was yesterday, and I'm sure you do too,
but all of the places that I had been in III
Corps, where I was stationed, were falling. It
seemed like every day another one, from Long
Thanh to Tay Ninh to, you know, now you're getting
down to... You know, they just kept coming down
these highways. You tried to put together a plan.
I remember in watching the documentary that there
were four potential plans. Could you kind of
mention those to us? Well, there was a JCS, a
Joint Chiefs of Staff, operation, you know, a
plan on the shelf, which was later named Operation
Frequent Wind, which envisioned the possibility
that an evacuation would have to take place.
Mind you, this is a Department of Defense plan,
whereas on the ground in Vietnam, the ambassador,
Department of State, is responsible for evacuation
and for the decision as to whether there would
be an evacuation. But the plan on the shelf basically
talked about how to get Americans out, and the
four options you've alluded to had to do with,
okay, in a perfect world, we bring people to
the waterfront and we put them on ships and they
leave. If things are a little tense or if that's
not doable, then we can use commercial air, sort
of recruit Pan American and other airlines to
come into the airport and take people out. That
was option two. Option three was the use of military
air, C -130s, C -141s at the time that were bringing
military aid such as was left in the pipeline
to the South Vietnamese. And we could always
use military fixed wing air out of Tonsignot
Air Base. And then the dreaded option four was,
if all else fails, if we can't avail ourselves
of the first three options, then we go to heavy
lift helicopters that basically come in and take
out essential Americans to the task force. There
was a naval task force out there, Task Force
76. So option four was the last ditch option.
But of course, on the ground, the major concern
of those of us who were there was that none of
these options talked about the better part of
a quarter to a half a million of Vietnamese,
at least many of whom had real reason to need
to get out. And so planning was essentially for
Americans and moving from that concept and going
beyond that to, wait a minute, what about our
Vietnamese allies was the major challenge of
the day? Well, that's true. Of the people that
were in Vietnam, you knew how many civilian contractors
there were, how many Vietnamese nationals were
working inside the various bases doing all kinds
of jobs. For their cooperation, of course, with
the Americans, they were going to be the ones
that were going to be punished. when the Americans
left and so you were left with the responsibility,
it seems like you mostly, to figure out a way
to get these people out and there's a nice quote
here that says that sometimes there's an issue
not of legal and illegal but of right or wrong
and that's where you stepped up to the plate,
Colonel, and started getting these people out.
Could you address that a little bit? Yes, it
should be noted though that You know, while the
documentary focuses on a few folks who did what
they considered to be right, and even broke the
rules, knowing that there were consequences if
the ambassador found out, but it wasn't just
me. I mean, I had a boss, a lieutenant colonel,
and his boss, a colonel. We were negotiations
staff officers for the POW -MIA negotiation element,
and they were certainly absolutely all for. doing
whatever was necessary to get threatened Vietnamese
out. There were State Department officers who
broke the rules. There were USAID officers, intelligence
officers, people like myself, my bosses, where
quietly and without any coordination with one
another, we just basically arranged to get people
out. We used every subterfuge known to man to
include, you know, box -bodied trucks with a
U .S. Embassy license plate. to stuff 50 people
in and get them to the flight line and, you know,
push them aboard an empty C -130 that was on
its way back to the Philippines to, for example,
disguising a threatened Vietnamese in one of
them who had a child by an American in a nun's
outfit on Operation Babylift, the orphan lift.
Where our way of getting this woman out and her
child whose father was at the Philippines was
to bring her onto a C -130 carrying an orphan,
except it was really her child and then the crew
secreted her in the cockpit and she got out.
By hook or by crook, by any means or any subterfuge
that we could think of, we essentially started
bringing out hundreds and ultimately thousands
of Vietnamese who were threatened. For example,
our military counterparts in the P .O .W .M .I
.A. negotiations business. There were about 300
South Vietnamese involved in that and they all
had families and we took all their families out,
about 11 or 12 hundred folks and we got permission
from Washington to break the rules, to stuff
them all on an empty C -141. We had to get them
sneaked onto Thompson -Uet. Bribes were sometimes
paid in order to get on the base. and then things
like driving them in buses, but driving them
from the far side of the terminal so that the
Vietnamese officers who were pulling security
for the terminal didn't see that we were on the
other side of the aircraft loading it up with
the people who were leaving. So it was a loosey
-goosey thing. It was in direct violation of
the ambassador's rules, but we did it because,
as you alluded to, it was the right thing to
do. It was the right thing to do. It was the
right thing to do. And as you watch this documentary,
and again, I encourage our audience to watch
this. Last States in Vietnam is on PBS. That's
part of their American Experience series of programming
on Tuesday night, 9 o 'clock Eastern time, to
check your local PBS station to see when this
program might be on. But when I was watching
the documentary, I... I'm getting myself all
excited here. North Vietnamese are coming down
Highway 1, as you mentioned, down through Long
Vinh and so forth. And now they started rocketing
Tonso Newton, so that eliminated the big aircraft.
So now you do have to go to the heavy lift helicopters
to get them out, correct? That's right. On the
night of the 29th, actually early morning hours
of the 29th, about 4 o 'clock, the North Vietnamese
launched their final attack against the city
of Saigon. And this was an attack that came from
three or four axes and directions by the better
part of 16 divisions, massive artillery, 130
millimeter heel guns, 122 millimeter howitzers,
122 millimeter rockets. And their first target
that they focused on was Tanzania in the air
base. And so within a matter of a couple of hours,
there were dozens of airframes burning. The runway
was cluttered with ordnance. The South Vietnamese,
seeing that this was happening and deducing it
was the very last act in the drama. Many of them
got in their aircraft with their families, jettisoned
their ordnance, live ordnance all over the runway
and flew to Thailand or wherever they could find
safekeeping. So when the sun came up on the morning
of the 29th of April, Two Marines, Corporals
McMahon and Judge, were dead from a 122 rocket.
The order was about to be given to go to option
four, and our little MIA negotiations team was
ordered to the U .S. Embassy. Our orders were
to go to the embassy and be prepared to stay
after the evacuation to continue negotiations
on the POW -MIA question. Well, this is an exciting
story, folks, and you've really got to go and
see this when you get the opportunity because,
you know, you've all seen the pictures. First
of all, you know, one of the pictures of people
supposedly on the embassy roof, you know, going
up these stairs to get on the helicopter. That
was at another building. It wasn't at the embassy.
But then the helicopters flying out into the
South China Sea attempting to land on some of
these ships that were out there. and they only
had little landing pads and that's one of the
reasons that they ended up throwing them into
the South China Sea. Obviously you got out but
you were there at the very end. Were you up on
that roof when you didn't think they were coming
back to get you? Actually there were two dramas
there. The first was when the President ordered
an end to the evacuation and myself and my two
bosses, Lieutenant Colonel Summers, Colonel Madison,
our three NCOs, who had been handling the actual
marshaling of the refugees, putting them into
groups of 50, getting them to throw away their
suitcases, getting them to, you know, be calm,
cooperative, otherwise no one would get out.
We were told at around 5 a .m. that the president
had ordered an end to the evacuation. My boss,
Colonel Madison, told the Marine officer who
imparted the bad news that that was unacceptable,
that we'd been promised the helicopters, that
there were only 420 people left in the parking
lot, and then it would be a clean sweep. And
the Marine said, I'm sorry, sir, but it's over.
It's a presidential order. And when Colonel Madison
said, I'll take this up with the ambassador,
the Marine pointed to a CH -46 lifting off the
roof of the embassy and said, you can't, sir.
That's him. in that helicopter. So at that point
we were stuck and the last drama of the U .S.
Army in Vietnam happened when Colonels Madison
and Summers went up to the roof with most of
our NCOs, told me to stay in the parking lot
and keep the refugees, the 420, warm so they
wouldn't panic if we all left at the same time.
And eventually, 5 .30 in the morning on the 30th
of April, I... broke myself away from the group,
went to the roof and got on a helicopter along
with our two remaining NCOs and the US Army presence
in Vietnam ended at that moment for the history
of the war. However, still in the compound, apart
from the unlucky 420 whom we had promised safe
haven, there were about three platoons of Marines
who'd been brought in earlier in the day from
the fleet to help guard, you know, protect the
embassy walls. Then there was a squad of 11 Marines
from the embassy security guard detachment, and
you probably surely interviewed top sergeant,
top connery sergeant Juan Valdez. That's the
one. Yeah, you probably know Top. He's a superlative
NCO. and ten others, including Major Keane, the
Marine Security Guard Company Commander. After
they took out the three platoons of Marines,
it was announced that the evacuation was over,
that the Ambassador was out, and it was close
out, finished. At that point, though, there were
still 11 Marines on the roof who had somehow,
somebody, when they were doing the counting,
just miscounted and miscalculated. Even after
Dr. Kissinger gave a Washington press conference
in which he said, we got everyone out who needed
to get out and, you know, it's over and congratulations
to the heroic people who made it happen, there
were still 11 Marines on the roof of that embassy.
And there were 420 very angry people in the parking
lot. I can understand that. People are going
to have to tune in to see what happens to this
thing on Tuesday night. Last Days of Vietnam
on American Experience on PBS. Colonel Harrison,
thank you very much for being on Veterans Radio.
I would love to talk to you again and have you
back on the program. This is just an amazing
story to me. Thank you very much. Thank you,
sir. It was my honor. Thank you. All right, folks.
This is what you've got to do. Turn on the TV
on Tuesday night. I hate to say that in a different
form of media, but watch those programs. I think
you're going to learn something that you didn't
know about Vietnam. So on behalf of all of us
here at Veterans Radio, I want to thank you again
for listening. You are dismissed.