I was onboard a U.S.Navy destroyer off the coast of South Vietnam assisting in the evacuation of people fleeing for their lives from advancing NVA and VC troops at the end of the Vietnam War. This was my third deployment in that conflict and this was a very sad event to witness. I reflected on the years of my life that I had spent helping an ally fight for their nation's freedom and I felt very depressed that things ended in this fashion.

I mostly regret the loss of friends who lost their lives and didn't get to return to loved ones. They will always be young guys in my mind's eye. Their smiles will always have that look of youthful innocence that I last saw when we graduated from high school back in '64. Gosh, we were young and clueless!

Did you see that program about it on PBS last night?

I think I've never realized what a harrowing experience

it was for all involved. It touched my heart. I don't

think I ever knew all the details of what was involved

in order to help all the people out.


Thank you so much for your service Michael.

I was there and I saw that program. I saw the ship I was aboard on the screen and that blew my mind. The show started me to think about that experience and the time I spent during the war. I was there in 67-68, 73 and finally at the end in 75. 67-68 was the most harrowing and dangerous. I meet each fall with guys I was there with at that time. Gosh, we are are getting old, but we can still have a good time. That was the bunch that I was in actual combat with and we are really close. War forges some pretty tight bonds. As I reflect back now, I view that time in my life as the most fulfilling and rewarding. Not a day passes that I don't think about that time. Wife and kids are a great reward and joy, but I just can't explain the effect the war had on my memories and feelings. Sometimes I just have to let it out a little like I'm doing tonight. Thanks.

Well, you and your friends when through hell and back and

managed to save many lives. Then when you got home none of

you were accorded the honor and respect that you had surely

earned.... America behaved shamefully towards all the

returning vets. I'll never forget that. You are a hero!!!!!!!

My best friend was born because his dad didn't get on that destroyer. His friend took a bullet so they had to turn back to shore. They both survived, spent many years in prison, and now live in the US.

Blessings and peace, Michael! Thanks to you and the other men who served our country during an extremely difficult time. The Boner.

Thank you for your service. We're a military family - through several generations back to the Civil War. Some severed in WW1. The rest did not see war/combat.Most recent, son (retired) and husband (deceased). I have his flag framed where I can see it.

My Dad's flag is on top of my bookcase here in livingroom.

I have my dad's flag, too.

Thank you for your service, Michael. You are a true hero... and a treasure.

so did the vietnam war accomplish anything ?

Well, Dave, it got me the G.I. Bill and 50% service connected disability. Good friends and memories of the most exciting time in my life came along as well. As for what the U.S. got out of it, that's way above my pay grade. Oh, some folks made a hell of a lot of money as well.

It killed over 58,000 Americans. A similar number committed suicide, overdosed, drank themselves to death, and couldn't hold their lives together.

It made millions for the manufacturers of body bags, bullets, and M16s.

That's what it's all about, isn't it?

I wonder if Billy got out. Found Billy when he climbed on one of our trucks. Tried to bring him home but the military said no. That was mid 60s. Took him to an orphanage with all the money available and begged a priest to take care of him and get him out if it all went to hell. Where are you, Billy?

TBM EX and I met in '68 while he was doing training in the states. I hardly knew what a Mormon was. He and one other guy ended up being sent to non-combat over seas. The rest went to Nam. Had he gone there, I doubt we would have married so soon, if at all.

Okay, I was wearing a white shirt and tie and knocking on doors in Mackay, North Queensland, Australia, but still... :-)

randyj, The bishop told me my going in the service was like a mission. Some how I don't think they matched up, but I'll take it. Got married right after getting home in 68 and we we've managed to stick it out and leave the church together. My best man, right up to the wedding, kept saying it still was not too late to see the bishop for a mission call. Didn't happen, I wanted to live. It seems someone had done a lot of planning and would not have appreciated being asked to wait for me again. She waited while I went overseas and I wasn't going to push my luck a second time.

Well, they're both about body count. Is converting someone to Mormonism much better than killing them?

Got to experience Vietnam from the windows of a large recon aircraft orbiting up and down the coast. I am happy I did not have to actually be on the ground there. AND, I even "got" to go on a mission, to boot. I am still so sad after seeing what my LDS neighbors went through when their son, who was my high school friend, was killed in action. He was a smart, good-looking guy, the heart-throb of the school; I was a generally unliked dullard. He was drafted; I was not. He served on the ground during the height of the war; I flew in the relative safety of a large airplane as things wound down, recovering afterward in my air-conditioned barracks.

It is sad to see that we lost some 58,000 service people in a war that we ultimately lost in an embarrassing, tail-tucking way, not even bothering to stop and retrieve the bodies of the last few Marines to die.

As a kid, there was a gentleman on my paper route who had lost his son in the Vietnam War. I remember whenever I talked with this man that he seemed so forlorn and sad. My dad knew him and my dad said this guy was especially sad because his son was killed quickly, within a few weeks of arriving in country. I later heard that this man had died at a fairly young age.

I have had a few Vietnamese friends through the years. They had some stories to tell. One told of hunting deer with a M16 in the jungle to survive as he avoided capture by the NVA. A Vietnamese woman I know was lucky to escape to Guam three days before the bedlam at the embassy.

I am fascinated by the Vietnam war and it's far reaching effects. I watch pretty much anything I see pop up on Netflix etc.

My thanks too, for your service, michael. I did a three year Army tour of duty in Germany, late seventies. I have my father-in-law's flag--he served at Iwo Jima, and was no fan of war.

It's weird that my son has military tradition in his life since my father dodged the Korean War draft with a quick marriage and college enrollment, and came from a line of men who didn't serve.

The thought of Military service seemed foreign to me until I was thrown out of my garage bedroom. I was a walking saltine, I'll tell you what. In search of a cracker box.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2015 03:05PM by donbagley.

I happened to catch quite a few programs on PBS yesterday.

donbagley, my oldest brother was in Germany in late 1970s. He was stationed in West Berlin doing interpretation of Russian.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/03/2015 03:23PM by cl2.

I was in Frankfurt, and I took the flag train to Berlin three times. Your brother will probably know what that is.

I first wrote a letter to the editor of our local paper in '58 or '59 about Vietnam and what should be done to force North Vietnam out of Laos. In the summer of '65 I went to an ROTC basic summer camp at Fort Knox. I determined that we were not fighting it to win and did not sign up for the advanced ROTC until the fall of '68 while a law student (else I would have been drafted). As a student at MIT in the fall of '65 I wrote a paper in the format of a national security paper in which I outlined how the war should be fought. It was published in the spring of '66 at MIT. I was fortunate that although I came within two weeks of being commissioned an infantry lieutenant, it was changed to AG and I only spent four months in training and then six years in the reserves. When Vietnam fell, my wife and I sponsored a Vietnamese family which lived with us for six months.

I was quite touched by your story, Michael. Your post prompted my husband and I to watch the program on PBS about the Vietam war and the fall of Saigon.

It brings up so many sad memories for me. My 18 year old brother (a brilliant student and gentle soul) signed up for Vietnam, mostly to get away from home.

He came back so mentally broken, that he was never been able to function in society again.

I flew the F-100D fighter bomber in Vietnam (69-70) providing close air support for the guys on the ground. Those folks really had tough sledding...slugging it out in the jungles and rice paddies trying to win what turned out to be a rather futile war.

My hat is off to all of the men and women who served there.

Best Wishes!!!

Thank you for your service, Michael. My bother is your age and served as an army officer. By some miracle, he was never in combat. To this day I am grateful for that.

Those of you who called me a hero for going and serving have got it wrong. I didn't do anything that I would call heroism. The heroes are those who gave all and never returned to live out their lives with those whom they loved. Please, don't call me a hero because I don't feel as though I deserve such recognition. I was just a regular guy doing what I felt was right at the time.

C-130 (?) doing air reconnaissance over north Vietnam and Laos.

The US should never get involved in a "military conflict" (which was the military designation for the Vietnam war. It was not a declared war. It was a political affair which we were not allowed to win.

Thank you for your service.

US Navy, 1979-84

Thank you for your service. You did something very important that is not forgotten by many.

Am still pissed that we were not allowed to use our full military arsenal in Vietnam.
Has I and a number of other GI's been in charge Hanoi would have been a smoking crater and we would have gone full out to win.

None of this 'had to destroy the village to save it' crap either. If we had to destroy it the reason would be clear = VC in the area and we were trying to wipe the little f*#@$##s out?

All our technology and armament, we should have used it so our guys did not die. Pulling out and running like scalded dogs because politicians are too shickenshiz to do the job...
Still sucks.