Fall of Saigon exactly 49 years ago still weighs on Bakersfield’s Vietnam veterans
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — It’s been 49 years since the fall of Saigon. Forty nine years since a succession of U.S. helicopters, one after the other, landed on the roof of the U.S. embassy to take desperate individuals, many of them Vietnamese, out of Saigon.
It was not America’s first military adventure on foreign soil, nor would it be the last, but it was the first to end in defeat, or something akin to defeat. And the image of that final escape from the South Vietnamese capital stayed with the men who left part of themselves behind in southeast Asia.
Larry Walker was a helicopter mechanic.
“I still remember them clambering, the people climbing those ladders (on the roof of the embassy) trying to get to (the helicopter) and being pushed away,” he said. “And not everybody was going to be able to get on it. It saddened me because we did not accomplish our mission. Our mission was to go over there to promote freedom for the South Vietnamese and we didn’t accomplish that. We were not allowed to win the war.”
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Dan Contreras was a C-130 crewman, whose job was bringing fresh-faced, 18-year-old trained killers to Danang Air Base for deployment, and then picking up a planeload of them for the return trip.
“I brought them back in coffins, I brought them back injured, I brought them back healthy,” he said. “There’s all different situations. That’s why there’s hesitation in my voice. Because it was sad. But again, that was our job. Everybody had a job to do.”
To Contreras, the sight of America’s evacuation was devastating.
Richard Becky was a Huey helicopter crew chief. The images of people attempting to escape in U.S. military helicopters brought him back to his time dodging rockets and gunfire.
“Why did it take so long for us to leave (the war in Vietnam)?” he said. “That next year after I left (active duty in Vietnam, the military had) already started reducing the (number of deployed) troops. So, when they did that, I said, ‘Well, why would they reduce the troops if we’re not going to win?’”
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Vietnam veteran George Garcia is proud of his service, proud of his comrades in arms, proud of their collective duty to service. He just wishes it has ended differently.
“You know, I saw it on the news,” Garcia said. “I thought it was pretty sad that we pretty much lost the war.”
Michael Eastwood left behind a Vietnamese girl. He caught a glimpse of her in news footage, waiting in line to escape. Years later he wrote to her but received no response.
“I don’t know if she ever made it or not,” he said. A lot of people didn’t. And it’s sad. The men we lost, the people they lost. For what?”
Vietnam is a different place today. The U.S. is a different place today. But some things remain the same — for one, the scars of those years.
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