Remembering the Fall of Saigon, and the Refugees

As we mark the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon today, I vividly remember the chaotic and heartbreaking images of South Vietnamese men, women and children desperately clamoring up a ladder and reaching out to a dangerously overloaded American helicopter. Despairing people trying to leave their country as it was falling to the North Vietnamese.

That flight was one of the last ones under “Operation Frequent Wind,” the largest helicopter evacuation effort in history. An operation that ferried 6,000 South Vietnamese refugees along with about 1,000 Americans to aircraft carriers offshore. Over the next eight months, more than 125,000 Vietnamese would flee Vietnam and eventually arrive at U.S. refugee camps. (Hundreds of thousands additional Vietnamese would be given refuge in our country during the next 10 years.)

While I clearly remember the images of the fall of Saigon and the ensuing exodus, I remember more poignantly the images, the faces and the emotions from a morning a few months later at a newly prepared refugee camp, a “tent city,” somewhere on the vast expanse of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

It was a muggy, misty morning in October of the same year when I, an Air Force officer assigned as a Senior Refugee Liaison Officer at the Eglin refugee camp---part of "Operation New Arrivals"---along with other volunteers (military men and women, social workers, housewives, college professors, etc.) anxiously awaited our first precious charge of 320 South Vietnamese refugees who had just landed at Eglin aboard a giant Boeing 747.

A year later, I wrote in a military newspaper about my recollections of that first day of duty at the Eglin camp.

Here are some excerpts describing the emotions of the volunteers as we awaited the arrival of the first bus carrying refugees from the Eglin flight line.

The character of a nation is reflected in the faces of those volunteers. Some have flowers in their hands, some have tears in their eyes, and all have compassion in their hearts.

Finally, the first bus arrives and the door opens. A small fragile old lady steps off the bus and breaks down in tears. An exhausted young mother holds on to a tiny baby as she is followed by six more small children—the father is conspicuously absent.

Another large family gets off the bus, all their belongings are contained in a tattered pillow case and in a small plastic bag. A young helicopter pilot steps off with just the clothes on his back, but smiling, happy to be alive, happy to be free.

And so it goes on: the farmer, the soldier, those who were wealthy and those who were humble, they all share the same hope for a good new life.

These scenes will keep repeating all day long as more refugees arrive. As darkness falls, the airplanes keep arriving. Soon it is past midnight and the rains come down, but the volunteers keep working, hardly noticing the time or the weather.

As the last busload of refugees has been bedded down, the rising Florida sun signals the start of a new day and suddenly we realize that we have been working for 24 hours, but, strangely, we are not tired; on the contrary, we feel that we have just begun to help these people.

The sense of inner satisfaction is almost overpowering; it inhibits any physical exhaustion feelings. The knowledge that these people are totally relying on us is both sobering and fortifying and will keep us going for the days to come.

In the next few days and weeks, similar events and feelings will repeat themselves and the human drama will keep unfolding. Thousands more refugees will arrive and will be processed, housed, and eventually relocated.

Children will be born in the camp—brand-new American citizens. Some refugees will die, many will marry in colorful and touching ceremonies. There will be problems, there will tears and there will be laughter. There will be moments of frustration for the volunteers, but there will also be many moments of joy and satisfaction with what we see and with what we are doing.

However, no day will be like that first, long day when we first saw the camp appear out of the mist, when we saw the first refugees, when we saw that fragile old lady, that tiny baby…

Today, almost 35 years later, those memories are preserved in my mind even more solidly than the images of the infamous “Fall of Saigon.” I am grateful for that.

Image: Courtesy census.gov

Coda:

If one had to point to a “good thing” at the end of the Vietnam War, it would be our government’s outreach to the refugees and the compassion shown by so many Americans. America and Americans opened up their hearts and arms to what came to be known as the “First Wave” of Vietnamese refugees (Hundreds of thousands additional Vietnamese would be given refuge in our country during the next 10 years). Within a few months the refugees were resettled in communities throughout the United States. Thousands were graciously welcomed by Americans into their own homes; thousands more were “sponsored” by social and welfare organizations and provided jobs. They would become hard-working, productive, loyal and grateful residents of our country.