The 45th Anniversary Of The Fall Of Saigon

Today is the 45th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, marking the end of the Vietnam War.   Over 58,000 Americans lost their lives fighting this war, and it ended with last minute evacuations from the rooftop of the American embassy.  My draft lottery number was over 300, and so thankfully I was able to avoid participating in that war. The day Saigon fell, my parents and I were staying in a cottage along the Indian River in Jensen Beach, Florida.  My mother Mary and father Nelson were thinking of retiring in Stuart, Florida, and wanted to check the place out.  My Uncle Bill (my mother's brother) and Aunt Elsie had bought a condo at a complex called Monterey a few years earlier, which featured a par 3 golf course, and just loved it.  My parents moved there the very next year, purchasing a place close to the St. Lucie River.  Sitting in the cottage that afternoon, I listened to the radio describing the unfolding events taking place in Saigon. What a terrible waste - all those lives gone for nothing.  Not to mention all those whose lives were changed forever because of that war.  And by the way, the above photograph of the evacuation from the rooftop of the American embassy was taken from the book Vietnam: A History, by Stanley Karnow.  I don't know who the photographer was, but it looks like he or she was not going to make that last helicopter out of Saigon. Scary.