The 46th Anniversary Of The Fall Of Saigon

Today is April 30th, the 46th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, which marked the end of the Vietnam War. I remember that day very well - my parents and I were visiting Stuart, Florida, where my Uncle Bill and Aunt Elsie had recently retired. My parents wanted to check out the place to see if they might want to retire there too (and did so the following March). I was sitting in the cottage we were staying at along the Indian River, in Jensen Beach, reading Before the Fall, by William Safire, and listening to a radio broadcast of the events taking place in Saigon. So many lives lost, and all for nothing. The photograph on the left, by the way, is from The Vietnam War: An Intimate History, by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, the companion book to Burns' PBS documentary about the war. It shows the long line of people winding along the swimming pool at the American Embassy, hoping to fly out of the country on one of the helicopters leaving from the embassy's roof. Most never made it.

On May Day, the day after the fall of Saigon, a photographer took the photo on the right, which is also from the Ward and Burns book, showing people coming out to see the men who had captured the city. According to a French diplomat quoted in the book, a third of the people were scared, a third were enthusiastic, and a third just didn't care. After so many years of war, you can definitely understand the feelings of the people who just wanted it to finally be over, no matter the victor.