Tom Glenn's Blog, page 202

C-5A Galaxy Crash

I’ve written here before about the crash of the C-5A Galaxy aircraft on 4 April 1975 close to Tan Son Nhat and Saigon. It remains in my memory as one of the worst tragedies I ever encountered.

The flight that day was the first of Operation Babylift, a program President Ford had initiated to get as many orphans out of Vietnam as possible before it fell.

At that time, I was struggling to find ways to get my 43 subordinates and their families out of Vietnam. The U.S. Ambassador, Graham Martin, had forbidden me to evacuate my people because he was convinced that the North Vietnamese would never attack Saigon. I knew better from intercepted North Vietnamese communications, but I couldn’t persuade him. So I was sending my people out of the country on any ruse I could think of. I was particularly concerned about my secretary, the last woman still in our office. I decided to send her out as a caretaker for the orphans.

Just before the date of the first flight of Operation Babylift, a doubt from nowhere entered my mind. For no logical reason I can point to, I changed my plans and didn’t put my secretary on the C-5A Galaxy flight. Thank God I didn’t. Suzie’s alive and prospering.

The plane went down shortly after takeoff. The crash killed 78 children, 35 Department of Defense employees, and 11 U.S. Air Force personnel. There were 173 survivors.

Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese 25 days later.

The tragedy is reported accurately in Last of the Annamese. I have never forgotten it, and I hope that none of my readers will.

Chuck’s Irony

Chuck Griffin, the protagonist of Last of the Annamese, a retired Marine officer who fought in Vietnam, returns there after the 1973 cease-fire. He knows the North Vietnamese have no intention of giving up their attempt to conquer South Vietnam, and he wants to help win the war against them. He’s driven. His son Ben died as a soldier in Vietnam, and Chuck can’t tolerate the thought that Ben might have died in vain.

Late in the novel, Chuck learns that Ben didn’t die in combat. He was killed by another American soldier. Chuck’s purpose in Vietnam is suddenly meaningless. And it’s now obvious that North Vietnam is winning. The fall of Saigon is weeks way.

Elsewhere in this blog I talked about my short story “Trip Wires” (published in the Antietam Review, Spring, 1999, and in my book Friendly Casualties, 2012) which was one of the inspirations for Last of the Annamese. It tells the story of Ben’s death at the hands of another soldier. I noted earlier that Chuck never learns the full story of how Ben died. Neither he nor the reader of the novel knows what actually happened.

One reader asked me why I didn’t fill in the background. The answer is that for the purposes of Last of the Annamese it doesn’t matter. I quote below the paragraph from Annamese that describes Chuck’s reaction to the news that Ben was not killed in combat:

He saw now that he’d taken Ben’s decision not to join the [Marine] Corps as his son’s rejection. All Ben had done was to choose for himself. They would have found a way to reconcile. Chuck’s pride would have surrendered to his love. He never had a chance. Ben’s choice had cost him his life. Chuck had struggled to win this war so that Ben did not die for nothing. What a crock. North Vietnamese didn’t kill Ben. An American soldier did. Maybe intentionally. Even if the enemy had killed Ben, winning the war would not have brought Ben back to life. The living might see the deaths of soldiers differently depending on who killed them. But the dead? They were just dead.

U.S. Marines and the Fall of Saigon (3)

Continuing the story of how our Marines got me and the two communicators who had volunteered to stay with me out of Saigon when the North Vietnamese attacked in April 1975:

The U.S. Ambassador, Graham Martin, had refused to call for an evacuation. He was persuaded by the Hungarian member of the ICCS (the International Commission for Control and Supervision set up in 1973 to monitor the cease-fire) that the North Vietnamese had no intention of attacking Saigon; they wanted to form a coalition government with “all patriotic forces” and rule jointly. The signals intelligence results I was responsible for made it unmistakably clear that the North Vietnamese were preparing to attack. The ambassador chose to not to accept my warning but to believe the assurances of a representative of a communist government allied to North Vietnam.

The bombardment of our compound began the evening of 28 April—first rockets, then about four in the morning on the 29th, the artillery attack started. The building next to us was destroyed, and two of the Marine guards at one of our compound gates were killed. Around the time the artillery bombardment started, we got in a message telling us that Frequent Wind Phase Four had been declared. That was the code name for the evacuation. Washington—presumably President Ford—had countermanded the Ambassador.

The two communicators were evacuated around 1400 (2:00 p.m.) on the afternoon of 29 April. I went out that night on a little Air America Huey that had been drafted to help with the evacuation. Our helicopter took heavy ground fire, but we escaped. By the time we reached the 7th Fleet out in the South China Sea, it was pitch black and raining hard. The helicopter pilot circled and circled before landing on the flood-lit helipad of the U.S.S. Oklahoma City, the flag ship of the 7th Fleet. He told me afterwards that he, a civilian pilot working for Air America, had never before landed on a ship.

That was when the current commander of my American Legion Post, Ed Hall, and I first crossed paths. He was with the Marines who saved my life.

The article I quoted from earlier in this series of posts is “Bitter Memories: The Fall of Saigon.” You can read it at http://atticusreview.org/bitter-memories-the-fall-of-saigon/  When you reach the end of part 1, click the “2” to access the second part of the article.

U.S. Marines and the Fall of Saigon (2)

Yesterday, I told how toward the end of April 1975 U.S. Marines, under the command of Colonel Al Gray, flew into Saigon from the U.S. 7th Fleet, cruising in the South China Sea out of sight from land, to prepare for the evacuation of the remaining U.S. citizens and as many Vietnamese as possible. Continuing my quote from “Bitter Memories: The Fall of Saigon”:

But the Ambassador was doing everything he could to throw roadblocks in Al’s way. He wouldn’t allow Al’s Marines to dress in uniform, fly their own helicopters into the country, or stay overnight. So Al and his troops, in civilian clothes, had to fly in and out each day from the 7th Fleet, cruising in the South China Sea, via Air America slicks, the little Hueys, the UH-1 choppers that could only carry eight to fourteen people.

It didn’t matter. Ambassador or no Ambassador, the Marines had landed. They’d be ready for the evacuation the instant it was ordered.

During my next daylight recon of the compound, I saw 55-gallon drums ranged along the perimeter fence. I asked one of Al’s buzz cuts why they were there. He said the drums were filled with combustible material, probably gasoline, and wired: if the North Vietnamese penetrated the perimeter, the barrels would be detonated to wipe them out.

Another tour of the parking lot took me into a surreal world. Marines and civilians were cramming cars, my small white sedan among them, onto the side of the building by driving them into one another so that they formed a compacted mass. That done, the drivers turned their attention to the half-dozen cars still in the parking lot, large black sedans (including mine) and one jeep. These they used as ramming devices, crushing the heap of cars more tightly together. Then they turned the now-mangled sedans on the tennis courts. Again and again, they backed their vehicles to the perimeter and burned rubber to smash into the poles holding the fence around the courts until they tore out of the pavement. Next they used the cars as battering rams, flattening the nets and court fencing against the building. Lastly, they ground the vehicles they were driving into the jumble of mashed automobiles. The area between the fence and the wall of the building was now clear.

It dawned on me what was going on. The small Air America slicks had been able to get into and out of the compound one at a time, without hitting parked cars or the tennis courts, but the much larger Marine CH-53’s—each could carry 55 troops loaded for combat—needed more unobstructed space, especially if two or three were in the compound at the same time. One more obstacle to our escape had been removed.

More tomorrow.

U.S. Marines and the Fall of Saigon

A reader asked me what the U.S. Marines actually did during the fall of Saigon. The answer is: a lot. The easiest way for me to answer the question is to quote from my article, “Bitter Memories: The Fall of Saigon”:

[Sometime after 20 April 1975,] I started doing regular physical recons of the DAO building [located on the northern edge of Saigon at Tan Son Nhat]. Sometimes I took out a load of burnbags [filled with classified material—we expected to be overrun and we were destroying all our classified papers] to the incinerator in the parking lot and burned them; other times I just wandered around. I wanted to be sure I knew beforehand if the North Vietnamese were going to breach the perimeter fence. As I walked the halls and crisscrossed the compound, I saw brawny young American men with skinhead haircuts who had appeared out of nowhere. They were dressed in tank tops or tee-shirts, shorts, and tennis shoes. When two or three walked together, they fell into step, as if marching.

Marines in mufti! I knew all the Marines in country, and I didn’t recognize any of these guys. What the hell was going on?

I found out that night. I was trying to grab a little sleep in my office. The door chime sounded. I grasped my .38 and went to the door. Through the peep hole I saw a middle-aged red-haired American man in a neon Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and rubber flip-flops. He gave me a flat-handed wave and a silly grin. It was Colonel Al Gray, a Marine officer I’d worked with over the years in Vietnam. I’d never before seen Al out of uniform—I didn’t think he owned any civies—and I knew he made it an iron-clad rule never to spend more than 24 hours in Saigon—his work was with his troops in the field and he disliked bureaucracy. I lowered the .38 and opened the door. “Hi,” he said. “Can I come in?”

In my office, I told him everything I knew about the military situation, but he knew more than I did. What he didn’t know in detail was what was going on with the friendlies. I told him about the unruly, desperate crowds jamming the streets and now ten to fifteen people deep outside the perimeter fence of our compound and my worry that the fence might not hold. He explained to me that he’d been named the Ground Security Officer—the man in charge—for the evacuation of Saigon once it was ordered.

More tomorrow.

The American Legion and Vietnam (2)

I wrote in my most recent blog about the upcoming American Legion Flea Market Extravaganza and connections between my experience in Vietnam and my current membership in the Legion. I reported my discovery that the commander of my American Legion post, Ed Hall, was part of the U.S. Marine force who evacuated me when Saigon fell and I escaped under fire. I only discovered Ed’s role in my rescue when my legion post asked me to do my fall of Saigon presentation for them. After I’d finished, Ed told me he’d been among the Marines who saved my life.

Presenting my wares beside my fellow legionnaires at the flea market is a deeply moving experience for me. Ed will be there as will other Vietnam vets from the Legion. My bond with these men and women has never been stronger.

I’ll post more information about the flea market as the date gets closer. It will be from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, 16 September, in the parking lot of the Howard County Medical Pavilion (10710 Charter Drive, Columbia, Maryland). My brothers and sisters from the Legion will be there with me. The purpose is to raise money for the charities the Legion supports. I urge all to participate.

The American Legion and Vietnam

I’ve mentioned in passing in this blog my membership in the American Legion. I am proud of that membership. I qualify because I am a veteran, but I had finished my military service (army) before I went to Vietnam the first time as a civilian undercover signals intelligence operative providing support to army and Marine units in combat. During my thirteen years on and off in Vietnam, my cover was most often as a member of the unit I was supporting, so I passed myself off as an army soldier or Marine. My respect for the men fighting at my side grew over the years. So these days, when I attend an American Legion function, that respect and my feeling of brotherhood with other veterans is stronger than ever. I’m honored that these fine men and women accept me as one of them.

This year, for the second time, I’ll be participating in the American Legion Flea Market Extravaganza. I’ll be selling my books at a table surrounded by other legionnaires and vendors who support the Legion. My brothers-in-arms will be on all sides of me.

One ironic twist of fate is that the commander of my American Legion post, Ed Hall, crossed paths with me during the aftermath of the fall of Saigon. Ed, at the time a brand-new Marine second lieutenant, was with the Marines aboard the U.S.S. Oklahoma City, the flag ship of the 7th Fleet. I escaped under fire by helicopter to that ship on the night of 29 April 1975 after the North Vietnamese were already in the streets of Saigon. The story is recounted in Last of the Annamese.

More tomorrow.

What Will My Grandchildren Know of Me?

I have four grandchildren, ages seven to nine. I wonder sometimes what they’ll come to know about their grandfather as they reach adulthood.

The eldest, a little girl named Rhyan, knows the most about me. She attended my presentation at the National Security Agency (NSA) about the fall of Saigon. Marine General Al Gray was there and also spoke. Rhyan was lucky enough to meet him. She asked her mother if she got it right—General Gray saved grandpa’s life? Yep, her mother told her, that’s right.

But the other three were too young to attend the presentation. They presumably know nothing about my history.

One of the sad things in my life is that my children—and therefore my grandchildren—live far enough away from me that I rarely see them. My best hope is that someday the grandchildren will read my books and articles. My novels and short stories are, of course fiction. But all of them, especially Last of the Annamese, are autobiographical and historically accurate.  And my nonfiction article, “Bitter Memories: The Fall of Saigon,” lays out in detail what happened to me during that cataclysm. It was reprinted twice after its original publication (most recently in the Atticus Review­— http://atticusreview.org/bitter-memories-the-fall-of-saigon/).

So the historical record is there for my grandchildren when they’re old enough to understand. I’m comforted.

Becoming an Historical Figure in One’s Own Time

I was faintly shocked to realize that some grandparents living today weren’t even born when Saigon fell. And more and more, the story of the Vietnam war is considered history rather than part of current events. That makes me an historical figure rather than a member of today’s society, even though I’m very much alive and kicking.

I keep running into readers who tell me they had yet to come into the world or were in grammar school or high school in April 1975 when I escaped under fire during the fall of Saigon. Last of the Annamese is, in some quarters, referred to as an historical novel.

Most interesting to me is the difference in attitude between those who were mature during the Vietnam war and those born after it was over. Those who remember the war as part of their lives often recall their opposition to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and while they learn from my experiences, they still tend to view me something of a war monger.

Millennials, especially people in their twenties, lack any sense of hostility. Instead, they are very curious about how the U.S. got involved in the war and why. They know little or nothing about what happened during the war and nothing at all about the fall of Saigon. They are my most disquisitive readers.

And yet, the young, unlike us aging veterans, have never experienced combat or lived in a war zone. They are largely unmoved by my grisly tales of fights to the death. They have no frame of reference, nothing comparable in their lives. Older folks, especially veterans, don’t need to be told. They already know what I’m talking about.

To that ever-growing population of younger readers, I am a personage from long before their time who lacks the good taste to be dead. That makes me something of a oddity.

Maybe so. But I like that better than being dead.

Chu Lai

Navy corpsmen serve as medics for U.S. Marines in combat. One of the two corpsmen I wrote about earlier told me that he was assigned to 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, based at Chu Lai. His reference to Chu Lai brought back memories.

When I first arrived in Vietnam in 1962, Chu Lai didn’t exist. It was created by the U.S. Marines in 1965 when they needed an air base. I first heard of it that same year.

I remember thinking the name was odd. It didn’t sound like Vietnamese. Vietnamese place names all have meaning. Ha Noi, for example, means “lake in the middle.” But Chu Lai didn’t seem to mean anything, and the Vietnamese pronounced both syllables of the name with a level tone, as if it were a foreign word.

I eventually found out that the name wasn’t Vietnamese at all. It was the Chinese rendering of the name of U.S. Marine Lieutenant General Victor H. Krulak, commanding general of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. I knew the term c’hu lái in Chinese (出來) meaning to appear or to arise. Turns out those were the characters used to transliterate General Krulak’s name.

As a primary Marine base, Chu Lai is familiar territory to Chuck Griffin, the retired Marine who is the protagonist of Last of the Annamese. Its abandonment as South Vietnam falls is duly reported toward the end of the book.

Chu Lai still exists today. It is a seaport and industrial area with an international airport. I wonder how many Vietnamese living there know the origin and meaning of the city’s name.