The End of the War

[Grumpy]

I was just watching some more news clips of the last American Combat forces leaving Iraq. I couldn’t help but think how very different it was from when the last United States combat forces left Viet Nam at the end of March 1973.

On 29 March, 1973, the United States officially withdrew the last American troops from Vietnam. President Nixon announced that ‘the day we have all worked and prayed for has finally come.”

Not long before I had arrived in Vietnam in July 1972 for my second tour, the Paris Peace Talks started up again trying to find a way to get America out of the war. Those Peace Talks were on-again and off-again for most of 1972. Finally, on January 9th, 1973, the “Shuttle Diplomacy” of Henry Kissinger, the United States Secretary of State, resulted in a treaty whereby all American armed forces would leave South Vietnam in exchange for the North Vietnamese government releasing all captured American Prisoners of War.

The war was over for us; it was just a matter of putting our tails between our legs and getting out of the country.

I won’t go into all the details of what happened between that announcement and when I actually left Viet Nam. However, late in the evening of the March 28th we got the word that the American prisoners were being released and we would be too. Just by chance, the very first plane leaving early on the morning of the 29th had a scheduled stop in Japan and since my orders authorized a delay en-route in Japan to pick up my wife, I was manifested on it.

I don’t remember the exact time I got to the tarmac but I do remember getting in line with the rest of the soldiers and then seeing everyone pointing to the head of the line and hearing the shouting and the cussing. I looked to see what the commotion was all about and then I saw and understood what it was.

At the head of the line were three North Vietnamese Army Officers, in dress uniform, checking our names against the manifest to verify that we were leaving as agreed.

Standing next to them was an American Military Police Colonel and three MPs with M-16 Rifles guarding the NVA Officers against us. That’s right, their guns were pointed at us, not at the NVA Officers. They were afraid that, even though we didn’t have any weapons, some of the Americans would go after the NVA Officers and the MPs were there to stop us from doing what many of us would like to have done.

They didn’t need to worry; all of us were much more interested in going home than we were in revenge. Still, it was one of the most eerie events in my life.

That was 38 years, five months and one day ago and I can still see those NVA Officers like it was yesterday!

Grumpy