137. U.S. President Gerald Ford discusses the Vietnam evacuation of Americans by telephone with a senior aide while Mrs. Betty Ford looks on in the living quarters of the White House in a picture released by the White House, Tuesday, April 29, 1975 in Washington. (AP Photo) #
138. Americans and Vietnamese run for a U.S. Marine helicopter in Saigon during the evacuation of the city, April 29, 1975. (AP Photo) #
139. U.S. Navy personnel aboard the USS Blue Ridge push a helicopter into the sea off the coast of Vietnam in order to make room for more evacuation flights from Saigon, Tuesday, April 29, 1975. The helicopter had carried Vietnamese fleeing Saigon as North Vietnamese forces closed in on the capital. (AP Photo/jt) #
140. A North Vietnamese tank rolls through the gate of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, April 30, 1975, signifying the fall of South Vietnam. (AP Photo) #
141. Evacuees mount a staircase to board an American helicopter near the American Embasy in Saigon. (Hubert van Es/AFP/Getty Images) #
Sau khi được xem lại nhưng tấm hình trên một cựu chiến binh Mỹ tại Việt Nam đã nói lên cảm nghĩ của mình:
KBC Hải NgoạiGeorge Martin - I am A Vietnam Veteran, but I hid this fact from people for several years after the war, because I was caught up in the National shame of being involved in the War in Vietnam.
I did not want friends to know how I spent a couple years of my life facing my mortality and being involved with what so many protested as an American mistake.
When my own service, the United States Air Force, acted as if we should hide the fact of our involvement by ordering us to not wear our uniforms off base, I was convinced it was a shameful thing I had been involved in, even though it was my country that ordered me and over a million others to go to Southeast Asia and defend something.
I never gave it much thought whether it was right or wrong to fight in that war. My country sent me, and because I was a member of the military I went.
When my country abandoned the South Vietnamese I was ashamed of that. I was ashamed of the way the United States ran helter-skelter from the friends they had promised to support.
I was ashamed at the lack of support our country showed us. We were never given the support that America had given its military throughout history. It was as if it were our fault that things did not go right for this country that had gotten us involved and did not have the resolve to finish what it had started.
It is now forty years after my tours in Vietnam, and somewhere along the way my thinking changed in the way I see my personal involvement.
The pride started creeping into my thinking as we, the Vietnam Veterans, started the movement to get a Memorial, "The Wall". Since Americans and our own government abandoned us, we would pay for and build our own Memorial.
The war protesters, the draft dodgers could go on with their lives after Jimmy Carter gave them amnesty.
So, our lives could go on too, even if we only recognized our accomplishments without support of the American people. I started seeing other Vietnam Veterans as Brothers, and shared what only close brothers could share.
I began also, to think of the war as a test, a rite of passage that my Father's generation went through in World War Two, and my Brother went through in Korea. I know now, that had I not gone to Vietnam when I was called, I would wonder all my life if I had what it takes to be an American, called on to do a duty for my country. I don't have to wonder. I served. I went when called.
I have spoken with many men since the war, who did not serve in the military. Many say they wished they had gone. They feel a part of their life passed by while they watched from the sidelines.
They will carry with them to the grave an unanswered question that I was fortunate enough to have answered. Would I serve if called by my country? I did and I survived, and now I walk with my head held high.
When I meet other Vietnam Veterans I immediately feel a bond, a Brotherhood that only we, who have been there, can understand. My life would be missing a large part if I did not have this comradeship with my fellow Veterans.
Some say, "it's been over forty years ago, forget about it." I am here to tell you that you can not forget the defining episode in your life that sets you apart from others.
How can you forget something as life changing an experience as the War in Vietnam was for so many American men?
Some who are old enough to remember where they were and what they were doing when John F. Kennedy was shot, or when Martin Luther King was shot can no more forget that, than a Vietnam Veteran can forget about the combat in which he was involved so long ago.
How can someone who did not experience it, and does'nt know if they would have gone had they been called, tell Veterans to get over it and forget it?
I wore the uniform of The United States Air Force for 26 years. I went when called to serve in Vietnam For that I stand tall! I am proud. I am a Vietnam Veteran!
George Martin, Da Nang RVN
First Tour -1967 - 1968
Second Tour - 1969 - 1970
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Originally Posted by freedomvnch
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