April 30, 2025: 50 years ago today the North Vietnamese army descended on Saigon, took over the country, and began systematically killing South Vietnamese sympathizers, especially teachers, doctors, government workers, and professionals. U.S. military personnel were essentially all gone, except for those helping to evacuate any remaining civilians working for the U.S., and thousands of South Vietnamese people begged to be evacuated too. Today over 1,000,000 refugees and their descendants live in the US. The 20+ year war was over, and we lost.
55 years ago today, I was a young soldier in Vietnam, doing what I was ordered to do and hoping that I didn’t become one of the 58,000+ U.S. military who died there. At home my wife was sleeping with someone else, and was beginning to teach my 13-month-old baby girl to love a new daddy and hate the old one.
Today I’m an old man with ptsd and a bad attitude. But I have lived a pretty good life, have an amazing wife, and 26 descendants.
The end