POWERED BY
Footage from the Fall of Saigon (1975)
Published 3 years ago
Historic footage from April 1975 shows the mass evacuation of Saigon as the People's Army of Vietnam encircles and takes control of the city, undoing years of warfighting by the United States.
At the conclusion of the Paris Peace Accords, U.S. Troops began withdrawing from Vietnam. It came as no surprise to anyone that as soon as the United States and her allies started to pull out of the country, North Vietnamese troops started taking vast areas of land, specifically during the 1975 Spring Offensive, Battle of Ban Me Thuot, and Hue–Da Nang Campaign.
By early 1975, a majority of the country was firmly in the control of the PAVN. With their sights set on Saigon, a city they would later rename to Hồ Chí Minh City, they quickly encircled the place forcing the mass evacuation of U.S. and other non-Vietnamese citizens from the area. This evacuation was done under heavy gun-fire, and is a black mark that will forever live in the history of the American Military.
Today, as 3,000 American and 600 British troops prepare to deploy to Kabul for an evacuation, you can't help but think back to this monumental mistake in American history. Not only have our political leaders failed to learn from the mistakes of their past, some of the people in office today were actually just starting their political careers when this historical event took place. So, for some of our elected officials, this is the second time they have made this same mistake in their career.
The fall of Kabul will officially ear-mark our generation of warfighters on the same page of history as the Vietnam Veterans. And, like the Vietnam Veterans before us, the fault will rest entirely on the shoulders of politicians who have failed to properly define what mission success looks like all the way up until the moment they were forced to abandon the war so that they wouldn't look bad in the headlines.
