The Fall of Saigon Was 40 Years Ago Today

But, as Charlie Daniels would sing, "Still in Saigon."

From the April 30, 2015, "40 Years Later: The Fall of Saigon" by AP.

I can still remember seeing the crowds trying to get to those helicopters.

"Forty years later, the images remain searing.  Throngs of desperate South Vietnamese civilians trying to scale the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, hoping to squeeze aboard one of the helicopters evacuating U.S. personnel and their associates in the face of the onslaught by North Vietnamese forces.

"U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin, in fear of spreading panic, had delayed launching the evacuation until the last opportunity.  As a result, potentially better plans for transport planes or cargo ships were scrapped -- and the helicopters, with space for fewer refugees, were called on April 29, 1975.

By late afternoon, perhaps 10,000 desperate Vietnamese had converged on the embassy."

And, I never thought it would happen.