Indochina, the Vietnam War, and the Mayaguez Incident
Defining a War: Indochina, the Vietnam War, and the Mayaguez Incident Lieutenant Colonel Michael Hunter Marine Corps History, Volume 6, Number 2, Winter 2020, pp. 72-90 (Article) Published by Marine Corps University Press For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/796393/summary [ Access provided at 30 Sep 2021 11:21 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Defining a War: INDOCHINA, THE VIETNAM WAR, AND THE MAYAGUEZ INCIDENT by Lieutenant Colonel Michael Hunter, USA Abstract: Only two weeks after the fall of Saigon in May 1975, Khmer Rouge forces seized the American mer- chant ship SS Mayaguez (1944) off the Cambodian coast, setting up a Marine rescue and recovery battle on the island of Koh Tang. This battle on 12–15 May 1975 was the final U.S. military episode amid the wider Second Indochina War. The term Vietnam War has impeded a proper understanding of the wider war in the American consciousness, leading many to disassociate the Mayaguez incident from the Vietnam War, though they belong within the same historical frame. This article seeks to provide a heretofore unseen historical argument con- necting the Mayaguez incident to the wider war and to demonstrate that Mayaguez and Koh Tang veterans are Vietnam veterans, relying on primary sources from the Ford administration, the papers of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, and interviews with veterans. Keywords: Vietnam, Cambodia, veterans, memory, Mayaguez, the Wall, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Koh Tang, Koh Tang Mayaguez Veterans Organization, Gerald R.
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