Escape, Surrender, or Fight: The Perspective of One of the Last Eleven Marines to Leave Vietnam

Interviewer: Jack Tsintolas Interviewee: Terry J. Bennington Instructor: Alex Haight Date: February 17, 2015

Table of Contents

Interviewee Release Form……………….………………………………………...………3

Interviewer Release Form...... 4

Statement of Purpose…………………….……………………………...…………....…...5

Biography….…………………………………………………………...………………….6

The Vietnam War: Plagued with Politics from the Start…………….……………………8

Interview Transcription………………………………………………………...... 23

Interview Analysis……………………………………………………………………….63

Appendix...……………………………………………………………………………….69

Works Consulted……………………………………………………………...... 72

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this Oral History Project is to provide a greater understanding and a new perspective of the Fall of Saigon through an interview with Mr. Terry Bennington, a retired Marine Security Guard, who experienced the North Vietnamese takeover firsthand. As the culmination of the long Vietnam War, the Fall of Saigon is a perfect example of the United States’ role in world affairs and how politics failed the war effort.

Mr. Bennington’s memories will provide a primary source as to what transpired in

Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon as well as to promote further study on this momentous event in United States history.

Biography of Terry J. Bennington

Terry J Bennington was born on November 15th, 1952 in Bellaire, Ohio. When he was four years old, his mother committed suicide. When Bennington’s father remarried, his family moved to Bridgeport, Ohio. He went to Bridgeport High School, but ran around nearby on Wheeling Island, which is in Wheeling, West Virginia. In high school

Bennington participated in his school’s wrestling team and placed second in the state in his junior year for his weight class. Bennington dropped out of high school after his junior year because it wasn’t a challenge to him. After dropping out of high school, he worked on the coal barges in the Ohio River. Initially, Bennington wasn’t interested in fighting the Vietnam War. However, a month after a Master Gunnery Sergeant challenged him that he could not become a Marine, Bennington accepted the challenge.

Upon completing basic training, Bennington was selected to be a Marine Security Guard.

Soaring through the ranks to Sargent, Bennington got orders to Saigon, Vietnam in the end of June 1974. As a Marine Security Guard, he participated in the Vietnam War away from the front lines. Bennington experienced the Fall of Saigon first hand, running the rooftop evacuations in the United States Embassy compound in Saigon. After evacuating

thousands of Americans and Vietnamese, Bennington and 10 other Marines were accidentally left on top of the roof of the American Embassy. They were soon rescued, expecting the worse possible scenario.

Before settling in Stafford, Virginia Bennington also fought in Beirut and

Operation Desert Storm/Desert Shield in addition to Vietnam. After spending 25 years in the Marine Corps, Bennington spent four years teaching high school until working for the

Government as the Deputy Director of Training and Education Capabilities Division.

Bennington got married in 1990 and has one daughter and two sons.

Historical Contextualization: “The Vietnam War:

Plagued with Politics from the Start”

Defense Secretary under Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara, once said “The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one” (Norton 844). This quote by

McNamara encompasses the seemingly endless struggle the United States faced in the

Vietnam War. The bloody Vietnam War took place between November 1st, 1955 and

April 30th, 1975. In the course of these 20 long years, the United States strived to stop the spread Communism from Northern Vietnam to Southern Vietnam, evoking the Domino theory as their reasoning. The Domino Theory states that if one country fell to communism the rest of the countries in that area will be a part of that “domino effect”.

(Summers 145) This justification in the Cold War allowed the United States to intervene countries in the name of spreading or maintaining Capitalism throughout the world. The communist forces of North Vietnam, the Viet Cong and their communist allies fought against the anti-communist forces of South Vietnam, the United States and their anti- communist allies. Even though the anti-communists had superior firepower, the

Communists used guerilla warfare tactics, which were highly successful in the vast jungles of Vietnam. The eventual North Vietnamese victory was a blow to the United

States because the Vietnam War is regarded as one of the only war that the United States did not win. In order to understand the Fall of Saigon and the events leading up to it from the point of view of someone who participated in the Vietnam War, it is important to first

examine France’s influence over Vietnam and the process of American intervention in

Vietnam under the various Presidents of the United States during the time period of the war

Throughout the 1800s many European countries desired to imperialize and establish colonial empires throughout Asia. Great Britain established multiple colonial empires throughout southern Asia while the Dutch also established a colonial empire in

Indonesia. The French did not want to be outdone by their European neighbors, so they sought out to build and cultivate their own colonial empire on the Southeast Asian peninsula, where present-day Vietnam resides (Summers 16). This conquest began in

September of 1857 when the French captured the coastal city of Da Nang. Later in June of 1862 the French continued to push through the Southern Asian peninsula, making the

Vietnamese court surrender the captured area to France and gave them control of the territory, known later in 1867 as Cochin China. The establishment of French protectorates and formation of the Indochinese Union in 1887 marked the end of Vietnamese independence. As the Vietnamese desired change from their Western invaders, many

Vietnamese, most notably Ho Chi Minh turned to the Russian Communist Revolution of

1917 as a model for change (Summers 19).

World War II became a turning point in French intervention. France fell to the

Germans in June of 1940, which allowed the Japanese to have control of the French

Indochina conquest area. In August of 1940, the French Vichy government gave privileges to the Japanese under the condition that they recognize France dominance of

Indochina, and Japanese troops subsequently integrated themselves in Indochina. In

September of 1940 the Japanese nearly had full military control over Indochina by

stationing themselves on the northern side of the Red River. Later, in July of 1941 a

“common defense of French Indochina” was established (Summers 19). However,

Indochina grew weary of the French and Japanese controlling their homeland.

Resistance movements sprung up all throughout Vietnam against the French and

Japanese. The Japanese government grew afraid of the Vietnamese resistance as the

Office of Strategic Services reached out to Ho Chi Minh, a communist revolutionary, for support. The government later decided to grant independence to the Vietnamese on

March 9, 1945. While, Emperor Bao Dai attempted to create a new government to replace the French administration in Hue. Also, The Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh created the Committee for the Liberation of the Vietnamese People in Hanoi. Bao Dai later relinquished his power and handed it over to Ho Chi Minh, who led the August

Revolution that culminated with the proclamation of the independence of Vietnam on

September 2nd. This declaration of independence allowed for the formation of the

Democratic Republic of Vietnam under a hidden communist government (Summers 20).

After the end of World War II, the Potsdam Conference of July 1945 allowed

British troops to enter Vietnam. As the British troops entered Saigon on September 12,

1945, the British decided to allow French troops to enter as well. The Vietnamese were infuriated with the British and attempted to resist, but ultimately failed. The newly proclaimed Democratic Republic of Vietnam had been taken over by the end of

November. In February of 1946, a Franco-Chinese agreement was created allowing

France to return to Indochina. Later, another agreement was made to recognize the

Democratic Republic of Vietnam as a “free state”. French hostilities such as a shooting in

Haiphong in November 1946 caused problems throughout Vietnam. Because French

demands were so undesirable; Ho Chi Minh and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam decided to go to war instead (Summers 20-22).

With the Cold War taking place around the world, the First Indochina War began on December 19th, 1946 with the first Viet Minh attack on the French. After the Chinese

Civil War, the Chinese became the first country to recognize the Democratic Republic of

Vietnam as the government of Vietnam in January of 1950. Soon after in July of 1950, the Chinese began to supply the Vietnamese with arms to fight against the French. Later in February of 1950, Great Britain and the United States announced their recognition of the State of Vietnam, led by Bao Dai as the official government of Vietnam. Soon after the United States began aiding Bao Dai through the French. A stalemate occurred in

1952, when the American stopped the communist forces from advancing. Talks of peace started to ensue throughout Vietnam between the communist and anti-communist forces

(Summers 22-23).

In February of 1954, France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United

States agreed to meet to discuss a peace treaty. Shortly after the commencement of the

Geneva conference on April 26th, 1954, a Franco-Vietnamese declaration was made on

April 28th stating that Vietnam is a completely independent state. The Battle of Dien

Bien Phu on May 7th became a turning point in the Indochina war due to the conclusive

French defeat by Viet Minh forces. The First Indochina War officially came to an end when a ceasefire truce was signed on July 20, 1954 (Summers 24).

The Geneva Conference created a Demilitarized Zone along the 17th parallel of

Vietnam, essentially dividing the country into two pieces. The Democratic Republic of

Vietnam controlled the north while the Republic of Vietnam controlled the south. For 300

days following the treaty, Vietnamese were allowed to move freely between the south and north. As much as 900,000 mainly Roman Catholic refugees fled the north into the anti-communist south. The final declaration of the Geneva Conference entailed for elections to be held throughout Vietnam in July of 1956 under the International Control

Commission. While Ho Chi Minh continued to communize Northern Vietnam, the

French handed over what was left over of their power to Bao Dai, who later handed it over to Ngo Dinh Diem. An election was held on October 23rd, 1955, and Diem subsequently won the election with an alleged 98% of the votes becoming the president, who later announced South Vietnam as the Republic of Vietnam. A western constitution was created in July 1956 and declared on October 26th, 1956. In January 1959, the communist forces decided to stir up the underground networks of Viet Minh in the south and begin an armed conflict, commencing the Second Indochina War. (Summers 25)

During an address at Gettysburg College, President Eisenhower stated his commitment to keeping South Vietnam a separate national state from Northern Vietnam.

Eisenhower’s firm support of Diem and the Republic of Vietnam could be seen earlier in

1954, when in a letter to Diem he states, “The purpose of this offer is to assist the

Government of Vietnam in developing and maintaining a strong viable state, capable of resisting attempted subversion or aggression through military means. The Government of the United States expects that this aid will be met by performance on the part of the

Government of Vietnam in undertaking needed reforms. It hopes that such aid, combined with your own continuing efforts, will contribute effectively toward an independent

Vietnam endowed with a strong Government. Such as government would, I hope, be so responsive to the nationalist aspirations of its people, so enlightened in purpose and

effective in performance, that it will be respected both at home and abroad and discourage any who might wish to impose a foreign ideology on your free people”

(Young 49-50). Eisenhower believed that Diem would be the logical choice as the head of South Vietnam. However, Diem lacked many leadership qualities and in times of trouble Diem implemented radical laws. In addition to law 10/59, which gave a death sentence to anyone who allegedly belonged to the Viet Minh, Diem instituted the Rural

Community Development Program, which forced peasants who lived in unpopulated areas to move to populated areas under the watchful eye of the government. Fortifications with the Ho Chi Minh Trail allowed North Vietnamese groups to move men and supply between the divided Vietnam. Eisenhower invested hundreds of men into Saigon before his term ended. Soon after, John F. Kennedy took the presidential seat in the United

States in 1961.

John F. Kennedy stated in a State of the Union Address in January of 1961 that

“Our problems are critical” and “The tide is unfavorable. The news will be worse before it is better” (Herring 73). Kennedy words rang true as he sent nearly 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam by November of 1963 to help stop the communist take over.

Kennedy warned that if America were to fail in Vietnam, “the whole world, in my opinion, would inevitably begin to move toward the Communist bloc” (Herring 73). In

May of 1961, Kennedy sent Vice President Lyndon Johnson to visit Diem and South

Vietnam and assess the condition of the war. Kennedy hoped that their newly developed technology and tactics would allow the United States to demonstrate “that the Communist technique of guerilla warfare can be dealt with” (Herring 79). As the war continued, the

Viet Cong forces increased their forces and operations throughout Vietnam causing

problems for the anti-communists. These problems arose because Diem’s government was disorganized and militarily incompetent to handle the communists. The Diem government later implemented the Strategic Hamlet Program, which was designed to cut off the Viet Cong from South Vietnam. Between 1961 and 1962 American troops nearly doubled in size, boosting Southern Vietnamese attitude towards the war. The relationship between Diem and Kennedy weakened when government military forces fired upon a protesting crowd on May 8th, 1963, causing outrage throughout the world. Diem’s anti-

Buddhist policies sparked talk about a coup in Washington. On November 1st, 1963 a military coup took place, seizing control of the South Vietnamese presidency. The next day Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu were assassinated. Shortly after Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963, bringing Lyndon B. Johnson into the presidency.

Lyndon B. Johnson expanded the American war effort in Vietnam like no other president did in the past. With the communist forces exploiting the turmoil in South

Vietnam from the coup, Secretary of State McNamara described the situation as “very disturbing” (Summers 110). The junta that took over the Diem regime was unorganized and inexperienced in political affairs allowing a group of young officers led by General

Nguyen Khanh to overthrow the junta and assume control of South Vietnam on January

29th, 1964. Johnson continued his support of the South Vietnamese by stating, “As far as

I am concerned, you must have whatever you need to help the Vietnamese do the job, and

I assure you that I will act at once to eliminate obstacles or restrains wherever they may appear” (Summers 116). Johnson expanded economic assistance by $50 million and increased military advisors from 16,300 to 23,300. Later in early August of 1964, a series of incidents occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin in which US destroyer boats were attacked by

Vietnamese patrol boats. Johnson responded by launching airstrikes against the North

Vietnamese torpedo boat bases, showing the North Vietnamese that Johnson was serious about the attacks. On August 7th the United States congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin

Resolution, allowing Johnson to take “all necessary measures to repel any armed attacks against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” (Summers 122).

Shortly after Johnson won reelection, more than 23,000 military personnel were invested in the war effort in Vietnam. On February 6th, 1965 the Vietcong attacked U.S Army barracks in South Vietnam, causing Operation Flaming Dart, designed for American aircraft to bomb North Vietnamese installations right across the 17th parallel, to take effect. The Vietcong attacked the United States again on February 10th prompting the

United States to retaliate with heavier firepower, known as Operation Rolling Thunder. In addition to the airstrikes, the first American ground troops landed in South Vietnam in early March, initiating the ground battle. By December of 1965 this number grew to nearly 200,000 troops as the United States became fully invested to a major war. The incompetent Southern Vietnamese government was ousted and replaced by Air Marshal

Nguyen Cao Ky and General Nguyen Van Thieu. As military intervention increased,

Johnson used B-52 to continue the onslaught of airstrikes against the North Vietnamese.

This escalation in war efforts is seen when in “1967, the United States had nearly a half million combat troops in Vietnam. It had dropped more bombs than in all theaters in

World War II and was spending more than $2 billion per month on the war” (Herring

146). Because the, “United States relied heavily on airpower” (Herring 148) Operation

Rolling Thunder increased against the North Vietnamese and inflicted large amounts of damage against them. Later, the Viet Cong organized a surprise attack against the

American Embassy, launching the Tet Offense. Although the South eventually suppressed the attacks, it proved that peace was far from being reached. Despite the strong wave of attacks against South Vietnam, Johnson tried to gradually shift the bulk of the war to the Vietnamese, a process known as Vietnamization. In Paris, peace talks were attempted on May 13th, but became a standstill very early, prompting Johnson to strengthen military power in Vietnam. Still striving for Vietnamization, the United States was fighting the bulk of the war and, “the South Vietnamese leaders seemed content to have it that way” (Clifford 614-615). A few days before Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election, Johnson ordered the bombings of Vietnam to come to a stop.

With the Nixon Doctrine and Vietnamization in mind, Nixon escalated the war effort in Vietnam in a futile attempt to put an end to it. The result of Nixon’s handling of the war, “was a foreign policy that was sometimes bold and imaginative in conception, sometimes crude and improvised; sometimes brilliant in execution, sometimes bungling; a policy dedicated to the noble goal of a “generation of peace,” but frequently ruthless and cynical in the use of military power” (Herring 218). Nixon believed that American

Involvement in Vietnam had to eventually come to a stop since, “the true objective of this war is peace” (Sulzberger 507). Despite the destruction of North Vietnam from American bombing, Nixon followed through with his peace prospects and withdrew 25,000 troops in June of 1969. Nixon threatened a large military escalation if the North Vietnamese did not attempt to make peace talks with him, yet the threats had little effect on the North

Vietnamese leading Nixon to revisit Vietnamization. Despite South Vietnamese corruption throughout the ranks, Nixon removed an addition 150,000 troops over the course of the year, easing the domestic situation in the United States. Fearing a take over

of Vietnam’s neighbor, Cambodia, Nixon sent troops into the country in an attempt to establish a connection. Domestically this intervention in Cambodia sparked protests all throughout the United States, which led Nixon to withdraw the troops from Cambodia in

June of 1970. However, the vulnerability of the South Vietnamese due to their inability to lead without American help led Nixon to increase air support in 1971. Capitalizing on the coming presidential election, the North Vietnamese began a series of successful attack the South Vietnamese in March of 1972 leading Nixon to launch another major airstrike campaign. Operation Linebacker began on May 8th 1972, when the United States Navy mined and bombed Haiphong Harbor. Peace talks were initiated again, but soon reached a standstill. Nixon decided to launch the “Christmas bombing”, devastating the North

Vietnamese home front leading peace talks to resume in early January of 1973. Shortly after peace was declared in Paris on January 27th, the Watergate Scandal came into the light further complicating Nixon’s dealings with the war. In Early January of 1974 the

Paris Peace agreements were essentially non-existent, which prompted Thieu to escalate the South Vietnamese war effort, attempting to take back lost ground. As Gerald Ford took the presidency, the situation in Vietnam looked grim for America.

As the last president of the Vietnam War, Ford followed through with the war until the very end. The United States’ cutback on financial aid to the South Vietnamese in

1974 took a heavy toll on Thieu and his struggling war effort. With increased energy and confidence the North Vietnamese planned to take over all of South Vietnam. Ford pleaded to congress for financial aid to save South Vietnam, but they refused. However,

$300 million was “used for the evacuation of Americans and for “humanitarian” purposes” (Herring 260). Early stage evacuations out of Vietnam, led by the United

States began in early April. The continuation of North Vietnamese domination of the war led Thieu to eventually resign in late April, blaming the United States for the breakdown of South Vietnam, leading Duong Van Minh to replace Thieu.

As South Vietnam slowly crumbled, the North Vietnamese took advantage of every weakness it offered to them. As the Americans handed over firepower to the South to fend for themselves, the North Vietnamese launched a series of attacks against the highlands. These attacks destroyed the South Vietnamese army causing mass surrenders and evacuations. South Vietnam scrambled from the north in, “what has come to be called The Convoy of Tears in which 40,000 citizens and soldiers were killed” (Cold War

Museum). As the Convoy of Tears fled south to Saigon, the North Vietnamese captured cities in South Vietnam almost daily.

By April 28, 1975, the North Vietnamese settled right outside of Saigon and began bombing Tan Son Nhut air base. Because of these destructive bombings, the airport was no longer available to evacuate Americans and Vietnamese out of the hopeless country with airplanes. Airplanes were originally planned to take all refugees out of South Vietnam. However, helicopter evacuation was later deemed to be the only feasible mechanism for transportation. By 4:30 PM on April 29th the Defense Attaché

Office at the Tan Son Nhut air base began their helicopter evacuation, finishing a few hours later. The helicopter evacuation, later known as Operation Frequent Wind, continued at the American Embassy in Saigon. Thousands of desperate Vietnamese stormed the compound, attempting to climb over the gates. Despite this, the Operation was, “the largest and most successful helicopter evacuation ever conducted” (Drury 257).

Although the Americans were evacuated first, the various military personal assisting with

the evacuation had to decide which Vietnamese citizens were going to evacuate or stay.

Vietnamese citizens, who were not transported by the Americans to nearby ships, resorted to desperate measures of swimming and clinging on helicopters in order to escape the communists. As the United States ambassador to South Vietnam was finally transported to a nearby ship, the rest of the infantrymen were transported out of the embassy, taking with them the U.S flag, symbolizing the end of the war. However, a problem arose when 11 Marines were not evacuated from the United States Embassy.

They shut themselves off from the mess transpiring on the ground by securing themselves on the roof of the embassy. Vietnamese had already stormed the embassy building below them taking anything of any worth. Hoping for the best, the 11 Marines were prepared for whatever situation that was going to be handed to them. At the same time, back in D.C the National Security Advisor, Harold Kissinger, received word that 11 more Marines are stranded at the embassy. He was furious and immediately sent a CH-46 helicopter to retrieve them. Hoping for the Americans, the Marines spotted a helicopter flying their way. The helicopter swooped down and picked them up minutes before 8:00 am, saving them from the North Vietnamese scattered throughout Saigon. After the 11 Marines made it safely to the USS Okinawa, North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of

Independence Palace hours later. Minh was forced to surrender, and the city of Saigon was subsequently renamed Ho Chi Minh city on May 1st, signaling the complete take over of the South. Before the takeover Ford stated a few days earlier that the war in

Vietnam is, “Finished as far as the United States is concerned” (Herring 261). In the end, over 7,000 were rescued from the impending communist takeover. By the time of the communist takeover, many South Vietnamese who were not rescued found themselves in

the hands of the communists. Those who were captured were subject to reeducation by the North Vietnamese so that they would be able to prosper under their new government.

On April 29th, 1975, the Christian Science Monitor came out with an article titled,

“Enter ‘Big Minh’”, which addressed the new appointment of Duong Vin Minh as president of South Vietnam and his struggle with peace talks with the North Vietnamese.

The article states that North Vietnam, “wants to ‘talk’ rather than fight its way to Saigon”

(Enter 'Big Minh’ 19). This article does not seem to reveal the impending collapse of the

South Vietnamese, but instead connotes an overall positive outlook on Minh’s capabilities in restoring peace. The next day, on April 30th, 1975, the New York Times published an article entitled, “The Americans Depart”, which discussed the messy but extraordinary evacuation of Americans with the North Vietnamese approaching Saigon.

The article opens stating, “The United States left Vietnam with the same confusion and lack of direction that took the country there in the first place” (The Americans Depart

37). Unlike the other article, this article implies that there is no more hope for Vietnam.

This attitude can be seen when the article states that the Vietnamese, “have taken upon themselves a heavy responsibility before their own people by pressing for the surrender, which the Saigon Government has now offered” (The Americans Depart 37). Although there could have been an “orderly transfer of power”, (The Americans Depart 37) the take over by the communists forced Saigon to surrender.

A previous Oral History Project about the Vietnam War, titled, “The Vietnam

War: An Interview with Mr. Robert Lawrence Dance” was done in 2001 by Andrew

Jimenez. The interview with US Army Major Robert Lawrence Dance, talked about his experiences and opinions as a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy, fighting in

the Vietnam War. Jimenez also interviewed Dance on the subject of segregation and discrimination throughout his early life as an African American. When asked of his feeling towards war, Dance states, “if we’re gonna do a war, you don’t do a 20% war, a

30% war, a 50% war, you go 100%” (Jimenez 36). Dance continues by stating that “the

Vietnamese War was a result of the Cold War mentality, we really needed to have gotten beyond that” and that “Had we analyzed their history… we would have not been involved in that there” (Jimenez 35). Dance argues that we didn’t go “100%” in Vietnam with a goal in mind. Also, he states that if the United States paid more attention to the history of

Vietnam instead of worrying about a communist take over, the United States would not have decided to get as involved that it did.

According to Historian Howard Zinn, the Vietnam War was, “organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won” (Zinn 347). Zinn argues that even though the United States was so technologically advanced, “with everything short of atomic bombs”, they failed against “a tiny peasant country” (Zinn

347). On the other hand, historian Yen Le Espiritu argues that even though, “most scholars have separated Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese refugees into different fields of studies”, she shows that “they are necessarily joined: as the purported rescuers and rescued respectively…” (Le Espirtu 330). This specific interpretation of the history allows Le Espirutu to conclude that “they (Vietnam Veterans and Vietnam refugees) together reposition the United States and its (white male) citizens as savior of Vietnam’s

“runaways,” and thus as the ultimate victor of the Vietnam War” (Le Espiritu 330). Le

Espiritu argues that some Americans have an ability to “conjure triumph from defeat” justifying “Americans to push military intervention as key in America’s self appointed

role as liberators” (Le Espiritu 330). Zinn believes that the technologically advanced

United States to the Vietnamese peasants, while Le Espiritu believes that a certain interpretation of the war can be understood that the United States actually won the war due to their actions in the last days of it.

It is important to study the Vietnam War because it is a perfect example of

American intervention gone awry. American’s entered the war with a vague purpose to stop the spread of communism, but didn’t have a concrete plan to get in and get out. This caused mass protests and opposition by the American people. The mass destruction caused by 20 years of war and bombings left Vietnam in tattered pieces. Also, it is important to listen to stories of those involved with the war to fill in the holes that the facts in history text provides. The French involvement with Vietnam is necessary to understand in order to understand the Vietnam War as a whole. At the same time it is necessary to understand the Vietnam War in order to understand the events leading up to and the Fall of Saigon itself.

Interview Transcription

Interviewee/Narrator: Terry Bennington

Interviewer: Jack Tsintolas

Location: Family friend’s house, 4257 Wiltshire Place, Dumfries, VA

Date: January 3rd, 2015

Jack Tsintolas: This is Jack Tsintolas and I am interviewing Terry Bennington as part of the American Century Oral History Project. This interview took place at 1:00 on January

3rd, 2015 at a family friends house in Dumfries, Virginia. So my first question for you

Mr. Bennington is can you tell me about your childhood?

Terry Bennington: (laughs) I was born November 15th, 1952. Was born in a place called

Bellaire, Ohio. And when I was very, very young, 4 years old, my mother died. So, my father ended up having to raise us and he remarried and moved to Bridgeport, Ohio. And in Bridgeport, Ohio went to Bridgeport High School, but pretty much raised and ran around on a place called Wheeling Island, which is in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Bridgeport’s a village; it’s right across the river from Wheeling, West Virginia. I left there in July of 1971 and stayed in the Marine Corps for quite a few years.

JT: How did your mother die?

TB: My mother committed suicide.

JT: So, what was like an average day for you in school?

TB: (laughs) If I felt like going to school I went to school. If I didn’t feel like going to school, I didn’t go to school. In high school the only reason I ever went to school was for wrestling. If it wasn’t for that I probably would have quit school much sooner than what I did, because I quit school as a junior. Completed my junior year and just never went back for my senior year. Went to the Marine Corp.

JT: Why did you quit school?

TB: Boring. No challenge. The only thing I had was sports. Wasn’t a good student.

Where I come from you get two choices: You either go to work in the steel mill or got to work in the coal mines, and you don’t need much of an education to do either ones of those.

JT: Yeah, did you end up working in one of those?

TB: No, I worked on the Ohio River. I used to work on the coal barges.

JT: So, after you quit school what did you do?

TB: That’s what I did I worked on the Ohio River.

JT: So, when you were growing up the Vietnam War was happening…

TB: Yeah

JT: …and what do you remember about the effect the Vietnam War had on the United

States like domestically before you got involved in it?

TB: There was a lot of news reports on at night. It was quite evident in my opinion, that the American people did not support that war in Vietnam. You had a lot of young college students that were demonstrating. I can remember seeing a lot of demonstrations on the news in Washington D.C, and the National Guard, Kent State University, and all that stuff, so I knew that it wasn’t something that was very, very popular. Really didn’t pay a lot of attention to it except you know the idea was to stop the spread of…

JT: Communism

TB: …of communism.

JT: Do you feel that like, with this war specifically, the news or the media had a significant effect on like telling the American people what was going on versus other events?

TB: I think the news media was extremely biased back in those days. You have to understand that was back in the days when college students were a bunch of hippies, smoking dope. The college professors weren’t much better. The media never reports the good stuff. Good stuff never makes it on to the news; it’s the bad stuff. That’s what people want to hear is the bad stuff, they don’t want to hear the good stuff. You know that’s just the nature of the Americans. So back in those days all you ever got night after night after night was negative, negative, negative on the Vietnam War. So growing up as a kid, I mean a lot of the young, through the Ohio Valley, what it was known as, got drafted. So we definitely had an impact on the Ohio Valley in regards to our young being drafted into the military, but nobody really wanted to join the military back in those days.

That’s why they had the draft.

JT: Yeah, so what made you decide to become a Marine after you dropped out of high school? |4:50|

TB: I was working on the Ohio River, running up and down the river working on coal barges, and I was making I think a dollar an hour and all the beer I could drink, you know something ridiculous like that. I went over to Wheeling, West Virginia with a bunch of friends of mine and we went down to the post office and that’s were the recruiting officers were, and there was a Master Gunnery Sargent in his dress blues and basically all my other friends went over to the Navy side and couple of them went to the Air Force and the Army and I wasn’t even interested in joining, but that Master Gunnery Sargent said something to me that I guess was kind of like laying a challenge down, was you

know you are not good enough to be a Marine. So, I just kind of laughed and walked away, and then a month later I’m back there signing papers and off I am you know, so it just kind of happened that way.

JT: So just because he challenged you, you just like thought about it and dwelled on it and made you want to become it?

TB: Kind of a guy that you know you should never tell me I can’t do something because if you do that’s a challenge to me and I’m probably going to show you yes I can.

JT: Yeah, so what happened after once you decided to become a Marine, did you like…what transpired right after you decided?

TB: It was kind of interesting, I signed the enlistment papers on 18, July and that next morning on 19, July he took me down to the bus station, put me on a bus and sent me up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to the, they used to call them I think (?AV stations?) back then, now they call them MEPS, but it was the place where they processed you. So I went up and did a physical and took tests and they swore you in and that night I’m on an airplane headed for Paris Island. So at 04 in the morning on the 20th of July I arrive at

Paris Island, South Carolina being told by these crazy maniacs to get on the yellow footprints. So I mean…

JT: Two days

TB: …it happened pretty quick actually I mean, it was fast, but you know I’ve never really been out of that area before so my initial impression was it was like going on a big adventure, getting on an airplane. I’ve never been on an airplane before, bus rides and all that. So for me at 18 years old that was an adventure for me.

JT: Were you nervous because it was new or more like excited like to see the world?

TB: I wasn’t nervous; until I met those drill instructors down there screaming and hollering at me, you get a little nervous, but didn’t really think in terms of seeing the world. I think basically, when I arrived at Paris Island it was more survival mode than anything else, because I mean you have no idea back in those days. You just never ran into crazy people like that before. You know they called you every name in the book and said some horrible things but you did what they told you to do because you’re on their turf, so you learn to play very quickly by their rules.

JT: Yeah, so what was like basic training like?

TB: Physically basic training was a joke for me because I was, just came out high school wrestling in my junior year and hell I placed second in the state so I mean I was in great physical shape and working on the river I was in really good shape. Very strong for my size, in fact I am about the same size today as I was then. So physical fitness wise, was not much of a challenge, the academics was the part that surprised me. You wouldn’t

think going through boot camp that you would be required to learn things such as history, but they really pushed you hard on academics: chain of command, knowing who the president is, the vice president, secretary of the Navy, and on and on. I mean this was stuff you didn’t get to say “wait a minute” until they get the book; this is stuff you had to know in your brain, you had to know off the top of your head. So they really pushed us hard on academics, but as with anything you know you rise to the challenge.

JT: Did you feel like because you dropped out of high school you weren’t like prepared for that kind of academics or…

TB: Never really…

JT: Or just never interested you really.

TB: Its not that academics didn’t interest me, it was just wasn’t a challenge. When I went down there, I didn’t feel as though I had a deficit. I was capable of learning just like everybody else. I was never stupid, and I’ve always been a reader. So I’m a firm believer that if you can read, and you read a lot, that you can actually become a very intellectual person.

JT: So after basic training, where did you go then? |10:15|

TB: After basic training because I was a high school drop out back in those days; they would only give you a two-year contract. Automatically you’re a grunt. Grunt means you’re infantry. I think in my whole platoon I was the only two-year contract guy. So from there we went up to Camp Geiger, North Carolina for our infantry training and we went through our basic infantry training and after that I went to 81 mortars, so I had another I think four weeks of that. Upon completion of that was around probably,

October-November timeframe, got orders over to 6th Marines. So went to 6th Marines but

I was there a very, very short time. This interview team showed up from headquarters,

Marine Corps, for Marine Security Guard. I got interviewed by a Master Gunnery

Sargent and he must have liked what I said because I was accepted into the program. So, in order to go to the program I had to have two years remaining on my contract. So they extended me for a year to give me the time. So I went to headquarters, Marine Corps, where Marine Security Guard School was at that time and while I was there I ran into a

Colonel. His name was Colonel (?Coth?), who I used to go down to the gym at nights and wrestle with the Marine Corp wrestling team, and he’d be down there working out and he wanted to know if I’d be interested in going or applying to the Naval Academy. I told him I was a high school dropout and it kind of shocked him a lot. So unbeknownst to me the next day he called my old high school principal. His name was Steve Scosik and he asked Steve how many credits did I need to graduate. Between them two they worked out a deal and they gave me credit for speech and some other stupid stuff, but they required me to take one course, American Government. They allowed me to do it by correspondence course by the Colonel had to agree to be the proctor on my tests. That course cost me 30 bucks. Back in 1971, 30 bucks was a lot of money. I was only making

like 82 dollars a month and they made me the permanent phone watch and everyday I’d take the courses. That night he’d administer the test. When I got done with it, he wrapped the package up, signed off on it, sent it, and that was the last I heard of it. And then I had gotten my orders and I went to Hamburg, Germany. That was in around May timeframe of 1972. I arrived in Hamburg, Germany it was an American consulate. We did not stand post during the daytime; we only stood post at night so there were only five Marines, four watch standards and one NCOIC. While I was there it was really uneventful except I was promoted to Corporal pretty quick and then 19 days under two years of service I was promoted meritoriously to the rank of Sargent, which making Sargent under two is pretty fast. Kind of unheard of, but I maxed the PFT. You know every six months they used to have these tests you have to take and if you did really good on them you got 50 dollars a months propay they used to call it. So I’d work my butt off just because you’d get propay. Got promoted to Sargent and I was there until July, end of June of 1974 and I got orders to Saigon, Vietnam. Now the way that happened was I didn’t have enough time in the Marine Corp, I’m ready to get out. A retired General by the name of Thomas

Drought, who was then my CO as a Major, did the inspection, the semi-annual inspection, and asked me would I like to do another MSG post and I said “well yeah but I don’t have enough time” and he said “we can take care of that”. So I got extended again for two years this time and I got on an airplane on 1, July of 1974 as I remember and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, then Saigon on 2, July.

That was a long trip from Hamburg, Germany to Vietnam I will tell you that. So when I arrived there on the 2nd of July, Phillip Babel, and Mike Donner picked me up at the airport and took me to the Marine House, where automatically when you first come into

the country you are secured for two weeks, you can’t leave the post for two weeks because you have to go through acclimation, just the temperature alone, you have to acclimatize to because I mean you know you come from a fairly cool temperature in

Hamburg, Germany where you know their summer time is less than a month and a half to a climate that’s you know 100 degrees everyday and it’s very humid. So, it takes a couple of weeks to prepare for that. So since I was a Sargent and had been a Sargent for a while turned out I was senior enough to be a squad leader, so they gave me a squad. So we had several posts that we stood. We stood post at the American Embassy, we stood post at the annex, we stood post at the Ambassadors residence, and we also stood post out at the facility at Ton Sun Nhut Airbase which was we called it the Mini Pentagon because it was a huge facility. So my squad every other day would be assigned one of those areas and we would have it for a 24-hour period. First year, wasn’t that bad. I mean we weren’t in combat. Needless to say around I’d say February timeframe of 1975 is when you knew things were starting to change; you started hearing rumors. Then all of the sudden the population of the city starts to get bigger and bigger and that’s when the NVA started moving from the North down into the South and slowly but surely they started taking over more and more of the areas up in the north. The South Vietnamese actually were holding them fairly steady, but as with anything when politics get involved…

JT: Screws everything up

TB: …screws everything up and there’s money to be made, you know politicians start to exit town, Generals start to leave, and things start to fall. The most shocking thing to me I

think that I learned in that time frame was what I call “Political Graft”. I have learned that anytime politics gets involved, especially in foreign countries, it’s all about the dollar and there’s more money you can pop in what you got to understand is that you’re not actually supporting in some cases what that money is intended to support, you know some of that money is going into peoples pockets, matter of fact a lot of that money is going into peoples pockets. When you have the hierarchy, that’s the way they do business then you know you’re young ground forces out there, their heart is not with it. As the area starts falling up north, basically the South Vietnamese army, they start to disintegrate. The pace really started to accelerate by the North. To this day I’m not thoroughly convinced that

1975, when it first started, the NVA ever thought they would have Saigon by the end of

April. I don’t think it was ever their intent, but as things started to fall they kept the momentum going. It was definitely an eye awakening experience for me because I’d never seen politics to the degree that I got to observe going on at that time between the

State Department and the military and things like that.

JT: So from being at home domestically, to entering into the war as a Marine, how did your feelings change about the Vietnam War from that transition? |20:21|

TB: The thing I think I realized is that what I call a “small town mentality”. You know if

I went back home right now and I ran into folks that I was in school with or ran around with that had never left, they’d still be talking about the same things today as they talked about when we were there in the seventies. They really don’t have a broader perspective, global perspective, per say, where with all the traveling that I’ve done and spending all

the years I did in the Marine Corps gave me a much larger global perspective. When you’re from a small town and you’re 18 years old, you don’t really think about it, it’s on the news, no effect on me. However, when you find yourself in that position where it does affect you. Your mindset and your thought process is definitely changed. It was never about I think in the beginning about loyalty to the United States of America. It was never about loyalty to the United States Marine Corp. The initial part was what I call survival, but as you go through more and more of this evolution you realize that it’s not about you as an individual either, that’s the scary part. You know all our life we raise our kids to think they’re special. No they’re not. You may think they are but they’re not. In the bigger perspective of things they’re really not and the day that I realized I wasn’t special, that was a rough day cause I realized it was more about the Marine Corps than anything else because of what it had already started to in the very foundations instill within me. So it was never question of standing with another Marine, that was never a question, that was the only reason I stayed in the Marine Corp was because I became part of something and when you become part of something that embraces you and accepts you, you have a different perspective on it, but like I said if I went back home and met those folks that I grew up with they’d still be talking about the same small town mentality because that’s what effects them…

JT: And then there’s you…

TB: Yeah, yeah

JT: So once you became a Marine Security Guard in Vietnam what was like a typical day…

TB: Well…

JT: Before things got crazy?

TB: You have to understand what Marine Security Guards are taught. Marine Security

Guard program is a very selective program. You have to go through a very extensive background check, you have to be physically fit, you can have no blemishes in your service record book. So you’re taught from day one you are the best of the best…

[Interrupted by car alarm]

TB:…So, where was I at?

JT: That Marines are the best of the best.

TB: Yeah, so you’re taught that especially if you are a Marine Security Guard. You know

Marines are great but Marine Security Guards are here (hand gesture). Later on at life I can tell you that everybody tells, where you are that you are the best of the best, you’re at

8th and I you are the best of the best, you know okay but you know you buy into that. So the bottom line is that as a Marine Security Guard you have a different mindset of where you sit in the pecking order as far as the Marine Corps go. Now you have to understand

something, before I ever became a MSG I was maxing the Marine Corps physical fitness test. I could run it backwards and max it. I was passing all the tests. I was an expert rifleman, expert pistol; it was like the Marine Corps existed for me. You know everything was going for me so when you’re told you’re the best you start believing that and you think you’re the elite you know. So when you serve on MSG though you run into some other pretty good Marines too. You know and all of the sudden you’re exposure to the

Marine Corps has been as a grunt, going through infantry training, mortars, freezing your butt off out in the woods, freezing rain, stinking, eating crap, all of the sudden now you’re elevated to where you’re in dress blues having cocktails with ambassadors. You know it’s kind of a culture shock, cause here you are in the lowest form of human being on the face of the earth and then all of the sudden you’re up here. You know so you start buying into this, cause that’s where you want to be. Nobody in the right mind wants to be cold and in a field. They tell you they like it, they’re nuts. You do it because it’s required, it’s needed, it’s necessary. So as a Marine Security Guard I always believed that if you were successful as a MSG guy you’d be a successful Marine and matter of fact that’s kind of held out throughout my entire career. Doing the special assignments is what really gets you promoted and really puts your heads and shoulders above everybody else.

JT: So when the North Vietnamese blew up the airbase you were talking about before….|26:45|

TB: Ton Sun Nhut

JT: Yeah, Ton Sun Nhut, what was it like?

TB: There were several things that happened at the same time. I don’t think most of us realized they were that close. The thing that got us was at the same time, or shortly thereafter, two of the Marines in my unit were killed. They were hit with a rocket. At the same time there was a OV-10 aircraft that was shot down over the airfield that we saw.

Two nights before that, we got hit with an air attack. Now let me explain this air attack to ya, cause you’re thinking wait a minute NVA they don’t have aircraft, yeah they do.

There was a South Vietnamese pilot that defected and the reason I know it so well is I’d gotten off of duty at the embassy and I was walking back to our quarters and I, everybody was looking up, why is everybody, I turn around and I look and there’s a jet coming in, he’s very low, but his engines aren’t on, he’s gliding and he’s headed right over the palace. The Marine house is right across the street from the palace. So all of the sudden gunfire erupts everywhere because there are South Vietnamese soldiers on every street corner, and all of the sudden they’re just shooting at this airplane. He kicked in his engines and you could see the flames come out and over the palace he goes and he’s gone. Everybody’s still shooting, screaming and hollering. Things quiet down and about halfway past the palace ready to cross the street to the Marine house, and all of the sudden the gunfire starts again and here he comes again except this time he drops a 500 pound bomb. The good news is for me, it didn’t go off, the bad news is I get across the street to the Marine house and they had secured the gate. So I’m on the outside of this gate beating on this gate to let me in and we used to have South Vietnamese security guys that provided security on the compound, they’re on the inside and I’m on the outside and

I’m beating on the door to let me in. He opens his little porthole and looks out and I’m saying, “let me in” and he’s saying “no can do no can do” so I reach behind and pull out my 45 and stuck it in his face, “can do can do”, he opened that gate and let me in there.

So that was the event that happened that everybody in the Marine house knew, this shit was for real. Shortly thereafter that same pilot comes back to Saigon. The day he hits

Saigon is around four o’clock in the afternoon and Ambassador Martin is not in the embassy, he’s in his quarters. So the DCA, which is like the second man in charge, is in the compound but he’s in another building at a restaurant. We had four jets come in. One jet, the lead jet, was being flown by that South Vietnamese pilot. The three North

Vietnamese guys flying, they had no training, they couldn’t fly by instruments, they were following him. So when they come in there’s a fuel dump about a block from the embassy. That’s what they get first. You have never seen an explosion until you’ve seen a fuel dump go off cause it not only shakes the earth, but looked like an atom bomb going off and being a block away you could feel the heat. Needless to say they were flying all over Saigon just shooting everything up. I get a call on the radio to get the DCA, Mr.

Layman, into the embassy. So I go running across the compound, me and another guy and we find him, he’s underneath a table and this guy’s old he’s like 65, 70 years old, he’s not a young guy. We say “Mr. Layman we have to get you to the embassy”.

Wouldn’t come out, so we reached underneath that table and drug his ass out and started running across the compound to get him into the embassy. He’s huffing and puffing, but we did get him to the embassy, and around that time is when that air attack stopped. Of course we never knew who was flying that damn lead jet until much later we found out.

So now we are pretty much packed into the American embassy compound. There are

thousands upon thousands surrounding the compound, civilians, but in the mix of civilians is you have South Vietnamese soldiers that are armed, you have sappers, you have North Vietnamese all mixed in. So we secured the compound, but you have to understand, when Ton Sun Nhut airbase got hit we had separated our forces, we only had

40 marines. So we sent 20 to Ton Sun Nhut, and we kept 20 in the embassy. When Ton

Sun Nhut airbase got hit, they had been running C-130s out of there everyday taking evacuees, well when they hit the airfield the purpose of it was to take the airfield out so the C-130’s couldn’t run anymore. Helicopters was not the primary tool we were going to use to evacuate with it was the C-130s or ships. So they hit the airfield, we no longer could use the airfield to take the C-130s off. That night they hit the compound with rockets. Two guys Darwin Judge and McMahon were on post and they were hit with a rocket, so those were our first two casualties that we had. Needless to say, that’s when you realize: holy shit; these guys are out to kill us. You realize now that this is everything the Marine Corps has taught you and trained you to prepare for and there isn’t no sit back and reflect; it’s now. I think that’s the very moment when all of us in that detachment became men. We all grew up. We grew up real quick, up until that time liberty had been great, we was having a great time but all of the sudden guess what, this is for real. So you know, it changes your perspective just like that.

JT: So when did you first hear about Operation Frequent Wind? |34:11|

TB: Never heard the name until after the evacuation. Never knew it was called Frequent

Wind.

JT: Oh well then. So, what is your reaction to this photo (See Appendix A) taken during the evacuation of the embassy?

TB: Gives you a good example of what we were dealing with. That Marine you see right there is not a Marine Security Guard. So that you understand where he came from, we lost the compound for a short time because there were so many of them they were just coming over the walls. So we had a platoon of infantry fly in from the ships, the 7th fleet, that Marine is one of those infantry guys that came in to help us. When they got on the ground we immediately got them to expand the working area that we needed cause there’s a gate right there, all new people were on top of the gate, it’s a huge gate so we needed to keep this clear cause this was how the ambassador was getting in and out, but as you can see they are going right over barbed wire.

JT: Yeah, so you handled part of the rooftop evacuation…

TB: I ran the rooftop portion. There were times when I had to come down to the gates to assist with my Marines but we primarily my job was to run the rooftop.

JT: So what was it like handling that catastrophe?

TB: When we first started we couldn’t bring the CH-53s on the rooftop; they were too big. So we were primarily brining in CH-46s. Initially it wasn’t too bad because I had

support from the 7th fleet, I had, you know what HST is, Helicopter Support Team, I had a HST guy with me. So he was bringing the birds in setting them down, my folks were getting the evacuees ready and moving them on the bird out, very quickly because every time the damn bird would set down we’d take sniper fire. So we didn’t want that bird on the deck too long, we loaded and got them out. That evening though, we were still doing night ops and the HST guy I had was a fellow by the name of Lance Corporal

Hendrickson. My memory is still good…

JT: I can tell.

TB: In the dark he stepped back and fell off the roof. Now, the helicopter rooftop landing pad is like one story up, okay, so if you fall forward or backwards you go one floor, if you go right or left you go 12 floors, fortunately he fell back, he went one floor. The reason I realized he was missing is I had a 46 coming in and he’s coming in hot, too fast.

So I go looking for this HST guy, he’s gone so I wave the bird off. So I go looking for him and I find him down below, he was a mess, all cut up, knocked out, so we didn’t have a coroner, we didn’t have any doctors, so all we did was, I brought him up on the helipad. I used what battle dressings I had and the first bird I put down, I put him on that bird and sent him off to the fleet and I did run into him later when I was out on the fleet, but from that moment I had to start being the HST guy until I got someone else trained to do it. So as soon as we got back in ops we’re just bird down low, bird down low, that was our life, we were beat, but on the ground there was a tree in the way and once we got that tree out we were then able to land CH-53s which is a much larger helicopter on the

ground. So while the 53s are landing, the 46s are landing, so we’ve got dual ops going at the same time so we’re moving a lot of people.

JT: So in the book “The Last Men Out”, Thomas Calvin and Bob Drury state that

“Operation Frequent Wind was the largest and most successful helicopter evacuation every conducted…|38:57|

TB: In the history of the earth

JT: …what is your opinion on this statement?

TB: My opinion on what?

JT: The statement.

TB: Fact

JT: Fact. What about…even though the Americans were evacuated without the

Vietnamese…

TB: We were taking Vietnamese out. Do you know the significance of the song “White

Christmas”?

JT: They played it over the radio to signal all of the people to come to the embassy…

TB: They were supposed to be taken out though by C-130s not helicopters. So “White

Christmas” is played, we can’t handle that amount of people because not only did the

Americans know, they couldn’t keep their damn mouths shut. They’re telling the

Vietnamese workers that they knew, so all of the sudden you’ve got thousands at the embassy. Where are they all expecting to go, you know I mean I would tell ya they would show up with their luggage, their kids, their great grand kids, you know 50 people in the damn family. Now, as an American it’s hard for us to fathom, but I want you to think about this: young mother, with a six month old baby in her arms, and she offers you a case, and in that case it is filled with gold, and all you have to do is take that child, what do you do? You can’t do it, but that’s how desperate they were. People would give you wads of hundred dollar bills to take their child, what do you do, you got to understand

I’m 20, 21 years old, all of us. Those were the kinds of decisions we’re making, and none of us took it. Knowing full and well the consequences of not doing it, we knew, they knew too. Those were the kind of decisions, how old are you?

JT: 17

TB: Those are the kind of decisions in three years, if you were in that circumstance you would be making. You’re making life and death decisions on human beings. How many people are in that position in their life? It’s not a position you want to be in because you never forget it.

JT: So what do you recall about the United States Ambassador and the struggle to get him out of the Embassy?

TB: Ambassador Graham Martin. (sighs) How do you sum him up? Man, first off, he was stubborn, he was firm to his convictions, you know that he lost a son in Vietnam. What many people don’t know is at the time the evacuation was going on, Ambassador Martin had Walking Pneumonia, he was very sick. Now I will tell you the story of how we got him out. I set a helicopter on the roof, and I was getting ready to then tell my Corporal to bring up the next load, we call them sticks, and the helicopter pilot waves no, and he wanted to talk to me so I came over to his window, and I hit the button, pulled out the microphone and he says, “my name is Captain Gerry Berry”, and I said “well sir my name is Sargent Bennington”. He said, “I have a presidential order. Ambassador Martin needs to be placed on this helicopter”. We’re still fairly early in the ops, so I said, “roger that let me get the CO”. So I got on the radio and I called Jim Kean who was Captain, he was selected for Major, who was my CO out of Hong Kong, and I said, “I’ve got a

Captain Gerry Berry up here that has a presidential order for Ambassador Martin to be on this helicopter”. He said “meet me at the Ambassadors office”. I said, “roger that”. So we came down, met Captain Kean, we went into the office, and Ambassador said, “I ain’t going”. So he said, “go up and tell him”. So I went back upstairs I loaded his helicopter said, “he’s not going”…

[Interrupted by friend]

TB: So he flew off. Said that takes care of that problem let’s get back to work. About two and a half hours later that helicopter comes back again, same scenario. So I called Jim again, said, “Jim he’s back with a second Presidential order that is not to be refused”. He said, “meet me in the Ambassadors office”. So I got down there and Ambassador Martin was behind his desk. Now Ambassador Martin had what were called PSUs, Personal

Security Unit, they were Marines. They were bodyguards for Ambassador Martin, had a team of them and the man that was in the office was a Staff Sargent by the name of Mike

Segarra. So Jim Kean went in and said, “Mr. Ambassador there is a presidential order that cannot be refused you must get on the helicopter”. Ambassador Martin stood up and said,

“No, I’m not going to do it”. He started cursing. Like I said, you have to understand

Martin was very sick. For some reason him and Staff Sargent Segarra were very close.

Now Segarra reached out and just touched him on his shoulder, Martin looked at him, he said, “Mr. Ambassador it’s time”, and it was like everything left him at that time, you could see his shoulders shrunk, he was a beat man. So Segarra reached out and grabbed him by the elbow. I get on the radio and said, “get the American Flag”, it was still up,

“get the flag down, get it folded, get it on the roof”. So while we’re headed that way we pick up some of his personal effects. We come up to the roof, they’re waiting for us, they got the flag and we gave him the flag. We put him on that helicopter and off he went.

Last we saw of him.

JT: So, what happened after the ambassador helicopter left? |45:51|

TB: Ooh now it gets good. We get the word from the helicopter pilots: no more

Vietnamese, Americans only, and foreign nationals. The American Embassy was about nine stories high and in that ladder well, I’ve got Vietnamese: men, women, and children asshole to bellybutton stacked in there. On the ground, there’s a thousand waiting to be evacuated. So we ignored the order. We kept putting them on. We kept putting them on until they just wouldn’t take anymore. So then they got a helicopter coming in around, I don’t know, 18, 19 hundred and they said “Marines only”. We had pretty much gotten all the foreign nationals and Americans out so Jim Kean said “okay”. The first one we put out was the ground forces that were sent in, there were about 50 of them. So we started running them out, then there’s down to 20 of us. So the last bird, the next to last bird, we were able to get a few of our MSG guys on there, and for some reason, and I’ve never figured out why, Jim Kean looked at Master Gunnery Sargent Valdez and said, “Sargent

Bennington will be on the last bird with me”. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know why he picked me. Don’t know. So the last, next to last bird leaves. It’s kind of getting a little dark. Then it’s pitch black and we’re waiting. No bird, and we’re still waiting. No bird.

So we secured ourselves on the top of the roof the best we could, just hung in place.

JT: So the caption for this picture (See Appendix C) in “Last Men Out” states that the last Marines were preparing for an “Alamo” assault. What was it like preparing or what was going through your mind at this moment?

TB: Oh man. Jim asked, he went around and asked each one of us, we had two options, three options. Around the embassy exterior was what we called a rocket screen. The

intent is, if a rocket is fired at the embassy it explodes on the screen ___ into the building.

Between the rocket screen and the building there’s a space. So we all had considered climbing down the rocket screen, over the wall, and trying to make it to the South China

Sea. That was one option. Of course that would have been kind of dumb cause there were

North Vietnamese everywhere by that time. The second option was a surrender. Third option was a fight. We already knew what happens if they catch you, wasn’t interested in that. So we all voted we fight. So I found myself a nice corner where I had good field of vision. I got a 16 machine gun with 800 rounds and I figured I could give them a good 60 second show, cause that ammo don’t last that long. Now you’re probably wondering if we had all this up there why didn’t we get in a firefight with them before? Cause they had bigger shit than we did, they had 50cals, they had RPGs, and there were a lot more of them than of us. So the last thing we wanted to do, we didn’t even want them to know we were up there. They knew we were there, but they were kind of leaving us alone for a while. Their concentration was on the palace. So we all made our decision. We were at peace with it.

JT: Yeah, so what happened once a helicopter showed up? |50:01|

TB: We went the night, early in the morning, we had a radio, but the batteries were dead so we had no com. Now there were a lot of helicopters flying around, North Vietnamese had them, South Vietnamese had them. Everybody did. We did see a helicopter way out towards Vung Tau beach and it had four cobra gunships with it, which we thought was really weird, but you never know. It’s coming our direction so we figured one of two

things: it’s either the good guys, or it’s the bad guys and we’re screwed. Fortunately it was the good guys. So we made a plan. We had to figure out, we had the door barricaded, but that barricade wasn’t going to hold as soon as we left it, cause we were macing it, putting some gas in it. Then when we let that door go, they’re coming through, so we got to get up that small ladder on to that helicopter and get off of that roof. Needless to say if we had just ran for the helicopter we weren’t getting off that roof and we knew it, if they made it to the helicopter well none of us were getting off. So we came up with this brilliant plan. We had a bunch of smoke and we had a bunch of CS gas canisters. So we said here’s what we’re going to do, when that helicopter hits the deck we’re going to take all the smoke and all the CS gas and were going to throw it, and then we are all going to run for the chopper. So the bird sets down, 30 cans of that shit man, we threw it everywhere. We were running for the chopper and we’re on. We’re sitting in the chopper and he’s just sitting there and we’re going. The turbines from the rotors start to pull CS gas in so we’re sitting in the back kind of choking. The pilot’s up front taking pictures.

When he looks back the crew chief starts (bangs table) says, “what’s up?”. He looks back and sees and he realizes if he don’t get off that rood he ain’t getting off cause the CS is going to get him too. So next thing you know we’re moving. I mean he took off really fast. Probably went about 6 foot and did a hard bank to the left and climbed we were out of there. Soon as we hit the air, ground fire started. That’s when those cobras came into action.

JT: Did you think at that time before the helicopter, that you were going to make it out of there alive?

TB: Didn’t think that far. Didn’t think that far. I was more concerned about…

JT: The moment

TB: …my field of fire. I was more concerned about, is my friends going to make it than it was about me at that time to be honest.

JT: Do you personally believe that you were left behind at the embassy?

TB: No

JT: No

TB: No, it was an accident. The president said, “Shut it down”. They shut it down. Henry

Kissinger who was then Secretary of the State was in his office dressing for a for a formal state dinner when someone walked in and gave him a message saying, “Mr. Secretary there’s still 11 Marines on the roof” and he went crazy and he said, “get them back.

Now”. By that time the decision had already been made by the fleet, they were coming for us. So their decision was a little late, but General Kerry was in charge of the Marines, and then there was a very famous Marine Colonel who later became Commandant by the name of Al Grey that was in charge of the ground forces and he wasn’t going to leave us.

So they put the birds back in the air and those poor pilots, you know they’ve been flying

for many hours well over their authorized flight time, but they got back in the air and they came and got us.

JT: So Colonel Gerry Berry, who you mentioned before, argued that, “My biggest fear was not the NVA. We could see them hitting the city. It was the ARVN troops…|54:44|

TB: ARVNs

JT: …because they were probably thinking 'You're going, and I'm not going.' We were an absolute beautiful target sitting on that embassy roof." Do you agree with this statement?

TB: Yeah. Yeah.

JT: Why?

TB: Cause every time we bring a helicopter in the damn snipers would open up.

JT: True

TB: You know you didn’t know if they were NVA or if they were ARVNs, North

Vietnamese, South Vietnamese, or just idiots because we used to have those young kids over there that we’d call them cowboys. Walking around with M-2 Carbines that would

shoot at anything. So you know I mean, it’s like the last stand at the Alamo, and we knew that.

JT: So, how did you feel at the moment when this picture (See Appendix B) was taken of you onboard the USS Okinawa?

TB: The guy behind me there, that’s Steve Bauer, he retired as a Marine Warren Officer, last I heard he was a police officer down in Florida somewhere. We landed on the wrong ship. We were supposed to land on the Blue Ridge, but I believe he landed on that one cause he ran out of fuel. So we ended up spending a night on that ship, but I won’t forget that experience because I’m carrying an M-16, that’s an M-2 Carbine and I took that

Carbine off of an NVA. Back that gate where I was showing you all those people trying to come over well we had to open that gate to get Ambassador Martin back into the compound and while we were out there, NVA came with that Carbine with a bayonet on it and assaulted one of my friends, Steve Schuller, and stabbed him in the side, so somehow I got behind the guy and I took care of business. Somebody from the State

Department picked that up and they gave it to me later. Now when we got on this ship the

Navy, they took all our weapons, took all of our ammo, through it in the South China

Sea. Put an evacuation tag on us, which kind of, really to this day pisses me off. The ship had so many people on it; there was no place to sleep. So they found us a cubbyhole. We didn’t smell too good, so I went in to take a shower and I had my uniform on the deck, and Steve caught this Navy puke stealing my uniform. So we had to actually put guards on our gear so the Navy guys wouldn’t steal it. That’s sad. Now we hadn’t eaten for a

while either so we went down to the chow hall, we wanted something to eat. Weren’t nothing to eat, cause we weren’t there at the chow time. So I mean we didn’t get along with the Navy too good there, but we found the ship store and we could get what’s called pogey bait, you know candy, something. We get down there and we ain’t got no money except for piastre, which is Vietnamese money. So, we had to (?order lunch?) but this guy wanted our piastre, so we gave him a stack of piastre like four inches high, it was worth like 50 cents. He thought he was getting a fortune. So we got some candy bars. We found a place to get some coffee and we just went up on deck and sat there and just, we just sat there we never said nothing to each other we just kind of, we just sat there for a long time, smoking cigarettes and just looking at each other going “Christ”, but we were tired. Then the next day they moved us over to the USS Blue Ridge, which is where we were supposed to be anyways. That’s where we joined up with the rest of my detachment.

JT: So once you joined up together, what happened then? |59:19|

TB: On a Navy ship, they’re segregated. The chiefs eat in the chief’s mess. The first class eat in the first class mess, the officers eat in the wardroom, and the rest of them in the dining facility. Because we belong to the State Department, we got to go into the wardroom and we watch movies, drank coffee, news reporters kept trying to get to us, but they kind of fenced us off from the news, they didn’t really want us talking. The biggest thing was getting our weapons back from the Okinawa because those weapons were State

Department weapons. So they did get our pistols back, and those other weapons, but when we got to Sogod Bay, Philippines the (?process?) Marshall took them off of us and

he never gave them back. That M2-Carbine was the last time I saw it at Camp Schwab hanging on a Regimental CPs wall.

JT: So, historian Yen Le Espiritu argues that “While most scholars have separated

Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese refugees into different fields of study, I show how they are necessarily joined: as the purported rescuers and rescued respectively, they together reposition the United States and its citizens as savior of Vietnam’s “runaways”, and thus as ultimate victor of the Vietnam War.” What do you think of her argument that the

United States is able to “conjure triumph from defeat” in a “we-win-even-when-we-lose” mindset?

TB: Actually, she said that beautifully. Look, if you take a look at the thousands that we got out, how many Marines were actually there that did that? At the American Embassy there was 20 of us, and we took out thousands. Ton Sun Nhut Airbase, they took out thousands. There was only maybe a company of Marines out there, what’s that 70

Marines? Today there’s a very large portion of South Vietnamese that live in this country that: number one wouldn’t have a life, number two they’re American citizens. Most important is they’re now serving in our military, they are our doctors, they’re our lawyers, they’re our college professors, their children speak perfect English. When I think overall for a person like me, I’m 62, going to be 63 this year, when you think about your achievements in life, I’ve had some great moments, my children being born, great moments, my grandchildren, but nothing greater achievement in my life than that event. I was still an active duty in 1974 [SIC]. I was the director of the Staff Non-Commission

Officers Academy in Quantico. When sitting at my desk one day, I get a phone call from this Captain. It was in California. Didn’t know him, but he knew me. He said, “you don’t know me, but in 1975 my parents came to America, off that American Embassy roof and they remember you”. Think about it. This guy is a Captain in the Marine Corps now.

Wow! How do you top that? How do you top that? The sad part, there were thousands more we should have took. Thousands more. Now I’ve been back Vietnam since, went back in 1994. All I can say about that is this, if Ho Chi Minh City is communism, they got a weird a weird form of communism, cause I’m going to tell you what it is, it’s capitalism. You want to buy a Ford vehicle there? Go ahead you can. Dunkin Donuts?

Mickey D? Did we lose? They have a greater sense of freedom now than they ever had before because when you give people a sense of democracy you can’t take it off of them.

Now this isn’t for the book but I’ll tell you my philosophy of that. For 50 years we’ve had embargos on Cuba. What did it do? Nothing. Now we decided to have some relationships with them. I say give them the Internet. I say give them them big ass TV’s. I say give them all the freedoms you can give them because you want to know what, once they get it, you don’t take it back, you look through most of your countries that have been through evolutions like Vietnam. You give them democracy, you can’t take it back.

Japan’s a good example. Used to be an emperor that ran that country. Don’t anymore.

Why? Cause they understand what democracy is. China. The wall. Look at it today. Sure, it’s still Communistic, sort of, but they understand what capitalism is. So if you go back in the history and you look at Vietnam it’s the perfect example of what just a little taste democracy can create.

JT: So you feel that even though it wasn’t technically won, it was still won in a different respect? |1:06:00|

TB: In a different respect. I think we did not win it diplomatically. I don’t think we won it politically. Do I think we won it just by sheer influence of American servicemen? Yeah

I do. Yeah I do.

JT: So on April On April 30th, 1975, the New York Times published an article titled

“The American’s Depart”, which stated, “The United States left Vietnam with the same confusion and lack of direction that they entered the country in the first place”. Do you agree with this statement?

TB: Look who wrote it! Look who wrote it!

JT: The New York Times

TB: What year did they write it?

JT: 1975.

TB: Exactly, the mindset was different then. Let me tell ya, we were a good military in

1975. We’re a better military today. We’re better trained. We learned from our past.

We’ve learned and we get better from there. You know if you make a mistake, but if you

learn from that mistake and you don’t repeat that mistake did you actually make a mistake? No. I think we learn from Vietnam. Sadly, some of the things we learned we have a tendency of repeating. You can’t fight a war with politics. You don’t fight it with diplomacy. There’s only one way you fight a war and for all these people who don’t understand I’ll be happy to tell them.

JT: Go ahead.

TB: You kill them. You find them. You kill them. That’s it!

JT: Get in and get out.

TB: That’s it! There is no go in and rebuild their damn country. We won’t rebuild shit.

Go in and destroy it.

JT: So, In a previous oral history project, with Vietnam Veteran US Army Major Robert

Lawrence Dance, he argues that “if we’re gonna do a war, you don’t do a 20% war, a

30% war, a 50% war, you go 100%”. Do you believe the United States went 100% in the

Vietnam War?

TB: No. No, you can’t go 100% when you draw lines. How do you do that? We should have invaded Hanoi! We had the capability, why didn’t we do it? I never understood that, but the reason we didn’t was why? Politics.

JT: So Defense Secretary under Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara, once said that,

“The picture of the world's greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one” Do you agree with this statement?

TB: I believe that McNamara can build good cars and run good companies. Do I think much of him as a Secretary of Defense? No.

JT: So why don’t you agree with the statement? Doesn’t ring true?

TB: Doesn’t ring true. Sells good though. Sounds good. Very educated. Hell of a businessman. Here’s the sad part, you know later on in life McNamara wrote a book. You know what I call that book: “My Apology Book”. My apologies because I really wasn’t qualified to be Secretary of Defense. That’s what it is and he’s right he wasn’t.

JT: So you stated your opinion on politics and war, so do you think the United States was justified after all is said and done in fighting the Vietnam War, like do o you think they had a justified cause or reason to fight it or it was just purely political? |1:10:14|

TB: Had I’ve been the guy making that decision back in the 1960s when Kennedy first looked into Vietnam, I’ll put it politely. I don’t think we had any business in the

beginning. None whatsoever. Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with the United

States. Was it really communism? No. We were afraid of the Soviet Union for how many years? We called it the Cold War. Man. With one sentence President Reagan just destroys them: Tear down this wall. When that wall came down guess what so did the Soviet

Union. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So I wonder what were we afraid of? I ain’t afraid of

China, I definitely ain’t afraid of Iran, and I’m not afraid of North Korea either.

JT: So do you believe in the domino theory?

TB: There were some folks; I think they call them libertarians that really believe we should be more of an isolistic nation. We can’t be. What you have to understand is all wars begin with a thing called politics. It’s the politics that drive towards wars. Show me one that hasn’t. Ancient Rome. What drove it to war? Politics. Who’s the pawns? The people. The point I’m making to you is this; we sometimes get involved into things that maybe if we stayed out of, they’d work themselves out. The issue is between North

Vietnam and South Vietnam. It was a civil war. We had one in this country. I didn’t see nobody rushing over to help the North or help the South. We just kind of slugged it out.

JT: So you feel that the United States just gets involved in things that they really shouldn’t get involved in?

TB: I also don’t believe that China should have been supplying the North Vietnamese either. There’s where it starts to get complicated. So we can’t run this nation or be this

nation in isolation. We can’t do it because it’s global. We’ve unfortunately tapped ourselves and created a global world. We did it. Politicians did it. I’ll tell you where it started. Remember a speech a certain politician made about a thousand points of light?

Name was Bush. Daddy Bush. Who do you think he was talking about? A thousand points of light. Global. He was a progressive! It’s the way progressives think. Then you got the other deep end of it that believes in total isolation. You know what’s the correct mix? I’m not sure. Unfortunately, I do know the consequences of it, and it’s folks like you and I. We’re the consequences of it.

JT: So what do you think is the significance of the Vietnam War today?

TB: The significance of it is two fold. One is as I said that’s not pure communism; either that or someone has rewritten the definition of what communism is, but also now are a nation that have gone what, two or three decades without a war. They have kids that have never seen war. That’s phenomenal. We don’t have kids in this country in the past two decades that haven’t seen war. That’s phenomenal in itself. So if we learn from our past mistakes and don’t repeat our past mistakes, but unfortunately we don’t learn that lesson.

We’ll go back and repeat a mistake in a minute.

JT: So what effect does the war have on you personally today, about 40 years later?

|1:15:08|

TB: What I watch for today is how are my Marines performing. That’s all I care about.

Are my Marines performing? Are they being taken care of? I don’t really care about republicans. I don’t care about democrats. I don’t care about independents. I expect all of them to take care of our Marines. Should also expect them to take care of our Army, Air

Force, and Navy, but I’m leaning more towards Marines. You know I don’t want them to go to war without the proper equipment.

JT: So what do you think your legacy means as the last American to leave Vietnam? The last man.

TB: I always clarify that when people say that to me. There were 11 of us on that helicopter. Oh what does it mean? You know in 50 years. People won’t even talk much about this. Someday I’m going to die and for a week during my funeral, people will remember me well. Ten days after my funeral people won’t even know my name because time goes on and that’s the way it should be. One thing I’ll tell you is this you cannot do: you can’t rest on your laurels. You can’t live off it either. I know a lot of guys they live off of this. Day after day after day they can never get over it, they can never get beyond it. You can’t live this everyday of your life.

JT: So last of all, is there anything I missed you want to talk about?

TB: Well…

JT: Or mention?

TB: Extremely proud of those Marines I served with in Vietnam. They were a phenomenal group that even today, we still communicate. Every year we give out two scholarships to our two fallen comrade. We’ve done that now for 37 years. It ain’t a big one. It’s two thousand dollars to each school. We fund it. We pay for it. We’ve got enough in the bank to pay for it even after we’re gone. I can get with those guys tomorrow even though I may not have seen some of them for 15, 20 years and it will be like a day, a day. It’s like we had a conversation yesterday and we just picked up. That’s the kind of brotherhood that it was created. Of all the Marines I served with, those guys mean more to me than anything in the world.

JT: So I feel like you formed a…

TB: Oh it’s a bond

JT: It’s a bond

TB: Oh it’s a bond that goes as deep as brothers. Some cases may be even deeper.

JT: Alright, I guess that’s all for now.

TB: Quite a bit

JT: Yeah it’s a lot. Alright.

Interview Analysis

In January of 1961, John F. Kennedy once said, “The tide is unfavorable. The news will be worse before it is better”. (Herring 73) This statement of the United States’ perseverance in Vietnam highlights the American determination that led to the North

Vietnamese take over. From November 1st, 1955 to April 30th, 1975 the United States fought to stop Communism from spreading from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, afraid of an eventual “domino effect” (Summers 145) encapsulating the area. The war effort against the communist North Vietnamese by the anti-communist United States and South

Vietnam fell apart as time went on leading to the Fall of Saigon and the North

Vietnamese take over of Vietnam. Mr. Terry Bennington’s Oral History provides a unique, emotional perspective on his experience in the Vietnam War with unheard personal accounts of events. Oral Histories provide a certain fresh and honest recounting of historical events that cannot be found in a history textbook (Alice Hoffman 43). Most importantly, historian Alice Hoffman believes that Oral History “makes possible the preservation of the life experience of persons who do not have the literary talent or leisure to write their memoirs” (Alice Hoffman 43). Although the merit of Oral History depends on the reliability of the interviewers memory, it can be used in addition to traditional historical sources to create a more thorough picture of the historical event. The

Oral History interview about the Fall of Saigon with Mr. Bennington reinforces how the

United States shouldn’t have gotten involved in Vietnam; however, he finds that the loss of the Vietnam War was actually a win for the United States.

This interview began with describing Mr. Bennington’s childhood and his educational experience. After that, Mr. Bennington talked about his job after dropping

out of high school and the media’s negative portrayal of the Vietnam War. He said that,

“The media never reports the good stuff. Good stuff never makes it on to the news; it’s the bad stuff” (Bennington 26). Despite the negative media, Mr. Bennington described how he accepted a Master Gunnery Sergeants challenge to become a Marine. He recounted many of his feelings and thoughts that he had during his basic training. After describing his completion of basic training, Mr. Bennington talked about his journey towards becoming a Marine Security Guard and how he completed the required high school education. Mr. Bennington talked about his experience in Hamburg, Germany before receiving a contract extension and getting orders to Saigon, Vietnam. He described that upon his arrival at Saigon, “you are secured for two weeks, you can’t leave the post for two weeks because you have to go through acclimation” (Bennington 32) because of the different environment in Vietnam than Germany. Mr. Bennington describes what his job was as a Marine Security Guard providing security for the various American complexes in Vietnam. He described his theory of “Political Graft” (Bennington 33) and how money affected the war effort in Vietnam. Mr. Bennington believed that “The

Marine Corps existed for me” due to his success in all that the Corps offered him. He recounted how things started to fall apart in Vietnam as Ton Son Nhut Airbase was attacked prompting a mass helicopter evacuation, in which he led the rooftop portion. Mr.

Bennington described how “People would give you wads of hundred dollar bills to take their child” (Bennington 43) and he had to make “life and death decisions on human beings” (Bennington 43). He continued talking about how 10 Marines and him were accidentally left on top of the American Embassy. Mr. Bennington described his thoughts once a helicopter appeared that “it’s either the good guys, or it’s the bad guys and we’re

screwed” (Bennington 48). He finished recounting his story by describing his journey back to the crowded Navy ships and the trouble he encountered on them. He went on explaining how he thought the Americans won the war in a different respect and how the

United States did not handle the war as well as it should have also noting that “I don’t think we had any business in the beginning” (Bennington 57-58).

Whether the United States is justified in getting involved in Vietnam or should have left them to deal with their civil war on their own is a widely debated issue by historians. In a previous Oral History, US Army Major Robert Lawrence Dance stated that, “the Vietnamese War was a result of the Cold War mentality, we really needed to have gotten beyond that” and that “Had we analyzed their history… we would have not been involved in that there” (Jimenez 35). Dance argues that had the United States gotten past their “Cold War mentality” and actually analyzed the history of Vietnam, the United

States wouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place. Similarly, Mr. Bennington stated,

“I don’t think we had any business in the beginning. None whatsoever. Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with the United States. Was it really communism? No. We were afraid of the Soviet Union for how many years? We called it the Cold War. Man. With one sentence President Reagan just destroys them: Tear down this wall” (Bennington 58).

Both Bennington and Dance state that the Cold War and the thought of communism spreading feared the United States into getting involved in the United States. Bennington argues that if the United States looked past their fear of communism they would have realized that the conflict in Vietnam did not have any business with the United States.

Bennington continues by showing that with just a few words Ronald Reagan led the

Soviet Union to collapse, suggesting that in the time of the Vietnam War the United

States was too fearful instead of taking a strong stance. He states, “The issue is between

North Vietnam and South Vietnam. It was a civil war. We had one in this country. I didn’t see nobody rushing over to help the North or help the South. We just kind of slugged it out” (Bennington 58). Bennington believed that the civil war in Vietnam should have been fought with only Vietnamese and not outside help. Bennington and

Dance both believe that if the Vietnamese had been left to their own devices to handle their civil war the outcome would have been better.

Historians regard the Fall of Saigon and loss of the Vietnam War as one of the worst times in American History. Historian George C. Herring stated, “The Fall of South

Vietnam had a profound impact in the United States. Some Americans expressed hope that the nation could finally put aside a painful episode from its past and get on with the business of the future. Among a people accustomed to celebrating peace with ticker-tape parades, however, this first defeat in war left a deep residue of frustration, anger, and disillusionment. Americans generally agreed the war had been a “senseless tragedy” and a “dark moment” in their nation’s history” (Herring 263-264). Herring is describing the feelings of the loss of the Vietnam War felt by Americans. Herring is saying that nothing good came out of this “dark moment” and “senseless tragedy” of American history.

However, Mr. Bennington believed that the United States won the war in a different respect by “sheer influence of American servicemen” (Bennington 55). Mr. Bennington stated, “Look, if you take a look at the thousands that we got out, how many Marines were actually there that did that? Well at the American Embassy there was 20 of us, and we took out thousands. Ton Sun Nhut Airbase, they took out thousands. There was only maybe a company of Marines out there, what’s that 70 Marines? Today there’s a very

large portion of South Vietnamese that live in this country that: number one wouldn’t have a life, number two they’re American citizens. Most important is they’re now serving in our military, they are our doctors, they’re our lawyers, they’re our college professors, their children speak perfect English” (Bennington 53). Bennington argues that although the Vietnam War was technically lost, it was still a win for the United States due to the influx of Vietnamese refugees into the United States who to this day are contributing to society. He states that for the small amount of Marines running the evacuation, thousands of Vietnamese could still be evacuated, escaping the North Vietnamese takeover. Even though the Vietnam War was a “painful episode”, Bennington makes sure to point out the great things that happened because of it. Also, Bennington describes how one day,

“When sitting at my desk one day, I get a phone call from this Captain. It was in

California. Didn’t know him, but he knew me. He said, “you don’t know me, but in 1975 my parents came to America, off that American Embassy roof and they remember you”.

Think about it. This guy is a Captain in the Marine Corps now. Wow! How do you top that? How do you top that?” (Bennington 54). The value of Bennington’s interview is twofold. His account of his experience in Vietnam is consistent with historian’s account of the Fall of Saigon. Bennington contributes a new dimension to previously studied history. However, his view on how the United States won diminishes what is widely accepted by historians, due to his personal experiences with the Vietnamese refugees, who he believes to have advanced American society.

There are very few opportunities to be able to interview someone in such depth and detail as I did in the Oral History Project. Although the Oral History project is a long and tedious process, each step is designed to ensure a carefully produced, accurate

primary source. This project has taught me that there is much more history about an event than what a history textbook includes. Each person who was involved in a historical event has his own personal story full of emotion. An interview is more personal and provides a more relatable historical text. The whole process of the Oral History project initially daunted me, but as time went on I enjoyed it more and more. It was a lot of work, but to be able to see every portion of the project culminate is amazing. Mr. Bennington’s emotions he felt during his experience in the Vietnam War are impossible to capture in a traditional history textbook. Each Oral History provides refreshing insight to a topic that has been studied and broken down by historians for years. I can now understand what historians have to face when producing a reliable source after completing this project. I believe that I am providing new insight to the Fall of Saigon and the 11 Marines that were accidentally left behind at the United States Embassy in Saigon. After completing this project, I have a stronger appreciation for history.

Appendix A

South Vietnamese trying to climb over the United States Embassy Gates in Saigon

Appendix B

Terry Bennington (left) and Steve Bauer (right) arrive on the USS Blue Ridge

Appendix C

The 11 Marines secured on the United States Embassy roof are preparing for whatever

situation is handed to them

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