Last Man Out

by James E. Parker, Jr.

  As Ros translated I looked up and saw dozens of people, some carrying guns, scramble over the boats toward us. I grabbed two men in the group and pointed to one side. I pushed one of the remaining men to the other side and told them to hurry and cut the ropes. Ros repeated my instructions and the men leaped away, calling on some of their friends to help.

  Within minutes we were free of the boats and we pulled forward. It was a wonderful relief to find that the landing craft maneuvered nimbly and could make speed with a full cargo. I located the tall silhouette of the Pioneer Contender in the distance and gave the boat full power. It surged ahead and we began to leave the fishing boats behind.

  I passed the Filipinos’ boat, which had stayed well ahead of the boats that overtook me. By midday on 30 April 1975 we were near the Pioneer Contender, which sat amid an assortment of oceangoing vessels, barges, fishing boats, and U.S. Navy ships. The port city of Vung Tau was off to the northwest.

  Tugboat Control had mentioned meeting me south of Vung Tau, but no boat came out as I headed north. When I came alongside the Pioneer Contender, the captain welcomed me over his loudspeaker. I yelled up that I had some more guests for him. Very special people, every one. He shook his head, but soon the rope ladder dropped over the side.

  The first officer yelled down that a U.S. Navy tender was coming soon to pick me up. He told me to hurry with whatever I was doing and get ready to go to the ship, but I said that I had to deliver the landing craft to Tugboat Control before I did anything else.

  “Your friends have already left,” the first officer yelled.

  “Come on.”

  I pretended that I couldn’t hear him. After everyone was offloaded, Ros pushed us off from the side of the ship.

  With the Filipinos following, we went out into the swirling mass of boats and debris. The harbor was ravaged by the war’s end. Refugees were clinging to anything that would float, paddling with their hands and pieces of boards, standing in boats, holding children, arms outstretched to us and oceangoing vessels. Oil spills and litter swirled with the tide.

  What looked like hundreds of Vietnamese were standing on a pier as they waited to be loaded onto a barge being moved into place nearby. A U.S. Navy ship, maneuvering in the northern part of the harbor, fired into a hill overlooking the evacuation area. I moved toward shore, past the barge near the pier, and tried to find someone in charge. Four or five large oceangoing tugboats were in the area. As we came alongside one, I yelled out and asked for directions to Tugboat Control.

  “Tugboat Control? Are you tetched? Bloody Tugboat Control was in Saigon. The docks at Newport. They pulled out last night.” The sailor had a distinctive Australian accent. For a moment I thought I was hallucinating, that overnight I had traveled into The Twilight Zone. The voices at Tugboat Control had been American and I assumed the tugboats and other evacuation craft would have been crewed by Americans. I had also expected an organized evacuation of people, where there would be a clear need for the landing boats. But before me was a crowded, chaotic harbor clogged with thousands of hysterical refugees. And a sarcastic Aussie appeared to be in charge.

  “Pulled out, are you crazy? Where’d they go?” I asked.

  “Out to sea. They’re on the Chitosa Maru. They brought this barge down the Saigon River. We needed your boats before we got the barge, but that’s it. You supposed to meet them, mate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’re almost finished here. We’ve only the Pioneer Contender left to load.”

  “You don’t need these landing craft?” I asked, suddenly very tired.

  “Nope. We did, now we don’t.”

  “You want these boats?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’ve broken my ass and was almost sunk trying to get them up here. You hear what I’m saying?”

  “We’re finished.”

  “I brought these boats up from the mouth of the Bassac River for you to use in evacuating some of those people over there!” I was getting angrier by the second.

  “Okay,” said the Aussie. “Okay, tie up to me. We’ll use them.”

  We tied both landing boats to the tug and were taken back to the Pioneer Contender. When I climbed up the rope ladder I was coming to know so well and got on deck, I learned that I had just missed the Navy tender. Captain Flink said she probably would be back to pick me up but not to worry if she didn’t. I could have my old stateroom back. He said he’d like that anyway, so he’d have someone around to help him deal with all the people on board.

  “Thank you for the stateroom, my friend,” I said. “I am going to bed. If anyone calls for me, if the Navy boat comes back, tell them to go away.”

  As I turned to leave the bridge I looked around. With the advantage of the Pioneer Contender’s height, I could see U.S. Navy ships out to sea, the chaotic harbor, and the beaches crowded with people and personal belongings.

  A tugboat under power held the barge against the pier. The press of people reached from the beach to the end of the pier. As the crowd surged forward, some people near the end were pushed off into the mass of humanity fighting for space on the barge below. The tugboat crew was unfazed and kept the barge steadily braced. The crowd suddenly surged forward again, and more people were pushed off, some falling, screaming, into the water. Two gangplanks were crowded with refugees slowly making their way onto the barge. Everyone was carrying something—women had children in their arms, men had suitcases, boys bags, soldiers guns. Everyone was pushing frantically, desperately.

  Suddenly an artillery round whistled overhead and landed in the middle of the harbor. Then another, as if the enemy gunner was registering his rounds. The people on the gangplanks continued to press forward. I saw their mouths open wide in horror when the tugboat reversed its engines and began to pull the barge slowly away from the pier. Men, women, and children tried to jump on board, but many were not successful. As the tugboat and barge moved farther away from shore I could see people in the water behind them. Slowly the boat and barge turned and started in our direction through the maze of smaller vessels—makeshift rafts, fishing vessels, South Vietnamese Navy lighters. More shells began to land randomly in the harbor. A U.S. Navy ship moved by us briefly and fired her huge deck guns in the direction of the North Vietnamese gun position, but the ship soon fell back and the incoming rounds continued. Smoke from fires near a warehouse onshore drifted by us out to sea. A low wail from thousands of desperate people drifted across the harbor.

  From Vietnam, ARVN helicopters, singly and in groups of two and three, made their way out to sea in search of a receptive U.S. Navy ship. One helicopter, awkwardly flying alone, suddenly exploded, like faulty fireworks, and debris rained down on the sea south of the barge making its slow way toward us.

  Looking over the harbor, back to Vietnam, I thought about my ten years’ involvement with the war. I had landed there in Vung Tau during the buildup of American forces in 1965. As a CIA case officer, I was the last American out.

  I had been so young when I arrived. I thought about the times I led men into combat, and I remembered battlefield events both frightful and funny. Clear images swirled before my eyes—lost comrades, arrogant American bureaucrats, angry South Vietnamese generals berating me for abandoning them on the battlefield. I had put so many people into body bags. I was leaving friends behind.

  And I saw antiwar slogans, talking heads on TV, student demonstrations. I remembered coming home as a soldier, proudly wearing my uniform, and how Dad shook my hand and how Mom, crying, ran her trembling fingers across my lips. I remembered coming down from the fighting in the hills of Laos—the kids squealing when I came in the front gate, all the lights on in the house, Brenda standing on the porch smiling, Disney musicals blaring in the background.

  But, mostly, I remembered the fighting. I shut my eyes and heard the familiar sounds of battle—bombs going off, bullets whizzing overhead, helicopter blades whirring noisily above me, men screaming. I remembered the surges of adrenaline as my bo
dy tensed when I heard noises in the jungle night. I remembered holding Goss when he died and saw the young North Vietnamese soldier struggling gallantly to live. I smelled the dead from the ARVN 21st Division morgue. I felt the tight confines of the tunnel at Cu Chi when I knew a wounded VC was nearby, underground, in the dark. I saw the VC coming up out of the hole and I saw the muzzle blast as he fired at me. I heard Slippery Clunker Six reciting poetry, and I remembered standing by his body bag at Minh Thanh. And always the civilians—the children huddling next to their mother in Can Tho, the farmers refusing to make eye contact, the orphans playing at Vi Thanh, and Loi protecting my body. I saw the Asian moon through layers of jungle and the sun rising in the mountains and setting over rice fields. I could taste the lukewarm, iodized water from my canteen and Castro’s C-ration stew, and I could smell putrid sweat and feel the rain and the heat and the pain and the anguish and I heard myself yell at Patrick not to die.

  My mind was briefly out of control. Everything I had seen or heard or thought or done in the war merged, then became one with the chaotic scene before me, and I stopped and looked at the Vung Tau harbor and the thousands of South Vietnamese refugees who were trying to follow us home.

  What was the value to it all?

  Standing on the bridge of the Pioneer Contender and looking back at Vietnam, I suddenly sensed—in a startling moment of clarity—that even though we had lost, we had done right by going there to fight the war. History will look kindly on our good intentions to save a country from being overrun by an aggressive neighbor.

  We did not win because the government that we came to save, the government of South Vietnam, was incompetent and corrupt and did not represent the people. And we did not win because American politicians and policy makers were guilty of incredibly bad decisions, from start to finish.

  It seemed to me that the lasting legacy of the war was the men who had answered their country’s call and gave their lives in Vietnam. In a time of shifting values, they reaffirmed the ageless principles of duty and country. They acquitted themselves in the finest traditions of American fighting men. They died young, in battle, with honor. Heroes, every one.

  Facing the shore, I saluted them, slowly, with military precision.

  I stood silent for a moment, turned, and went below.

  The war was over.

  Loaded with thousands of Vietnamese refugees, the Pioneer Contender heaved anchor early the next morning and pointed her bow east. Vietnam faded behind us.

  EPILOGUE

  General Hung and General Hai

  At 7:00 P.M. on 30 April 1975, General Hung, the former ARVN 21st Division commander and my friend, called his wife into his office in Can Tho. He told her that ten townspeople had come to him and asked him to not fight the advancing VC in their city’s streets. The Communists would shell the city and leave it waste, they said, and many civilians would die. Hung told his wife he understood and had agreed not to turn Can Tho into a hopeless battlefield. He also said a contingency plan to retreat with some of his soldiers to an isolated area of the delta had been compromised and was no longer viable. Surrendering was not an option. He could not bear even to meet with the ranking VC in the area, Major Hoang Van Thach, to discuss turning the delta over to the Communists. And he would not flee his country. He had an obligation to the men who had given their lives in its defense.

  He was left with one honorable alternative, he said. He must take his own life.

  His wife cried and pleaded with him to reconsider. “Why can’t we leave for a foreign country like the others?” she asked.

  He reminded her again of his duty to his country and to his soldiers. And he continued, softly, slowly, “Don’t let me lose my determination. Continuing to fight now will only bring trouble and loss not only to our family but to soldiers and civilians also. And I don’t want to see the sight of any Communists.”

  He stood, embraced his wife, and wept. Finally he said, “Hurry up and ask your mother and the children to come in to see me.”

  When his mother-in-law and the children came into his office, he said good-bye to them, kissing each child.

  All the soldiers in his outer office came in next, lined up, expecting orders.

  Hung told them the fighting was finished. He said the country was lost because of poor leadership in Saigon and asked their forgiveness if he, personally, had made mistakes. The atmosphere was solemn. “I accept death,” he said. “Good-bye, my brothers.”

  He saluted them and then shook each man’s hand. He asked everyone to leave. Some of his men did not move, so he pushed them out the door, shook off his wife’s final pleas, and finally was alone in his office.

  Within moments there was a shot. General Hung was dead.

  On the morning of May 1, 1975, at the mobile headquarters of the ARVN 7th Division, General Hai’s first lieutenant military aide came into his office.

  General Hai lay facedown at his desk. Alone, without saying good-bye to anyone, he had committed suicide during the night. A half-empty glass of brandy was nearby.

  Do not stand by my grave and weep:

  I am not there. I do not sleep.

  I am a thousand winds that blow.

  I am the diamond’s glint on snow.

  I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

  I am the gentle autumn’s rain.

  When you awake in the morning’s hush,

  I am the swift uplifting rush

  Of quiet birds in circle flight.

  Do not stand by my grave and cry:

  I am not there. I did not die.

  —Anonymous

  Central Highlands of Vietnam

  ca. 1969

  “Duty, honor, country.”

  —GEN. DOUGLAS MACARTHUR

  Elmer Lee Van Pelt, III, basic training buddy extraordinaire.

  Lieutenant Taylor, the Officer Candidate School tactical officer who was determined to run me off. I always felt better when I knew exactly where he was.

  Larry Peterson (left) and I in front of our OCS barracks at Fort Benning. We were both assigned to the same First Division Company out of OCS and served together in Vietnam. I was devastated when I heard that he’d been killed in action. Fortunately, that report proved false.

  At home with Dad soon after I graduated from OCS.

  S.Sgt. Donald “Cottonpicker” Lawrence, my hero and best friend in the 1950s.

  Larry Peterson and I with his parents in Fort Riley, Kansas, shortly before we left for Vietnam. The Petersons always looked after me as if I were a son.

  One of my rare moments of solitude aboard the USNS Mann as we crossed the Pacific.

  Preparing for patrol. I’m on the far left; PFC Ayers is the big soldier at right front.

  Pvt. Jack Lyons shortly after coming in from a platoon sweep around the battalion base camp. Note that he is wearing regular fatigues and leather boots. Our battalion did not receive jungle boots and camouflage fatigues until several months later.

  Battalion-level memorial service. We had a service after every operation in which we suffered casualties.

  Bob Dunn in the aid tent after being wounded the first of three times.

  A First Division soldier inside a VC tunnel near Cu Chi.

  Point man fording a creek. He is carrying an M-14 while the others have M-16s. As point man, he probably wanted the more dependable weapon.

  First Division soldiers waiting to move out.

  First Division soldiers waiting for a helicopter pickup. This was a typical scene as we prepared for the Battle of Min Thanh Road.

  A VC flag found in the village where PFC Cipriano was wounded. After we found the flag, we considered blowing the village up but decided against it.

  A rocket-launcher gunner and his ammo bearer. Carrying the ammo was hard work, and during a sweep operation, it was divided among several men.

  Armored personnel carrier destroyed in the Battle of Min Thanh Road. A dead VC is in the foreground.

  Faculty from the Fort Ord Drill Sergea
nt School. I’m at the far left, the officer in charge.

  On May 25, Brenda and I were married at the Cool Springs Baptist Church in Sanford, North Carolina, only five months after we’d met.

  Brenda and I just weeks after we’d adopted Joe and Mim.

  The airfield in the Long Tieng valley. The CIA compound was to the right of the large rock formation.

  Hmong troops on a CH-53 helicopter. In the 1960s, these men were some of the best fighters in the world.

  I am sitting with men from my GM on a position northeast of Long Tieng shortly after the cease-fire in 1973.

  My bodyguard, Loi, standing by the gifts for the orphans at the 1974 Christmas party. He desperately wanted to leave with me when the war ended but, in the confusion, was left behind.

  Tom F. (left) and Mac (bending over, right) on a boat outing with the staff and families from the CIA office in Can Tho in early 1975.

  South Vietnamese refugees aboard the Pioneer Contender en route to Phu Quoc Island from Cam Ranh Bay. I boarded the same ship days later and bid farewell to Vietnam.

  Capt. Edward C. Flink, master of the Pioneer Contender. He evacuated tens of thousands from Vietnam.

  Barge similar to the one used to transport refugees from the pier at Vung Tau to the Pioneer Contender.

  Hmong recruits receiving military training.

  Hmong recruits receiving marksmanship training in the mountains of Laos.

  Three members of my rifle platoon during a break from field operations.