50 Years Later, Reflections on Vietnam – From Those Who Lived It

SPECIAL REPORT — Fifty years in the past this week, the lengthy U.S. conflict in Vietnam got here to an finish. U.S. fight troops had left the nation two years earlier than, however on April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese forces captured the South Vietnamese capital Saigon. It was a profoundly tough second for the USA and its allies in Vietnam; the U.S.-backed authorities within the South collapsed, and the final American civilians and army personnel had been evacuated, together with tens of 1000’s of South Vietnamese who had labored with the People and the federal government within the South. It might be the largest-scale helicopter evacuation in historical past, and it produced searing photographs of the evacuees being ferried from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. 

Ever since, the lengthy and failed conflict in Vietnam has provoked debate in regards to the use and limits of American energy, and policymakers and army commanders have drawn completely different classes from the battle. A half century later, The Cipher Temporary turned to former U.S. officers and members of our community who had been concerned within the Vietnam conflict in numerous methods, and requested for his or her reflections, and the teachings they’ve drawn from their very own experiences.