Thanks for your service, but I disagree with your analysis on Ford.
He was in no position to do much of anything. The American public would not have gone along with him. The country had been poisoned by liberals, and their planned weakening of the Executive branch was at its apogee.
I agree with your sentiments on how we stabbed the South Vietnamese in the back, but I really do not think Ford could have done anything about it. Congress was in control there.
I had an interesting encounter a few months ago. Over the years, I have interacted every so often with a Vietnamese guy who is an equipment repairman. I admit, I never liked him much. He is very difficult to understand, can be really brusque and was just generally, in my opinion, a pain in the ass.
I had to spend about half a day working a problem with him, and since there was a lot of dead time in the process, we began chatting on a personal level to kill time, something we had never done before.
Turned out, he was a captain of a ship in the South Vietnamese Navy. As I got him to open up, he told me about his experiences being "re-educated". His eyes got a far off look, and after a distracted, long pause, he said in a very faint voice "Sometimes I cannot believe what I went through. It seems like it was all a dream."
He escaped after (I think he said) five years, made his way to the coast and stole a small open boat. He spent 10 days on the open ocean in the South China Sea. He eventually made it to another country, and then to the USA.
I have ALWAYS been ashamed of what we did to our allies. But seeing it plainly visible on this guy's face was painful to me. I told him I hated what the USA had done to him, and people like him.
Now, when I see him, he gives me a big, wide grin, a wave and a greeting. The contrast in this man, just from ME knowing what he did is astounding. This from a guy who never, ever betrayed even a smidgen of emotion before.
In a way, I have a feeling I helped him somehow.
And I am glad that our country has seen fit to give you, and people like you the respect and recognition you greatly deserve for serving in that conflict.
John Fking Kerry not withstanding!
Yours was a post worth reading. Thank you, and tell that man from me that I'm glad he's an American.
I had to apologize to an Iraqi shiite once. I am glad you were able to reach out to him.
My point about Ford is that he didn't TRY. Do I think he could have gotten something done? Yeah, I do. The American people woukld have coughed up aid - it was only money, not U.S troops. But he didn't. My opinion? Ford had been an insider for so long, he couldn't work any other way.
And I still think of the ARVNs I was training, and wondering what happened to them.
One of my coworkers is also a vet of the South Vietnamese Navy. He got out in the general evacuation with his wife (a couple of his siblings spent years in the re-education camps), first to Guam and then the continental US, from there to working on an apple farm in New York state, to ditch-digging in Pennsylvania, and then decided he needed to go back to school. He got an engineering degree and things got a lot better. His children are all very successful and he is too. But yes it was shameful how we turned our back on South Vietnam (BTW he went back to visit for the first time in thirty years last summer).
Thank you for telling that story. We must not let it happen again.