BRATTLEBORO — There is nothing quite like serendipity.
April 29, 1975 is the day that the last U.S. helicopters took off from the South Vietnam capital of Saigon, and returned home. April 29 also happened to be the day that two local men very much involved in the Vietnam War, Alan Carter and Dr. Thomas Hoskins, visited my social studies class at Brattleboro Union High School.
Carter had gone to South Vietnam as an embassy worker, while Hoskins had gone as a physician.
On a video we watched about April 29 and the evacuation of Saigon, both men recognized different people. Carter recalled a conversation with a “head honcho” who essentially blamed him for a plane crash, and Hoskins laughed as his wife (when she was his girlfriend) was interviewed onscreen.
It was astounding to watch. As these two men talked about what was probably the darkest hour of their lives, they smiled and seemed genuinely content with reliving it. Perhaps a hero is not one who necessarily succeeds at everything, but one who can look back on what he or she has been through and be comfortable enough to show some teeth while doing so.
Both men told extraordinary stories about the day of evacuation.
Carter reminisced about trying to find a chopper, and about the thousands of people - both American and Vietnamese - trying to hustle their way out of a country that had the potential to erupt at any second. He flew out on the second-to-last helicopter leaving South Vietnam.
For this, he called himself a coward, implying that he would have stayed on if he had had any of the guts that he had “pretended” to have over the course of his embassy work.
In fact, the act of getting out at all was the opposite of cowardice. Thousands of people were milling around within American embassy territory, and tens of thousands more were outside the walls, all flinging themselves at the minuscule prospect of catching a ride on a chopper; those who could, hung off the bottoms and sides of helicopters, clinging to hope of life in a better place.
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Dr. Hoskins' story was less saddening but just as poignant. He met the woman who would eventually become his wife, Julie, in Da Nang. They became close and then, soon after meeting, had to separate for awhile.
Hoskins stayed on in South Vietnam after April 29 for another four or five months, helping out in a hospital for men who had lost arms or legs to land mines; the men would later be transferred to a hospital for less severe injuries. (The Vietnamese men who came to Dr. Hoskins' hospital were alarmed when they saw an American, since most had left back in April.)
Soon after he was transferred to the new hospital, he received a telegram from Julie: IF YOU LOVE ME, COME TO SAIGON.
Prior to Hoskins reading it, the telegram had been opened and read by almost everyone in the hospital. Apparently, the Vietnamese are enthralled by love stories, and every one of them who worked within a close radius of the hospital wanted to see how Hoskins would respond.
He immediately left for Saigon. He and Julie applied for a number that would enable them to fly home on the one airplane that was in their area, and after two months of waiting, they received it. They were married at a stop in Hong Kong on the way home.
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During their talk with us, Carter and Hoskins often exchanged knowing glances whose meaning the rest of us could only guess.
In all likelihood, we will never experience anything like they did, if only because of how much our technology has advanced.
We now fight wars with tactical spy software and undetectable, pilotless jets controlled from thousands of miles away. We have troops on the ground, but the vast majority of our wars are fought with technology.
The Vietnam War was fought with machinery used by men on the ground. Fully understanding the war is impossible for those who did not experience it, but we have the ability to get closer by learning from those who were there.
Thank you, Mr. Carter and Dr. Hoskins, for teaching us with first-hand experience.