Authors: Jr. James E. Parker
Around 0800, the
Pioneer Contender
suddenly accelerated. Despite our best efforts to stay in front, she passed us to the east and was gone. Nice guys, I thought.
I had motioned the other boat to come up beside us and we were traveling along more or less evenly when Ros tapped me on the arm and motioned to the west. My first thought was that we
had come in close to shore. Then I thought we were drifting toward an island, because we were going forward, but it seemed that the island was closing.
I tried to increase our speed, but the more I throttled forward, the more erratic the boat became. And the island
was
getting closer.
The Filipinos’ boat moved ahead, leaving me to fight the back-and-forth motion of our landing boat.
The island kept getting closer and I was unable to stop the drift. Then I noticed boats between us and the island. Ros took the wheel while I reached for binoculars and fixed them on the approaching boats. They were filled with people. And that wasn’t an island behind them, but many more boats, also filled with people.
The boats were overtaking us. What are those Filipinos doing that I’m not doing? I thought desperately, because their boat was moving ahead. They must have a better boat. That was no consolation, because behind me, maybe a hundred boats were bearing down, straight at us. For what? Who told them I was here? I was taking this very personally. Perhaps they weren’t coming at me. Perhaps they were heading to Vung Tau and we were just in the way.
I could barely see the
Pioneer Contender
on the horizon. She wasn’t extending the distance between us, and I wondered if I should be so lucky that she was, in fact, at Vung Tau. I had no way of knowing exactly where we were. All I knew for sure was that a haggard Cambodian and I were somewhere off the coast of Vietnam the day after the Americans had been evacuated and that a hundred boats were rushing up to us. Could they be North Vietnamese attack boats? No, they must surely be South Vietnamese boat people heading to Vung Tau, I decided, so I turned the boat southeast to get out of their way. And they turned in my direction. The whole fleet. Why me? The Filipinos’ boat continued to move toward the
Pioneer Contender
.
The first boat, lightly loaded with civilians, reached us from the rear. We had no weapons, thanks to the U.S. Navy, but Ros had found a knife somewhere. He looked to me for instructions, but I decided that we could not fend off one boat, much less the many others behind it.
I told Ros to yell at them to go on to Vung Tau, that they would be taken care of at Vung Tau. Ros went to the side of the boat and yelled. I had never heard him raise his voice before and was surprised at how squeaky it was.
The people on the boat ignored him, and someone threw a rope over a cleat on the side of our landing craft. Another boat came up on the other side and lashed on. People from both boats began piling into the landing craft. As other boats arrived, they tied onto the first boats, and their passengers scrambled into our craft. Soon the only place where we did not have boats around us was to our bow. The tongue of the landing craft prevented them from making purchase there.
Quickly our landing craft filled with people, settling the bow into the water, and I could see the ocean in front from the driving console.
More boats were coming up behind, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to see them because so many boats had tied up to one another. I told Ros to get four or five men and bring them to me. Within minutes he was back with a dark, swarthy crew. I told him to say that their being on board was no problem and I would look after them once we arrived at Vung Tau, but we could not take on any more passengers. I wanted them to go around and cut the lines holding the boats to our craft.
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 body 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.