In Memoriam: The End of a Country

Fifty years ago today, most Americans watched on their TV sets as the last helicopter lifted off the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam. These shocking images documented the end of over a decade of direct U.S. involvement in the War in Vietnam. While the Paris Peace Accord (January 1973) had officially ended American combat activities, the fighting in South-East Asia had continued. Yet, in April 1975 the inevitable happened, and South Vietnam as a country ceased to exist. Over 58,000 American lives were lost in the effort to defend it from Communist encroachment, and over a million South Vietnamese lives were lost in their desperate struggle against the forces of the NRVN and Viet Cong. For the American people this war proved to be extremely divisive and for those who fought it, the experience would never leave them. But for the millions of South Vietnamese, it also meant the destruction of their society, their country and for many it meant imprisonment, exile and death. This sense of losing one’s country and everything it represented, for better or worse, affects a person’s consciousness and sense of identity. Even when what was lost, was arguably troubled or even criminal, it was still the only country or society millions of its inhabitants knew, and many had served and fought for.

This sentiment of irreparable loss was part of my family’s experience as well. We lived with the collective family memory of the homeland my grandparents and great-grandparents had lost when they escaped westward, one step ahead of the Red Army that had conquered East Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania. The country they knew became a memory as part of the Potsdam conference in 1945, where 600 years of Prussian history were wiped out with three signatures. Their language, their culture and their memories would eventually die out, and in 2025, only my 91-year-old aunt still survives. But to this day, she wonders whether the “good China” her mom hid behind the tile oven in Tilsit in December 1944 from the Russians, would still be there. Her apartment block still stands, but it her street now has a Russian name, and she can never return. My grandfather’s farm in Upper Silesia became part of a collective during the Communist rule in Poland and today we would not be able to find any traces of his birthplace. In 1990, my aforementioned aunt, who came as a 10-year-old refugee to the Soviet occupied zone, saw her country, the GDR, cease to exist again, when the two Germanies reunited.

To lose one’s country twice in one lifetime is unusual and hard to accept. While nobody in their right mind would want the East German Communist government back, for my aunt and many others, everything they had worked for, the lives they had built for their families, was devalued and dismissed, just as it had for their parents when they left East Prussia and Silesia, and as it happened in 1975 to the South Vietnamese, and countless others all over the world since then. And for the millions who could not flee, they had no choice but to stay behind and accept the new regime of the former enemy.

In addition to accepting enemy rule, those left behind also need to accommodate themselves to the absence of their former Allies. In 1975, by the time Saigon fell, the U.S. had removed all of its presence from the country, after having been a key economic, political, military and even socio-cultural influence on the country for a decade and a half. This abrupt and complete loss of socio-economic contribution often has an immense impact on the society left behind. The challenges of living in an occupied county or city notwithstanding, the permanent presence of a different power also exposes the population to other cultures and in many cases, offers up potential opportunities for financial and societal advancement. Once an ally or occupier (take your pick) moves out, all the infrastructure and identity with said power also leaves. This is often a double-edged sword, and while many rejoice and welcome their departure, to many others it will mean the loss of employment, status, opportunity and contact with another culture, in this case, America and everything it stands for.

The fall of Saigon meant the end of the era of uncontested American power. It caused a huge rift in American society, many of its veterans were abandoned by their country in many ways, and in the subsequent years, thousands of its former Allies, the South Vietnamese who had fought against the North and had worked for the US forces would eventually make their way here, while millions were left behind and forced to live in the country of their former enemy. To this day, many South Vietnamese Americans, as well as those who stayed behind, maintain a place in their heart for “their” country. The same goes for many American veterans who fought and lived “in country.” Part of who they are still identifies with their experience during the war which has shaped them throughout their lives. While we can celebrate the end to hostilities, we also want to remember the untold indirect fallout of war on everyone involved.

This post is dedicated to all the Vietnam Veterans in my life such as CSM W. Roberts, SFC J. Warren, and the “fellas at the Oskar Helene Heim station,” and everybody else who served and fought in Vietnam; to the South Vietnamese who have found a second home in the United States and to those who are still there; to my aunt who left a piece of her heart in Tilsit and another part in East Berlin; and for the millions of refugees who are currently running for their lives, one step ahead of death, suffering through refugee camps, Kafkaesque bureaucracies, always in search for a safe haven, and for everyone who is right now cowering in a bunker while shells and missiles are falling all around them. Keep the Faith.