Category: Vietnam War

Memorial Day Regret: I Did Not Serve

Commentary Like many of my generation—and this is not an excuse, merely, shall we say, a “chronological” notation—I never served in the military. Indeed, thinking myself morally and politically opposed to the Vietnam War, I did what I could to avoid the draft. 1964, the year of my college graduation—I was only twenty that June,…


‘It Felt Like You Were Reborn’: Vietnamese Australians on Their Escape From Communism

Forty-six years ago, on April 30, 1975, the tanks of the Northern Vietnamese army rolled into Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Min City), the capital of South Vietnam. A soldier jumped from the tank and ran into the presidential palace to raise the Viet Cong flag on the balcony of the fourth floor. The…