Saturday, April 11, 2015

BEGINNING OF THE END

I remember seeing this on the front page of the Bangkok Post, April 12, 1975. I was sixteen years old. I will never, never forget what happened after we abandoned Indochina to the Communists . . . S.L.

U.S. Marines provide cover during Operation Eagle Pull as Americans and Cambodians board Marine helicopters in Phnom Penh during the final U.S. pullout of Cambodia. (AP Photo/File)

Five days after Operation Eagle Pull, the dramatic evacuation of Americans, the U.S.-backed government fell as Communist Khmer Rouge guerrillas stormed into Phnom Penh. Nearly 2 million Cambodians - one in every four - would die from executions, starvation and hideous torture.



Twelve helicopters, bristling with guns and U.S. Marines, breached the morning horizon and began a daring descent toward Cambodia's besieged capital. Residents believed the Americans were rushing in to save them, but at the U.S. Embassy, in a bleeding city about to die, the ambassador wept.

Forty years later, John Gunther Dean recalls one of the most tragic days of his life — April 12, 1975 - the day the United States "abandoned Cambodia and handed it over to the butcher."

"We'd accepted responsibility for Cambodia and then walked out without fulfilling our promise. That's the worst thing a country can do," he says in an interview in Paris. "And I cried because I knew what was going to happen."

Thank you, Peace Movement, for giving us the lowest point in American history, and handing millions over to Communist butchers to be slaughtered.

STORMBRINGER SENDS

10 comments:

  1. We also did the same to the South Vietnamese. To this very day I don't know what happened to our battalion interpreter.

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  2. TomR,armed in TexasApril 12, 2015 at 3:24 AM

    I was an L19 Birddog crew chief at Camau RVN. in 1966-69. I have yet to run across one Vietnamese that got out from that deep in the Mekong Delta. For almost 50 years I can only guess what happened to the scores of Vietnamese I befriended in those days. It is too difficult for me to cry about them. I can only hate the American Democratic Party and Henry Kissinger for giving them to the communists. Today I just wish the best for Vietnam and can see it as a potential ally as China flexes her new muscles.

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  3. The difference between the American Democratic Party and the American Communist Party is.... Well, I'm sure there is one, I just can't think of what it might be.


    Paul L. Quandt

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  4. What happened after both of our betrayals tears at the decent, while those responsible(the dems, leftists, and progs) see and take absolutely no ownership for the wholesale slaughter by their counterparts in Asia. It is sad, sick reality, a repeat to be avoided at all costs.

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  5. I read about it in the ship's newspaper when I was aboard USS Independence CV62 in the Mediterranean Sea

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  6. Is this the Beginning of the end of the Blog??

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    1. I sure hope not. I keep checking each morning.... Must still be deployed... What goes TDY stays TDY I guess


      DOL

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  7. I hope this all comes back on line soon!

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  8. this is really the beginning of end as world is battling with guns.

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  9. guns has demolished our world. this is high time to stop this arm race.

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