choochoo Posted April 29, 2015 Share #1 Posted April 29, 2015 Anyone catch this on PBS last night? Good documentary of the fall of Saigon from the perspective of those there. Felt like too much was left on the editing room floor. Could have been much longer than 2 hours. But, still a good watch. If you missed it, you can still stream it for free from the PBS website. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/lastdays/player/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBFloyd Posted April 29, 2015 Share #2 Posted April 29, 2015 Well done. Lots of selective memories on display. Interesting to hear the Vietnamese perspective for once. An interesting aspect for me was that I was in Thailand at the time. My photo interpreters were turning out photo maps, targeting data, and current intelligence images, so I watched things in "strobe light" fashion -- a batch of images today showing forward positions and then nothing for two days, when the positions had melted away. We watched the Vietnamese Marines and Airborne troops holding steady, while the ARVN collapsed on their flanks. I recall tracking the SAMs as they moved south and reporting daily on their positions. It was a count-down to the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bellumbill Posted April 29, 2015 Share #3 Posted April 29, 2015 I haven't watched yet - have it recorded - looking forward to it. Just FYI, someone on the forum here has Capt. Harrington's uniforms and some documents! Very best, Bill K. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted April 29, 2015 Share #4 Posted April 29, 2015 I haven't watched yet - have it recorded - looking forward to it. Just FYI, someone on the forum here has Capt. Harrington's uniforms and some documents! Very best, Bill K. Stu Herrington came by my flea market booth Tuesday to let me know about the documentary's premiere that night on PBS. The film has been shown at film festivals around the country and this past weekend he led a program at the USS Midway museum ship where 600 people watched the film and engaged him in a Q&A afterwards. I watched the first minutes of it on PBS and my wife and I were both fascinated at the tale unfolding in the show: it's on PBS streaming so we decided to wait until Friday or Saturday night when our 16-year-old doesn't have homework and can sit down with us and watch the whole thing. I figure it's a good history lesson for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gomorgan Posted April 29, 2015 Share #5 Posted April 29, 2015 I watched it and thought it was great, brought back a flood of memories, and things that I had not thought of in many years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garandomatic Posted April 30, 2015 Share #6 Posted April 30, 2015 Is this the one that was discussed on here before? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted April 30, 2015 Share #7 Posted April 30, 2015 Is this the one that was discussed on here before? Yes - and one of our forum members had some great uniforms and other items he got direct from Col. Herrington some years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capa Posted April 30, 2015 Share #8 Posted April 30, 2015 It was moving and well done. Glad it didn't pull any punches. What a fiasco punctuated with amazing military and civilian heroism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOLO Posted May 2, 2015 Share #9 Posted May 2, 2015 a friend that escaped VN in the late 1970's - early 1980 era tells me he actually walked from Saigon all the way through North Vietnam and on to Hong Kong as a refugee, I dont know how he did it but he says he posed as a local and and traveled with his brother. possibly because he could also speak Chinese and Vietnamese Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Hudson Posted May 2, 2015 Share #10 Posted May 2, 2015 We watched it last night. My 16-year-old was a little hesitant when I told him he had to sit down and watch it with us, but he really got into it, as did my wife and myself. Really fascinating account with probably more detail and intrigue than most of us Ever knew. I was a journalist in those days, and visited the first Vietnamese refugee camp at Camp Pendleton in 1975 and did about a 20 minute radio documentary soon after the camp opens. I need to get that transferred from real to reel tape: I think at some point a State Department representative tells me they expect 20,000 or so Vietnamese to eventually settle in the United States. By 1982 280,000 Vietnamese refugees were resettled into the US and today about 1.7 million Americans have Vietnamese ancestry and it is the seventh most used language in the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave peifer Posted May 3, 2015 Share #11 Posted May 3, 2015 my wife and i watched it thursday evening.........we really liked it...............dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zotig111 Posted May 6, 2015 Share #12 Posted May 6, 2015 I watched it this weekend. I thought it was pretty well done. PBS did a good job of weaving the story from the US government and man on the street perspective. I had a friend serving on the USS Hancock and he corroborated the CIA helicopter ferry operations... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Marine Posted May 6, 2015 Share #13 Posted May 6, 2015 That is an excellent movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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