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Article: Army colonel remembers ignoble U.S. retreat from Saigon.(The Gazette)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- April 30, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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(Editors: resending to correct slug)
As Army Col. John Madison was wafted into the humid, pearly dawn of April 30, 1975, aboard one of the last U.S. choppers to leave Vietnam, he peered down at the city of Saigon, ringed by communist troops.
The streets of the bustling capital were deserted. The rat-a-tat of gunfire, the rumble of shelling, the clamor of panicky residents had faded into eerie silence. Street lamps bathed the main avenues for the advancing Viet Cong, lighting the way for the blood bath everyone expected.
"It looked like the city was waiting to be raped," the 72-year-old Madison recalled last week, seated in the sun room of his ...