Illustration above:
The day of the last helicopter out of Saigon
The name was Operation Frequent Wind. It is recognized as the largest helicopter airlift in history. The operation was carried out between the 29th and 30th of April, right at the brink of the Fall of Saigon in 1975. It was also the last US military operation in the Vietnam War. Seeing as there were no more hopes for the South Vietnam government, the US had planned for evacuation with standard procedure prior to April. Civilians were being flown out of Saigon by fixed-wing aircraft from Tan Son Nhat airport in March without obstruction from the PAVN, probably to avoid further confrontation with the US. Then on April 28th, the Tan Son Nhat Air Base next to Tan Son Nhat Airport was struck by artillery and got damaged. The safer option of evacuating through fixed-wing aircraft was no longer viable. Reference.
Bob Dylan wrote Subterranean Homesick Blues in 1965 (lyrics). The most famous line isn’t a repeating refrain but is only the last lines in this verse:
Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin' that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone's tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D.A.
Look out kid
Don't matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don't try "No Doz"
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows
The threat when Dylan wrote this was “the man” or the government which was waging both a war in Vietnam and against protesters at home.
1965 was considered the second year of the first stage of the anti-war movement:
The first stage, in 1964 and 1965, was led by two groups: left-wing activists organized into peace groups opposed to the Cold War and American intervention abroad, and college students who had come of age during the Southern civil rights movement and had seen how readily the government could divert its gaze from injustice. When the war expanded in 1965, the fledgling movement adopted two strategic goals: to give activists enough knowledge about Vietnam to be able to draw others into action, and to normalize opposition, since many Americans were hesitant to oppose their own country in a time of war. NY Times.
This is the last sentence in the above excerpt leaps out at me. Part one of the strategic goals of that movement has been achieve today. Our own movement against Trump and Trumpism has given us more than enough knowledge to understand the myriad dangers to our democracy, to our very freedom, of Trump and his cult. Likewise, part two, drawing others into action has also occurred.
The frightening part of this is that part three, normalizing opposition to Trump and Trumpism so it becomes a powerless fringe movement shows no signs of happening.
I have this grim thought when I read any article explaining the appeal of Trump and Trumpism and warning about how dangerous he and it is.
“On April 30, 1975, the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces.” Reference
Of course characterizing the people we were fighting in Vietnam as communists with the implication that they are evil misrepresents the fact that we were intervening in what was basically a civil war. This “evil regime” is now considered one of our closet allies in Southeast Asia.
Today we’re nowhere near any massive “airlift” abandoning Trumpism. In fact just this morning we read ‘We’re Going Back To The Capitol’: Ex Trump Campaign Official Announces ‘Huge’ Protest” in HuffPost.
I don’t envision any massive exodus of Trumpists being transported into irrelevance anytime soon. I do hope that down the road historians can draw a parallel between the hard fought success of the anti-war movement and the anti-Trump and anti-Trumpism movement.
The thing about weather is that the winds can change.
