Reporting by Clayton Elmore, University of Montana School of Journalism
As the Vietnam War heated up and then wound down in the ‘70s, Americans who were there for multiple reasons had to find a way out. Two Montanans – one who was a boy then and another who was working with the CIA – talk about what that was like nearly 50 years after the end of the war.
In 1975, Kurt Keith’s father flew the family from Helena to Vietnam on a work trip. Kurt was 8 years old. His father promised him a vacation, but it turned out to be one of the worst summers of his life. "I remember a lot of crying with our people that were at our house and our friends because they were basically friends with us, Americans, that maybe they would be marked for some sort of punishment," said Keith. "I remember as a kid thinking, "oh my gosh, that's so unfair."
Charles Keith was an engineer sent to Vietnam during the war by his company, Morrison-Maierle. He worked on bridges and roads, many of them blown up. When the Americans were leaving in 1975, he knew he also needed to get his wife and kids out. They'd been there for about seven months. They were part of not only the chaos of leaving at the time, but also national news coverage of that chaos. Kurt Keith was interviewed by ABC News, along with others trying to leave.
"I remember it was very short amount of time," Keith said. "We had to get out of Da Lat and get back to Saigon and we don't know what's going to happen here. So we literally each packed a suitcase, like one little suitcase," he said.
Keith, who lives in Bozeman now and works for the same company as his father, still thinks about the people he met there. Several of them worked with his family and they became really close. He says his sister learned enough Vietnamese to have an even closer relationship. "We did have friends and I've not ever been able to track anybody down," said Keith. "I think my dad kept in touch with the head cook and her family, they tried to get people out and some did," he said.
The evacuation of his family was abrupt and rapid. "I remember getting to the airport and seeing folks from the area trying to get into the airport and they were being held back by military personnel," Keith said. "They couldn't go, they couldn't get on these planes that us and other the Vietnamese people were getting on to leave," he said.
Keith remembers waiting hours to board a plane that would take them safely and away from insanity. One of Keith's last memories of Vietnam was the view from 1,000 feet in the air. "I said to my mom, "oh mom, look, fireworks", and she said, "no, that's shelling," so wherever it was, to the north or south, you could see these explosions going off," Keith said.
Keith made it home safely, but it was an abrupt transition from beauty to chaos. His dad stayed behind and came home two weeks later. Now almost 50 years later, Keith explained that the period of time was one he will never forget. "It's just so sad that we had to all deal with so much pain and terrible things," he said.
Robert Rogers of Frenchtown was also in Vietnam in the ‘70s. He did not leave during the fall of Saigon, but his departure was definitely abrupt. He was part of a five-person Air Force stealth task force. "Our operation was run basically by the CIA. So when they exited, they took out our Operation Center, where we kept all the files and everything. They just took it out, put it in a pile, dumped aircraft fuel on it, lit it up and burned everything," explained Rogers.
This was 1972, and he still doesn't know why it all went down that way. "Some information was declassified in 2012. But before that, the only people we could talk to about it was the people that were in the operation," said Rogers.
Rogers' job was to track the location of North Vietnamese forces. After the destruction of the Op Center, Rogers was sent home. Vietnam had been his home for two years, and then it was gone. He stayed in the Air Force to finish out his contract, which included him staying in Special Ops and being sent back to the United States, and then to Germany, on further operation orders.
Then he got out. Rogers traveled the world for a while, and then eventually settled on a ranch in Montana. Decades later, he still has questions about how the Air Force handled his unit's disbanding. "They didn't retire the colors or nothing, they just did away with it," said Rogers. "We were attached to the 56th, and that was for, basically just for pay," he said.
Rogers says if he had to do it over again, he wouldn't volunteer for the Air Force. But he's glad that he can finally talk about what happened to him in Vietnam, and why he had to leave the way he did.
"Basically, I mean, in a nutshell, that's what it was. It was a draft, but I volunteered."
Fifty years ago, the Vietnam War wound down and soldiers who survived it returned home. More than 36,000 Montanans served in the war. For the 50th anniversary of its end, students at the University of Montana School of Journalism spoke with Vietnam vets across the state. YPR will be sharing their stories throughout the month. This series on the Vietnam War is supported, in part, by the Greater Montana Foundation.