Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

The Fall of Saigon

Fifty years ago today. I wrote in my journal (30 April 1975):

Saigon was overrun by the communists today. 150 billion dollars and 50,000 American lives wasted during the war.

58,00 is now the standardly cited figure. Goeffrey Wawro, The Vietnam War: A Military History (Basic Books, 2024, 652 pp.):

The war had killed 58,000 Americans, 250,000 ARVNs, [South Vietnamese army] half a million South Vietnamese civilians, and 1.4 million NVA [North Vietnamese army] and Viet Cong. Four million Vietnamese . . . had been killed or wounded. [. . .] In their rushed evacuation, the Americans left behind important files, including the names of 30,000 Vietnamese who had worked in the Phoenix Program. These people were the first to be rounded up, tortured, and killed by their "liberators." Two and a half million South Vietnamese were placed under arrest as nguy — "puppets." Anyone affiliated with the old regime was sent without trial to one of the 300 "thought-reforms" camps in rural areas. (529)

Wawro goes on to describe the brutality of the labor camps and the 165,000 political prisoners who died in them. Like the Khmer Rouge, the NV commies lied to their victims, promising them a detention period of only ten days for "re-education." The vast majority of them fell for the lies and ended up detained for up to fifteen years in starvation conditions.

The great David Horowitz died yesterday.  Here is a worthwhile article about the former red-diaper commie who came to his senses. Charlie Kirk pays his respects on X. Now I know how Stephen Miller came to be so astute:

Twenty-five years ago, David mentored a high school student named Stephen Miller. He supported him through Duke, through the Senate, and into the Trump White House. Today, Stephen is one of the most impactful architects of America First immigration policy. A legend thanks to David's mentorship. As Politico wrote, “If you want to understand the immigration policies [Trump] has put into place, you have to also understand Horowitz.” David's fingerprints are all over the populist revival of the last decade.

What did I do during the war?

Around  the time of the Tet Offensive in January of 1968, I was ordered  to downtown Los Angeles for my "pre-induction physical." Due to a birth defect I have hearing in one ear only, and so I failed the physical. I was  classified 1-Y, which was later changed to 4-F.  In any case I had won a California State Scholarship to attend college, and that would have kept me from harm's way for four years, after which the lottery kicked in.

That's my story in a few words. What's yours?

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Bill Vallicella

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2 responses to “The Fall of Saigon”

  1. Anthony Flood Avatar
    Anthony Flood

    Thanks for the invitation, Bill. Our “wartime stories” coincided in places.
    https://anthonygflood.com/2025/03/every-wind-of-doctrine-a-former-captive-of-philosophy-and-vain-deceit-remembers/
    https://anthonygflood.com/2023/01/pat-martino-and-herbert-aptheker-half-century-memories/
    I invite your visitors to take a peek. Tony

    Reply
  2. BV Avatar
    BV

    I enjoyed reading both autobiographical pieces. Like Ed Feser, you had an early interest in comic books. Unlike Feser, you never use comic characters as article intros. What you have in common is that the overwhelming doxastic security needs you both share drive both of you to dogmatism — although the dogmatisms are different. Ed came to the conclusion that the trad RCC is the repository of all truth. And so in book after book, and article after article, he has distinguished himself as an outstanding apologist for the trad RCC and the Aristo-Thomist worldview that underpins it. You started out in the RCC, became a commie, wisely saw through that destructive worldview, and embraced a form of Prot Xianity that I do not presume to understand. I do understand, however, that you are a presuppositionalist along van Tilian and Bahnsenian lines. I reject preupp-ism lock, stock, and barrel. I don’t know if Feser has come out against it, but I don’t imagine he could accept it given his Thomist commitments.
    Both you and Ed have a polemical nature and are out to promote a worldview.
    In your case, this strikes me as a carry-over and continuation of your commie trend, which most likely has roots in your psychological makeup. As for myself, I see the quest for truth as a matter of inquiry which, by its very nature, prevents any premature glomming onto a worldview — not that it wouldn’t be wonderful to arrive at a true worldview. No doubt my preference for inquiry over worldview has its psychological roots in me.
    As Nietzsche wisely observed, “Every philosophy is its author’s self-cognition.” And to paraphrase Fichte: the kind of philosophy as man adopts depends on the kind of man he is.
    This is why you, me, and Feser will never budge the other two out of their positions: we’ve thought about these questions too long and too hard, and the individual-psychological determinants are too strong. And yet respectful dialog is worthwhile inasmuch as it promotes refinement and correction of one’s own position and better self-understanding. Maintaining the respectfulness is difficult however, since for intellectuals ideas matter — as I explain in my From Democrat to Dissident essay. Idea are to the intellectual as oxygen to Joe Sixpack.
    Thanks for the ‘war story.’

    Reply

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