VIETNAM AFTER 50 YEARS: AMERICA'S SHAME, BUT AN ALABAMA HERO

The spring of 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of a sad event in American history: The fall of Saigon, and the failure of the United States to honor its commitment to save South Vietnam from Communist aggression.

Not that our military failed. At a colloquium years later between American and North Vietnamese to discuss the war, an American officer said, “You never defeated us on the battlefield. A North Vietnamese officer replied, “That is true. It is also irrelevant.”

He meant that the Communists won the war, not by defeating America and South Vietnam militarily, but by demoralizing the American people. With the aid of a leftist media, anti-American university faculty, and subversives in government, the Communists convinced a substantial portion of the American public that we had no right to protect the South Vietnamese from aggression, that Ho Chi Minh and his followers were not really Communists but “agrarian reformers,” and that South Vietnam wasn’t worth defending. Anti-war demonstrators burned the American flag, and soldiers returning from Vietnam were spat upon and ridiculed.

President Lyndon Johnson followed a disastrous policy of “gradual escalation” that enabled the Communists to escalate as well, and the war wore on with no end in sight. President Nixon was elected in 1968 and began “Operation Thunder,” bombing North Vietnamese targets, thus bringing the Communists to the bargaining table.

But the Paris Peace Accord of 1973 was a recipe for defeat. It even allowed the North Vietnamese to keep their troops in South Vietnam; what could go wrong with a peace agreement like that? And sure enough, with Nixon out of office in 1975, the North Vietnamese with aid from the Soviet Union and China began a massive offensive. The American people and the Congress lacked the stomach for further resistance and opted not to defend South Vietnam, leaving our erstwhile ally with American weapons but no ammunition. The fall was inevitable.

But while America’s betrayal of its ally was shameful, one man stood showed remarkable courage: Admiral Jeremiah Denton, an American hero and an Alabama hero as well.

Born 15 July 1925 in Mobile into a staunch Roman Catholic family, Denton attended McGill-Toolen Catholic High School and Spring Hill College, then attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating with Jimmy Carter in 1947 with Jimmy Carter. He entered the Navy as a test pilot and commander of an attack squadron, and on 18 July 1965 his plane crash- landed over North Vietnam. Thus began nearly eight years as a prisoner of war, much of it in a 6’ x 9’ cell. Denton and his fellow POWs were regularly subjected to brutal interrogations, beatings, attempts at brainwashing, and torture techniques that included shock treatment and hoisting a person from the ground with his hands tied behind his back in a way that sometimes broke the arms and often resulted in permanent shoulder damage.

American POWs showed remarkable resilience. During much of his captivity, Denton was the senior officer, and the other POWs looked to him for leadership. They developed a system of communication by tapping on the walls in code, and sometimes by coughing and sneezing.

And they called upon God for help. Some of them managed to put together a partial Bible by contributing Scripture verses each of the remembered. They prayed for each other, for their families back home, and for America.

One day in 1966, Denton’s captors led him to a press conference, where they expected him to tell the world he and his fellow POWs were well-treated. He pretended that the lights were bothering his eyes, and he seemingly blinked erratically. But American officials recognized that he was blinking in Morse Code the letters T-O-R-T-U-R-E. Asked about the war, he said,

"I don't know what is happening, but whatever the position of my government is, I support it fully. Whatever the position of my government, I believe in it, yes, sir. I am a member of that government, and it is my job to support it, and I will as long as I live.”

For this he received a severe beating back in his cell.

After nearly eight years in captivity, he was finally released. During his captivity he was promoted to Captain and later to Rear Admiral, and was awarded the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Silver Star, and the Bronze Star. Shortly before his plane landed, he was told that as senior officer he would be expected to make a statement to the press. He stepped to the microphone and stated on behalf of his fellow POWs,

“We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our Commander-in-Chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America.”

But in some ways his joyful return was a rude shock. Like many POWs, he noted how much America had changed during his years of captivity: manners, dress, and language had coarsened, morals had sunk to record lows, and patriotism seemed an anachronism. He went to work for Pat Robertson at Christian Broadcasting Network, formed the Coalition for Decency to boycott sponsors of promiscuous television programs, supported the Anti-Communist Contras in Nicaragua, and detailed his POW experiences in his book When Hell Was in Session.

In 1980 he became the first Republican United States Senator from Alabama since Reconstruction. In Washington he gave strong support for national security, saying America’s security was weaker than when General Washington’s troops walked barefoot in the winter at Valley Forge. He obtained passage of the Adolescent Family Life Act to promote teen chastity and compiled a strongly conservative voting record.

After leaving the Senate, he continued to work for God, country, and family, stressing the strong Catholic faith that had been his source of strength during captivity. At age 89 he died of a heart ailment 28 March 2014 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a hero at home among heroes.

The Vietnam War was a conflict many Americans would like to forget, because they don’t understand its purpose. Even the Vietnam Wall, a privately-funded monument that contains the names of 58,318 soldiers who died in Vietnam, fails to explain why they fought and why they died. As a result, the general public today believes the war was a pointless waste of lives and resources, and many Vietnam veterans have sadly concluded that their sacrifices were in vain.

I assure my fellow Vietnam-era veterans that their sacrifices were of infinite value. The civilian leadership did not allow us to win the war, but we held back the Communist advance for nearly ten years. By answering our country’s call, we bought America and the Free World a decade of time, during which America won the Cold War. I believe there is a direct link between the stand we took in Vietnam and the collapse of the Soviet Union 15 years later.

In Vietnam Veterans of America, we open our meetings with a moment of silence for our fallen companions, and we close that moment with “Welcome home!” For most of us, our service was neither as heroic nor as painful as that of Admiral Denton. But for all, our service was no less honorable and no less necessary.

To all who served in and during the Vietnam War: “Welcome home!”

Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu), as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law (morallaw.org), and as Pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church (woodlandpca@org) of Notasulga. He may be contacted for speaking engagements at eidsmoeja@juno.com

THE VIEWS OF SUBMITTED EDITORIALS MAY NOT BE THE EXPRESS VIEWS OF THE ALABAMA GAZETTE.