In April of 1975, the North Vietnamese Army was closing in on Saigon as South Vietnamese resistance was crumbling. The United States had just a skeleton crew of diplomats and military operatives left in the country in the wake of the Paris Peace Accords. With a North Vietnamese victory inevitable and the U.S. prepared to withdraw, many Americans on the ground worried about the safety of South Vietnamese allies, family and friends and scrambled to get them out of the country. After the Tan Son Nhut airport was hit by rockets, Vietnamese were evacuated via helicopters from the U.S. Embassy compound.
Sioux Falls native Doug Potratz was a Marine security guard at the American Embassy during the Fall of Saigon and one of the last evacuated. He rushed to get his own Vietnamese wife and three-year-old stepdaughter out of the city on April 21, 1975. He was assisted by Lance corporal Darwin Judge who carried the little girl on his back and took her to the plane. Eight days later, Judge and Corporal Charles McMahon were killed in the rocket attack on Tan Son Nhut airport. They were the last two American servicemen to lose their lives in Vietnam.
Potratz and 19 other marines are traveling to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and will dedicate a memorial plaque to Judge and McMahon at the site of the American Embassy on the 4oth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
Doug Potratz is a family lawyer in Fullerton, California. He joined Dakota Midday and shared his memories of the final days in Vietnam.
