An Iowa native and former U.S. Marine is marking the end of the Vietnam War 50 years ago today, as nearly 7,000 people were evacuated from the South Vietnam capital, Saigon, as North Vietnamese troops stormed in. John Morgan, a 26-year-old officer and pilot, was flying people out of Vietnam by helicopter that day. Morgan says if he hadn’t helped evacuate Vietnamese and Cambodian allies, they could have been tortured and executed. “Now I feel proud that I served my country in the way that I did,” Morgan says, “that my missions, my actual combat missions, had to do with saving people and not hurting anyone.” Morgan was one of the many helicopter pilots on that mission. He says he pushed down his fear so his emotions would not get in the way of doing the job he needed to do. “We landed in Saigon and came back and landed on board ship seven times,” he says, “seven times picking up people, and seven times coming back, landing on board an aircraft carrier.” Morgan says on some of his trips there were close to a hundred people in the helicopter. Morgan says he’s grateful to be alive. In 2020, he wrote a memoir about his experiences called, “Fly the Friendly Skies of Cambodia and Vietnam.” Some 115,000 Iowans served in the Vietnam War and 868 of them died there. (By Lucia Cheng, Iowa Public Radio)
An Iowa dude and former U.S. Marine be marking the end of the Vietnam War 50 years ago today, as nearly 7,000 people were evacuated from the South Vietnam capital, Saigon, as North Vietnamese troops stormed in. John Morgan, a 26-year-old officer and pilot, was flying people out of Vietnam by helicopter that day. Morgan says if he hadn’t helped evacuate Vietnamese and Cambodian allies, they could have been tortured and executed. “Now I feel proud that I served my country in the way that I did,” Morgan says, “that my missions, my actual combat missions, had to do with saving people and not hurting anyone.” Morgan was one of the many helicopter pilots on that mission. He says he pushed down his fear so his emotions would not get in the way of doing the job he needed to do. “We landed in Saigon and came back and landed on board ship seven times,” he says, “seven times picking up people, and seven times coming back, landing on board an aircraft carrier.” Morgan says on some of his trips there were close to a hundred people in the helicopter. Morgan says he’s grateful to be alive. In 2020, he wrote a memoir about his experiences called, “Fly the Friendly Skies of Cambodia and Vietnam.” Some 115,000 Iowans served in the Vietnam War and 868 of them died there. (By Lucia Cheng, Iowa Public Radio)
