SAN ANTONIO – The United States’ involvement in the Vietnam conflict dates back to 1950 and lasted through six presidential administrations. It began with large financial commitments and military advisors helping in anti-communist efforts.
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Combat Marines were the first to land in Da Nang in early 1965. By 1975, the Marines at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon were the last to leave.
Two local Marine veterans, one from Edgewood Independent School District and another currently living in Kerrville, sat down with KSAT last fall to talk about their time as “Embassy Marines,” or Marine security guards stationed in Saigon during the war in Vietnam.
‘That was an honor’
Luis Gomez, a product of Edgewood ISD, enlisted in the United States Marine Corps from 1969 to 1976. He became a U.S. Embassy guard in Saigon in 1970 and stayed there for the next year and a half.
“I was raised in the 60s and I knew I was going down the wrong path and I knew I had to do something different, that’s why I enlisted,” Gomez told KSAT in September. “Here I am, a kid from the West Side, high school education, stationed at the American Embassy in Saigon; to me, that was an honor. This was something I could tell my grandkids, ‘hey, look, this is what I did.’”
‘We wanted to fight’
Dwight “Wolf” McDonald, originally from Jefferson City, Missouri, served in the Marines from 1971 to 1975 and was stationed at the Embassy in Saigon in 1974 through the Fall of Saigon in 1975.
McDonald, who lives in Kerrville, helped save thousands during Operation Frequent Wind, which was aimed at evacuating all remaining U.S. personnel, third-country nationals and at-risk South Vietnamese.
The evacuation began on the final days of the war in Vietnam.
McDonald said he could see the approaching tanks and troops of the North Vietnamese Army from his position at the U.S. Embassy.
The Marines evacuating people from Saigon did not sleep for the next four days.
“Yeah, we could see them and they were just waiting for us to leave and it wasn’t going to last much longer,” McDonald told KSAT in November 2024. “We wanted to fight. Everybody wanted to leave except for the Marines. That was the situation. We had more work to do rescuing people.”
McDonald also shared the plan for evacuation inside the compound as an estimated 10,000 people stormed the Embassy walls.
“We had babies thrown over the wall, just put them on a ‘copter with somebody,” McDonald explained. “Those pilots were magnificent. We’d load people based on weight. So the crew chief would out and get on his microphone and say, ‘I got 50 coming in, 20 adults and 30 children,’ and the pilot would come back and say, ‘Give me 10 more.’”
“When the ‘copter would land, we had to hold them on the ground or the back blast of the motor would blow them backwards,” he added.
71 helicopters, 682 flights
By the time Operation Frequent Wind ended, 71 helicopters had flown 682 individual flights, evacuating nearly 1,400 U.S. citizens and 6,000 third-country nationals and South Vietnamese.
More than 50,000 people were saved during fixed-wing evacuations in April 1975, including almost 3,000 orphans during Operation Babylift, which was ordered by President Gerald Ford before the Fall of Saigon began.
To learn more about the Marines who served during the final days of the war in Vietnam, visit the Fall of Saigon Marines Association page and read “Last Men Out” by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin.
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