Four Twenty Nine

1975- On April 29, Operation Frequent Wind went into full effect, evacuating thousands of South Vietnamese, U.S. and Foreign Nationals from the U.S. Embassy and several other points around the city of Saigon, just ahead of the Communist North Vietnamese forces who were poised to take the city. Those that couldn't get out by air crammed on to boats or something resembling them. The pullout of U.S. forces, effectively ended the Vietnam War as the North Vietnamese claimed victory over the South Vietnamese regime.

1992- On April 29, I was in my Af-Am Film Lit class at UCLA when somebody burst into our classroom to exclaim excitedly, "They're about to read the verdict! Hurry!" With that, my professor led everyone out of the classroom in a near sprint to a coffee shop near Bunche Hall. We all watched in disbelief as overseers Briceno, Wind, and Koon were acquitted of the beating of Rodney King within an inch of his life. Even though we had all witnessed the savage behavior of Los Angeles' finest on videotape, the jury failed to convict them. Within the hour, it was goin' down all over the southland. The justice system had gone too far this time, and my people weren't going to just stand there and do nothing about it. People rioted and looted all into the night, committing unspeakable acts of violence in some cases, while burning many neighborhoods to the ground. No retail establishment was safe, even in tony Westwood where I was at school. Many of my friends took to the streets for the shopping spree, but this was minor compared to the devastation over in the 'hood.

On the local, National, and World news for the next 48 hours, the chaos was the top story. No...it was the ONLY story. The city of Los Angeles had been virtually shut down as curfews were put into effect. A State of Emergency was declared. The National Guard was brought in. Ironically, they were dispatched to places like Bel-Air and Brentwood. It was a surreal atmosphere. Classes were cancelled. We really couldn't go anywhere, and the smell of a city on fire was everywhere.

2006- It was April 29 and I was in Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon) on a business trip. I had come along with a client that had attended the training class that I had just given in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and he insisted that we had much to get done. I had no idea that it was anything other than Saturday as I stepped off the plane. On the approach, however, I did notice how eerily familiar this place looked. Very rarely do you go somewhere and it looks just like all of the footage you've seen from the old news clips and even the Hollywood movies on the subject. It was as if time had stood still for the past 40 years. We drove past the "Unification" Palace on my way in from the airport, but I didn't think much of it at the time. It all became glaringly apparent how big a deal this date in history was when I woke up the next morning. Tanks rumbled down the street followed by soldiers and there were red flags with a gold star in the middle of them hanging from everywhere. Their parade was quite a spectacle. I had only seen things like this on the nightly news whenever they talked about the Soviet Union or China, now here I was right in the middle of it.

Over the next two days, as I was left with vast amounts of free time, I gained even greater perspective on how significant this holiday was to them as almost nobody was working. Most of the people that I was to train were off until Wednesday. I did meet with the CEO of the company and a couple of his employees at a coffee shop, but they couldn't even get into their own office building. None of them seemed at all worried by the fact that I was there essentially "chillin'" for days. I phoned one of my Vietnamese co-workers back at the office and told him about the holiday and how I wasn't doing anything. Boy did I take him back.

"Holiday!? It was no holiday for me. My family and I barely made it on to a raft with all of our belongings on that day. I was 10 years old and was stuck on that thing for a few days. We lost everything!"

That conversation made me really open my eyes and start checking things out. They say that history is written by the winners, and that was definitely true here. The museum that was across from the Unification Palace proudly displayed a captured U.S. Military helicopter and tank in its courtyard, and images of "Uncle Ho" (Ho Chi Minh) were everywhere. Nowhere more prominent than in the post office which was one of the most beautiful you'll ever see. The armed military police that stood on the corners of the major streets were a constant reminder that somebody was always watching around there, and that if anything went down, they'd quick rise up to squash it. Unification was the polite word that they used for the takeover that occurred on that day.