Central Texas Vietnam War Veteran Recalls Impact of the Fall Of Saigon 50 Years Later

Yahoo

28-04-2025

HEWITT, TX (FOX 44) — Many veterans served in Vietnam before the fall of Saigon in 1975. One of them is Hewitt attorney Jon Ker, who served in Vietnam from January 1969 to January 1970. Here's his story on how his service in Vietnam and the Fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam before North Vietnam took it over, shaped his life.
'I was proud to serve my country,' Ker said. 'The 5th Special Forces Group had a series of camps along the western Vietnam border from the DMZ down – almost down to Saigon.'
Ker added his first combat patrol in South Vietnam was out of Camp Dak Seang, near the Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos border. He vividly recalls his initial experience there.
'It was warm. It was pretty hot. In the special forces, you have a one-week combat orientation training that gets you ready for going out to your camp,' Ker said. 'Once you get your feet on the ground, you kind of get acclimated to the whole scenario, and you just want to go out and make contact with the enemy and do your job.'
Ker stressed 'doing the job' could be gutwrenching.
'Things got hard. I was at Doxyeang for about three months. I was actually on watch at night the night that Ben Het got hit by three Russian PT-76 tanks. Shortly after that, I got sent down to Ben Het, and that was the most significant combat duty that I had.'
Ker shared when he returned from Vietnam in 1970, there was no heroes welcome home for himself and some others he knew.
'I can give you an example of a friend of mine, who was also in special forces, 'Ker said. 'When he landed in Oakland, someone came up to him and shot him in the belly, and someone said to him, 'You baby killer.' So, when I came home, there was no band playing, there was no welcoming committee, people looked at me like I was some kind of a freak show. That was very disheartening.'
Ker remembers seeing the reports of the fall of Saigon back in 1975. He says the fall impacts him to this day.
'All of the lives of the Americans – the 50-something thousand – who went there to do their job and to bring victory, was thrown away – just cast away,' Ker lamented. 'As to us who were there it will always be a significant event that it (Saigon) fell – yeah, that's it.'
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