Latest news with #Potratz
The Star
20-05-2025
- General
- The Star
The war that still haunts America
A SCRATCHY prerecorded message crackled over American Armed Forces radio in Saigon 50 years ago, announcing the temperature was '105 degrees and rising', before playing a snippet of White Christmas. It was a covert signal – the emergency evacuation had begun. After 15 years of fighting, US$140bil in military spending, and 58,220 American lives lost, the last US foothold in Saigon was collapsing. The Vietnam War was ending. Or was it? As the United States marks a half-century since that chaotic April day in 1975, veterans say the war still echoes through American culture, politics and their own lives. And its lessons, they argue, remain unlearned. Iconic images of the fall of Saigon – crowds scrambling onto the US embassy roof, desperate for the last helicopters out – remain seared into the nation's memory. 'We watched the city die right in front of us,' recalled Douglas Potratz, a Marine veteran based at the embassy. 'So many had died, and it was all for nothing.' Then a 21-year-old sergeant, Potratz helped hundreds flee before boarding the penultimate chopper. 'Some of us cried,' he said. 'Others were too exhausted to feel anything.' Now 71, Potratz said the war's scars linger. At their five-year reunions, he's seen how anger, depression and regret haunted fellow Marines. Six have died by suicide. 'The trauma was immense,' he said. 'Many didn't realise they needed help until decades later.' The Vietnam War left a festering wound in American life. The US military, the world's most advanced, had entered Vietnam's civil war in the early 1960s, expecting a swift victory over communist insurgents. 'Our machine was devastating. And versatile,' wrote war correspondent Michael Herr in his 1977 memoir Dispatches. 'It could do everything but stop.' By Potratz's arrival, the war was a brutal stalemate. The United States had withdrawn most troops but still funded South Vietnam's army. Few foresaw its sudden collapse. 'We thought it impossible,' Potratz said. 'Then North Vietnamese jets strafed Saigon, and tanks hit the airfield.' Panicked crowds stormed the embassy. Marines frisked evacuees, tossing confiscated weapons into the pool, and loaded choppers bound for US ships. Afghan refugees boarding planes in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug 23, 2021. – Victor J. Blue/The New York Times The 24-hour airlift barely made a dent. Finally, the exhausted Marines retreated, barricaded the doors, jammed the elevators and burned classified documents on the roof. By dawn on April 30, only a handful remained, watching smoke rise as desparate Vietnamese civilians rammed the embassy walls with a fire truck. Two helicopters finally arrived. The Marines shed gear, piled in and fled. 'It all collapsed on us,' Potratz said. He paused, then added: 'But now, I feel like I've seen it in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Ukraine. It's almost spooky.' Saigon's fall triggered decades of national reckoning. Distrust seeped into pop culture – like 1982's Rambo, where the hero's enemy is his own government. For the next 30 years, candidates for president tried to both condemn the Vietnam War and honour those who fought in it, while accusing opponents of being skaters, fakers and draft dodgers. When the United States invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, political leaders argued over whether those conflicts were exactly like Vietnam or nothing like it. Then came Kabul's fall in 2021 – desperate crowds, frantic Marines – a grim replay. 'The harmonics of Vietnam have reverberated in some really tragic ways,' said James Moriarty, a trial lawyer who was a Marine helicopter door gunner during the height of the fighting in Vietnam. 'I realised within a week we weren't winning,' he said. 'But I believed our leaders knew what they were doing. Later, I learned we'd been lied to.' The disillusionment drove Moriarty to become a lawyer, challenging powerful institutions. 'Those in charge lie, they harm and politicians lack the courage to stop it,' he said. The war's tragedy hit hardest in 2016, when his son – an Army Green Beret – was killed in Jordan. His son was there as part of a Middle East strategy shaped by the American experience in Vietnam. 'I was devastated,' Moriarty said. 'And for the first time, I understood how devastated all the families in Vietnam, on all sides, must have felt.' Many veterans fear those lessons are forgotten. Mike Vining, an Army specialist in Vietnam, later joined Delta Force, a counterterrorism unit that he said was created by combat veterans of the wars in South-East Asia. The lesson, he said, was that focused use of units like Delta often worked better than massive deployments. 'Don't poke a hornet's nest, then try to kill every hornet,' he said. But, he noted, that was more or less what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Vining said that to veterans like him, the Pentagon seems to keep repeating its mistakes of 50 years ago. 'They just don't seem to learn,' he said. 'I just don't understand it.' — ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times
New York Times
30-04-2025
- General
- New York Times
Vietnam Veterans Worry That a War's Hard Lessons Are Being Forgotten
A scratchy prerecorded message crackled over American Armed Forces radio in Saigon 50 years ago, repeating that the temperature was '105 degrees and rising,' and then playing a 30-second excerpt from the song 'White Christmas.' It was a secret signal to begin emergency evacuation. After about 15 years of fighting, $140 billion in military spending and 58,220 American lives lost, the last American foothold in Saigon was falling. The Vietnam War was ending. Or was it? Today, as the United States marks a half-century since that chaotic day in April 1975, veterans say the war continues to reverberate through American culture and politics, as well as their own lives. And the experience still holds pressing lessons, they add — lessons the nation seems not to have learned. American newspapers printed images of the fall of Saigon that are still burned in the nation's memory: crowds clambering to the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy to try to get on the last helicopters out. 'We witnessed the city dying there right in front of us,' recalled Douglas Potratz, a Marine veteran who was there. 'So many people had died in Vietnam, and it was all gone.' He was a 21-year-old sergeant in the embassy guard unit. After helping hundreds of people flee, he left with other Marines on the second-to-last flight out. 'A lot of us cried,' he recalled this week about watching the city recede from the helicopter. 'But a lot were too tired to do anything at all.' Mr. Potratz, now 71, said the Marine guards hold a reunion every five years, and he has seen how the war stayed with them long after they got home. Some have been dogged by anger, depression, drinking and regret. Six have died by suicide, he said. 'There was so much trauma,' he said. 'A lot of us didn't realize we needed to deal with it until 20 or 30 years later.' If they had, he said, 'we could have saved a lot of marriages and a lot of livers.' In the same way, the Vietnam War became a stubborn wound in American life. The U.S. military, the most advanced in the world, had gotten heavily involved in the civil war in Vietnam in the early 1960s, believing that victory over Communist insurgents would come swiftly. 'Our machine was devastating. And versatile,' the war correspondent Michael Herr wrote in 'Dispatches,' his 1977 memoir. 'It could do everything but stop.' By the time Mr. Potratz arrived in Saigon, the war had devolved into a deadly grind. The United States had signed a peace deal and withdrawn nearly all its troops, but was still spending heavily to equip the South Vietnamese Army, which few of the young Marine guards imagined would suddenly collapse. 'We thought it was impossible, but before long, there were North Vietnamese jets strafing Saigon and tanks attacking the airfield,' Mr. Potratz recalled. Panicking Americans and their Vietnamese allies flooded the embassy compound. The Marines let as many as they could through the gates, frisking them for weapons and throwing what they found into the embassy pool, and then loaded people onto helicopters that took off about every 10 minutes, bound for U.S. Navy ships offshore. The airlift lasted nearly 24 hours, but barely dented the throngs hoping for escape. Eventually, the exhausted Marines fell back to the main embassy building, barricaded the doors, jammed the elevators, burned the last armloads of the embassy's classified documents in barrels on the roof, and waited to escape. By dawn on April 30, leaders from the U.S. military and State Department — who had run the war for years — had all gotten out. It was just a few young Marines left, watching smoke rise over the city as Vietnamese civilians frantically tried to ram their way through the embassy wall with a fire truck. 'We waited hours, and we honestly thought we had been forgotten,' Mr. Potratz said. Finally, two helicopters appeared. The Marines peeled off helmets and flak jackets to lighten the load, piled in the choppers and flew away. 'It all came down on us,' Mr. Potratz said. 'I had never seen anything like it.' He paused, then added: 'But now, I feel like I've seen it in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Ukraine. It's almost spooky.' The fall of Saigon began a cycle of national soul-searching that changed how the United States thinks about itself. Trust was frayed to breaking. Suspicion oozed into pop culture. In the first 'Rambo' movie, released in 1982, the enemy that the Vietnam veteran John Rambo is forced to fight is his own government. For the next 30 years, candidates for president tried to both condemn the Vietnam War and honor those who fought in it, while accusing opponents of being skaters, fakers and draft dodgers. When the United States invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, political leaders argued over whether those conflicts were exactly like Vietnam or nothing like it. Then came the fall of Kabul in 2021, with its eerily similar scenes of desperate crowds pressing against a few frantic Marines. 'The harmonics of Vietnam have reverberated in some really tragic ways,' said James R. Moriarty, a trial lawyer who was a Marine helicopter door gunner during the height of the fighting in Vietnam in the late 1960s. 'I was on the ground about a week before I figured out that there was no way we were winning that war,' Mr. Moriarty said. 'But I had a young, naïve lower-middle-class idea that surely our politicians and military leaders knew what they were doing. I didn't learn until later that we had been lied to the whole time.' Mr. Moriarty said the experience shaped his decision to become a trial lawyer and take on powerful institutions and large corporations in court. 'It taught me that the folks in charge cannot be trusted, that they lie to people, they harm people,' he said. 'And the political leaders often don't have the guts to do anything about it.' He said he did not fully understand the tragedy of the war until 2016, when his son, an Army Green Beret, was killed by a terrorist attack in Jordan. His son was there as part of a Middle East military strategy shaped by the American experience in Vietnam. 'I was devastated,' Mr. Moriarty said. 'And for the first time, I understood how devastated all the families in Vietnam, on all sides, must have felt.' Many Vietnam veterans worry that the lessons their generation learned seem to have been lost. Mike Vining arrived in Vietnam as an Army specialist in 1970 and spent much of his time there blowing up American munitions left behind at fire bases that the South Vietnamese Army had abandoned. He later served in the Delta Force, a counterterrorism unit that he said was created by combat veterans of the wars in Southeast Asia. What he and his comrades learned, Mr. Vining said, was that focused use of units like Delta would in any cases be a better approach than the big deployments of conventional forces that seemed only to make things worse in Vietnam. 'You don't go to a hornet's nest, hit it with a stick, then try to kill all the hornets,' he said. But, he noted, that was more or less what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Vining said that to veterans like him, the Pentagon seems to keep repeating its mistakes of 50 years ago. 'They just don't seem to learn,' he said. 'I just don't understand it.'
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Keep Warm and Carry On: Helderburg Defender Is the Perfect Winter Ride
The collector-car industry constantly shifts direction based on the winds of global financial markets and the whims of those whose sails swell the biggest. But where some trends are difficult to spot, there's one that's hard to miss: Defenders are hot right now. It's a fire that Land Rover is happy to pour fuel upon, returning the model to its lineup in 2020 and recently giving it a shot of adrenaline to create the monstrous Octa. Yet while the new Defender is easy to respect and even easier to live with, the boxier classic models really tug the heartstrings for many. While the original Land Rover, the Series I, will forever be an icon, it is the Defender models from the mid-Eighties and beyond that have been receiving stratospheric valuations lately. The models were originally called simply the 90, the 110, and the 127 (later the 130)—a nomenclature roughly corresponding to each model's respective wheelbase—Land Rover put them all under the Defender umbrella after the introduction of the Discovery in 1989. These Defenders were never meant to be posh. Though they were far more civilized than the original Land Rover, their suspensions and diesel engines were designed and tuned for simplicity and survival. Here in the U.S., we only got Defenders for a very short while. The so-called North American Spec, or NAS, models were sold between 1994 and 1997. Somewhere short of 8000 were imported over that period, powered by a 182-hp 3.9-liter V-8, a limited run thanks to ever-evolving American crash and emissions regulations. Finding a good original car is, understandably, a challenge—and Defenders tend to make serious money when they come to market. Thankfully, Land Rover made plenty more for the European market, models that are increasingly falling outside our 25-year limit on imports. There is no shortage of companies ready and willing to find and ship you one, and more are offering to elevate your machine to a level of fit and finish far beyond anything that rolled out of Land Rover's factory in England when new. Helderburg Defenders wants to be at the top of that list of prestigious builders. The company is based in Sharon Springs, New York, a small, agrarian village that, despite its proximity and similar-sounding name to Saratoga Springs, offers few of the chic trappings of that town to the east. Few, that is, until you step into Paul Potratz's garage, which not only contains a half-dozen Defenders but is also riddled with numerous posh adventure trappings, including shotguns, Wellington boots, and vintage motorcycles, many British. Potratz founded Helderburg in 2019 with William Lines, who lives in the U.K. and oversees the company's British operations. It is situated just down the road from the Defender's original manufacturing location in Solihull near Birmingham. That's not a coincidence. "We're able to hire people that worked for Land Rover," Potratz said, meaning many of the people who restore these Defenders built them in the first place. Using the original workers is just part of Helderburg's efforts to keep things original. The company sources left-hand-drive Defenders from throughout Europe, tears them down to a bare frame, and then rebuilds them to better-than-new specification, all while preserving the details that made them unique, both large and small. On the small side, we have things like the aluminum body panels, which are spot-welded in place, preserving the subtle divots along the rear fenders that punctuate the originals. On the far bigger side, we have the engine. Many Defender builders eagerly evict the original inline-four 300tdi diesel engines from the noses of their machines, often swapping in a GM-sourced V-8 or the like. For Helderburg's Potratz, that's nothing short of sacrilege. "We're not going to do that. And it just kind of takes away from the heritage," he says. "If you want the GM, go buy a GM." Helderburg Defenders are numbers-matching machines, which Potratz says will only help their values in the long run. But while the blocks remain, everything else is subject to replacement. Helderburg offers a variety of packages to elevate the humble 300tdi, everything from minor tweaks and retunes to bored-out cylinders with upgraded internals and turbos to match. The ever-evolving top-shelf model makes about 220 hp and 440 lb-ft of torque, roughly double the 300tdi's original output. Power level is just one of a series of decisions buyers must make when configuring their Defender. Custom paints, beefy winches, roll cages, uprated differentials, and plenty more are all on offer. On the inside, Helderburg fits bespoke leather interiors and replaces much of the original plastic switchgear with finer stuff. So, yes, the windows still roll down with a crank, but that crank is made of billet aluminum. This, in many ways, perfectly represents what the Helderburg experience is all about. But before all those details are set, the buyer has a bigger decision to make: What size Defender? Helderburg will gladly build you a 90, a 110, or a 130, but if you want that longest option, you'd better hurry. Potratz says 130s are becoming increasingly rare: "They use these for railroad trucks, logging trucks, so there's just not many in existence." I got to sample all three versions over the better part of a snowy day at Helderburg's headquarters, a horse farm with plenty of open pasture and private land to enable the sorts of pursuits frequented by the landed gentry who can afford these machines. I, however, was just there to drive. Despite eye-watering prices, upwards of $450,000 for a well-outfitted 130, each was entirely approachable on the road. Despite rolling on all-terrain 35-inch tires chosen for their knobby style rather than cold-weather performance, these machines were a simple joy on the road. It took a strong kick on the throttle and a little patience to induce wheelspin. The relaxed power delivery of the 300tdi, even the tuned editions, means that such histrionics only happened on demand and were easily quelled. It is best not to indulge too much, though, as the steering on the original Defender is slow and vague. The shifter, too, is tall and its throws long, but I was never left searching for the next gear. Locking the differentials is a bit of a process, requiring you to swing the short lever connected to the transfer case through left and back, then hold it there as you creep forward to get everything properly engaged. The feel of the controls, then, is thoroughly vintage. The extra cladding added in the new body panels helps to keep the worst of the powertrain's harshness from the cabin, but the Fox suspension clearly prioritizes off-road performance over on-road manners. That's especially true in the 90. Its reduced dimensions made it feel far more lively on the road but also substantially more nervous. Yet when I powered through a snowbank, heading for ungraded and unplowed terrain, everything clicked right into place. Here, bounding through deep snow and flying across an open pasture, each of the Helderburg Defenders felt happy, stopping and going without issue despite the improper tires. The heavy snow cover meant no low-speed rock-crawling on that day, the sorts of terrain where these machines excel, but with Cooper Discoverer STT Pro tires underneath and Red winches up front, I can't imagine the car wanting on the trails. Whether this is the ultimate roadgoing Defender, though, I'm not so sure. That 300tdi engine is certainly part of the experience, but I can't say I found any of the diesels I sampled particularly charming. Tuning them to such extreme heights surely won't do anything to help their legendary reliability, either. Additionally, I found the liberal application of the Helderburg logo on virtually every surface to be a bit much. And, again, there's the cost. If you want a basic machine, a simple 90 with minimal add-ons, you'll spend around $250,000 to start. Add about another $100,000 for a 110; a 130 with everything will set you back nearly half a million dollars. That's far too rich for my blood, but thankfully, there are other, cheaper options out there. Defenders are relatively common in the European market, so importing one could be far more economical, but that's changing. "I used to be able to buy a Defender for about £4000, £5000 [roughly $5000–$6300], and now I can't even touch one for £25,000 [about $31,500]," Portraz says. There are other options on the bespoke side, too. E.C.D. Automotive Design in Florida is one of the biggest, building Defenders that trade some tradition for a lower cost. John Price, director of vehicle design at E.C.D., told me that the tried and true LS swap is a popular option. "Most clients prefer the power and reliability of a GM drivetrain. For those who want a diesel option, we offer the Cummins R2.8, which is more powerful and dependable than the original 300tdi factory options." E.C.D. will even build you a Defender with a Tesla-sourced EV powertrain if you really want to be a rolling affront to Land Rover purists. And there are plenty of other builders out there too. Land Rover itself is in the restomod Defender game with its Works Bespoke division. Which is the best path? Well, where do you want to draw the line on authenticity, and how much are you willing to spend? The goal of any good restomod should be to enhance the original while preserving its character, to iron out the crow's feet but keep the laugh lines. The team at Helderburg clearly has great respect for that character and for doing things right. That requires patience, though. Potratz told me that the company builds about 30 or 40 cars per year and that orders placed today will not be filled for at least another 18 months. That's a long time to wait for a toy as fun as this. But as Defenders have always been famed for unstoppability rather than outright speed, perhaps the delayed gratification is entirely in keeping with the tradition. You Might Also Like You Need a Torque Wrench in Your Toolbox Tested: Best Car Interior Cleaners The Man Who Signs Every Car
