A year ago, as Afghanistan feel, doomed by the Doha Deal with the Taliban signed in 2020, I was thinking of a close friend’s story from graduate school.  An Ngo Lang and her family fled South Vietnam in 1975, coming to America.  Her story says a lot about the evacuation and resettling in the U.S.  Now she’s writing a book about the role of the U.S. military in that event.

“When the Communists came to Sài Gòn, raining rockets into my city, my family ran, searching for peace,” An wrote me.  “My mixed French and Vietnamese mom’s French passport became our ticket out, escaping in one of the largest airlifts in world history on April 29, 1975 from Tân Sơn Nhứt Airport. Leaving loved ones behind, hunger, and near-death on a Navy ship crammed with thousands of other escapees etched everlasting memories in my four-year-old mind.”

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in Georgia. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is @JohnTures2.