An old adage tells us: “The last person who quit or got fired gets the blame for everything that goes wrong, until the next person quits or gets fired.” Last week Team Biden placed the blame for the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan squarely on the lap of President Trump in their report.

The report is a shameless rewrite of history.  One aspect that was especially galling was this:

“From the beginning of the evacuation on August 14 to its completion on August 31, U.S. military and civilian personnel engaged in an around the clock effort to execute the largest airlift of non-combatants in U.S. history. “

The Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, as well as those involved in writing this report are counting on two things: the lack of historical perspective on the part of a large number of American people, and the failures of the media to address the ignored history, that being the withdrawals from Southeast Asia in April 1975, 48 years ago this month.

Taking a look back at the events surrounding the withdrawal from SE Asia serves as a reminder of the lost capabilities of our military operations under the now ‘woke’ military. The Biden team first ignored the Trump Team’s plans and today makes the claim those plans never existed.

As was the case in Afghanistan, Vietnam was lost, not by the men on the ground, air or seas; but because the politician's will to win evaporated over time. Unlike the failure in Afghanistan, the evacuations of Southeast Asia were a well-planned and coordinated success.

Operation Eagle Pull -- This evacuation from Phnom Penh occurred on April 12, 1975, at the same time as the Vietnam and Saigon evacuations. Operations, using updated plans from 1973, began in January 1975, using C-130s to transport over 750 Cambodians over a seven-day period. In March Naval Task Force 76.4, consisting of seven ships, was in place in the gulf of Thailand, awaiting the final evacuation. All told, over 1000 people were evacuated with no loss of life, despite heavy enemy fire.

Operation Baby Lift -- In March 1975, the fall of Da Nang resulted in implementation of Operation Baby Lift. Over 3,300 children and infants, many of them orphans were successfully evacuated. The operation coordinated civilian and military efforts, including one flight paid for personally by American businessman Robert Macauley, who mortgaged his house to do so.

Operation New Life -- This was the quickly built refugee processing center on Guam, originally designed to accommodate 20,000 people. The Guam facility was expanded to hold 50,000. Eventually over 100,000 refugees were processed through the complex. Those passing through included farmers, fisherman, and a significant portion of the educated elite of Vietnam (One in five had attended university, almost half were Catholic and one-third spoke English).

Evacuation Control Center (ECC) -- On April 1, 1975, four weeks before the fall of Saigon, the ECC was established at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon. The five primary functions of the center were:

1) Coordinate the evacuation activities of all U.S. agencies.

2) Match evacuation requirements and assets.

3) Provide a communications link among all U.S. commands associated with Operation FREQUENT WIND (Final evacuation of Saigon).

4) Provide timely information, as required to assist in decision making.

5) Coordinate a priority system, concerning “Mob Control” with applicable agencies.

Tan Son Nhut was the center for the evacuation of people by fixed-wing assets. This evacuation was terminated on April 28, 1975 as the PAVN was encroaching on Saigon. By this time over 50,000 people, including 2,678 orphans were evacuated.

During the implementation, U.S. Navy task force 76 was offshore to assist Vietnamese in civilian boats. Estimates vary, but the twenty-plus ships of the task force assisted over 50,000 refugees.

Operation Frequent Winds -- Plans with multiple options had been drawn up several weeks before an April 9 meeting with President Gerald Ford. Evacuation plans, which are standard operating procedures for U.S. Embassies, had previously been reviewed and updated. At the meeting were Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, CIA Director William Colby, President Ford, and others. Colby expressed surprise at how quickly the South Vietnamese Army had collapsed. The outcome of the meeting was to proceed with evacuations designed to save as many people as possible, with a priority being the lives of American civilians.

Operation White Christmas -- On April 28 the fall of Saigon was imminent. By this time over 100,000 people had been evacuated through a well-coordinated effort of civilians, U.S. forces and Vietnamese military. As the situation became dire, confusion and desperation set in. Operation White Christmas was designed to be the final helicopter airlift to ferry people from predetermined locations to the awaiting ships. This was expected to be similar to Operation Eagle Pull, mentioned above. During Operation White Christmas 1,373 Americans and 5,595 Vietnamese as well as third country nationals were evacuated. The operation required over 1000 hours of virtually non-stop shuttling, as well as 682 sorties to the waiting ships.

Literally thousands of man-hours had been committed to by the military in the planning these operations. Dozens of ships were used, hundreds of planes and helicopters. The efforts were both monumental and well planned. Were the operations perfect? Of course not, with humans and mechanical equipment involved, not to mention the actions of an invading army, mistakes were going to be made.

As we review what occurred in the Vietnam conflict, can we really make a claim that the efforts in Afghanistan exceeded the operations described above?

The Vietnam operations required considerable expenditure of government funds. President Ford had requested 300 million dollars (approximately 1.5 billion in today’s dollars). The humanitarian nature of the request was in line with long-held American principles, but was not met with unanimous approval.

On April 23, 1975, one member of the United States Senate rose to speak in opposition to this plan. “I do not believe the United States has an obligation, moral or otherwise, to evacuate one, or 100,001, refugees from South Vietnam,” declared a then freshman Senator from Delaware: Joe Biden.

History does indeed repeat itself.

Image: National Archives