My coauthor and I are often asked, "Where did the characters in "Escape from Saigon" come from?"
Pat answer. Aside from famous political and military leaders whose names remained unchanged in the novel, such as Ambassador Martin or South Vietnam President Thieu, the characters were created out of whole cloth. They are no more real than Saigon-based journalist Thomas Fowler or CIA operative Alden Pyle in Graham Greene’s Vietnam War novel, The Quiet American,
But the creative process is complicated. Some characters, though bearing no resemblance to actual people, were inspired by snippets of my experience in Vietnam over the years. So I thought it would help to pair a scene in Escape from Saigon, to one of those experiences to illustrate how real life can evolve into fiction.
The incident occurred when I returned to Vietnam years after the war had ended and visited the Cu Chi Tunnels; the subterranean labyrinth of passageways, offices, barracks, hospital, and conference rooms where the Viet Cong were hold up until they emerged during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
During the visit our group sat down in one of the tunnels’ conference rooms for a briefing by a former Viet Cong officer who had lived there during the War. He explained how they subsisted for years, mostly on a root similar to cassava. During the briefing he told us, “We used everything the Americans brought here. If a parachute fell to the ground, we used it for mosquito netting, if a bomb didn’t explode we turned it into a new weapon, we forged metal into everything from bayonets to cooking pots.” He went on, “When we camoflaged the tunnel entrances with leaves and undergrowth we added bits of fabric from American Army uniforms to throw the MP dogs off their scent.”
During the briefing, I realized that he spoke perfect English but with a distinct New Jersey accent. When I asked him about the accent he told me, “I learned English from Armed Forces Radio and TV. Like I said, we used everything the Americans brought here.”
Here is how I played out that real life dialogue in a verbal exchange between our hero, war correspondent Sam Esposito and his North Vietnamese source who called with a news tip for him and his friend Lisette Vo, of NBS-TV.
The Cu Chi Tunnel incident was recast in the novel as an argument over baseball.
From Escape from Saigon - a Novel
“Sam, we’ve done it. We did our job. It’s over. We can go home. You and me. Today. We put on our clothes, walk out the front door and catch a ride to
The Continental Palace Hotel
Tan Son Nhut. We’d be on a flight within the hour. It’s that simple. What do you say Sam? Let’s go home,” Lisette implored.
Sam caught himself smiling broadly over the thought of leaving without a moment’s hesitation, skipping the heartfelt goodbyes and vows to keep in touch. He wanted to be with Lisette. But then a thousand obstacles crowded his mind. He hadn’t been back to the world in ten years. Where would he, they live? Would The Washington Legend want him? But mostly he thought, would covering Washington politics or writing ponderous editorials bore him to death.
All the while he absentmindedly caressed Lisette, and when his eyes met meet hers, it brought him back to the present. He now wondered, am I ready for another go? But just then the phone rang. He fumbled for his glasses and put them on as he clumsily reached for the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Ha, ha, Ong Esposito! You and lady friend have good time?” came the voice on the line. “This your friend from the North.”
“Christ! Don’t you guys have anything better to do than follow reporters around? Who the hell is this?”
“You remember me? This is your news source I gave you a big story tip at the Cyclodrome a couple of weeks ago.”
That got Sam’s attention. “Lise, give me something to write with, quick!” She fumbled around until she located a ballpoint pen and hotel stationery pad and handed them to Sam.
“Yes, I remember you now. What—no more secret meetings? Now you call me? Brave North Vietnamese fellow talking to a decadent American?”
Fenway Park
“Your friend Captain Trung, he wants to say good-bye to you. He gives me instructions. Be at Tan Son Nhut before dusk. Hide outside the fence west of the runway. Take your TV friend with you and tell her to bring her camera. Trung promises to have a present for her, a special show for Walter Conkite, your American uncle you call him Uncle Walter!” Sam covered the mouthpiece and turned toward Lisette.
“Hey, Lise!” he whispered. “He’s got a news tip for you that he says will get you on the NBS Evening News, maybe then Cronkite will know who you are!” Sam then added incredulously, “How is it that these fuckers know so much about us and what we watch on TV, and we don’t know shit about them?”
To prove his point, Sam asked the caller, “Hey, asshole—who’s a better pitcher, Catfish Hunter or Bill ‘Spaceman’ Lee?”
“What?”
“Catfish Hunter or Bill Lee. Who is the better pitcher?”
“Of course, Catfish Hunter, he win Cy Young last year. But I still root for Red Sox!”
“How do you know this shit?”
“I listen to your American baseball on Armed Forces Radio and TV.
Learned English, too, from your guy who say ‘Goood Morning Vietnam,’ and DJ Chris Noel—she is one hot babe!” The caller hung up.
Excerpted from Escape from Saigon - a Novel, by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo, Skyhorse Publishing, New York, 2017. All Rights Reserved. For more information about this Vietnam War Novel set during the final days of the War. please visit www.escapefromsaigon.com.
“No one ever tells you when the last plane leaves,” ~ Escape from Saigon
Review by Ann Connery Frantz, Correspondent for The Worcester Sunday Telegram
Dick Pirozzolo and fellow Vietnam vet Michael Morris joined forces to write a novel about the final moments of the devastating war. Titled “Escape from Saigon,” it creates fictional characters in very real events — soldiers, civilians and news correspondents trying to cope with the crumbling of the last stronghold before the U.S. evacuated personnel, Americans and Vietnamese sympathizers and the Viet Cong took over the city and signaled the conflict’s end.
Though each of them moved into careers after their return in 1975 - Pirozzolo to journalism, working for the Telegram & Gazette’s Southbridge and Webster news bureaus, and then to public relations and writing, and Morris to writing and editing as a journalist - they met as writers and formed an idea. Pirozzolo, a captain in the Air Force, often worked with the press corps there. “Around the mid-’90s, a movement started to recognize Vietnam and to reconcile with Vietnam. I’ve returned there a number of times, writing about the current state of affairs.” Some of his articles appeared in the Boston Herald and on the op-ed pages of the Washington Times.
“I started working with Mike,” Pirozzolo said. “We wrote two books about home building together. We were both veterans, and we talked about maybe someday doing something about Vietnam.” They realized pretty quickly, though, that a definitive history would be better left to the historians. And, he said, “we would be 90 before that was done. So we settled on the very last 30 days of the war and structured the book day by day, with flashbacks to play with time a little, give readers a chance to see what it was like to live in Saigon before the war, to be a journalist there for 10 years.”
Younger Americans never experienced the first televised war, in which daily videos and newscasts brought slaughtered civilians and soldiers into American homes each evening, terrifying parents and changing many Americans’ minds about the ambiguous jungle war being fought thousands of miles away. It was a horrific, unwinnable war, killing 60,000 U.S. soldiers and countless more civilians and Vietnamese soldiers.
In April 1975, the war was finally collapsing as North Vietnamese troops moved into the last stronghold, Saigon. The city’s fall would end any hope for South Vietnam. As conquering troops moved in, thousands of U.S. personnel and civilians who had worked with them sought to flee rather than be slaughtered by the North Vietnamese. They flooded the U.S. embassy and other departure points, filling military planes and helicopters.
This is where “Escape from Saigon” is set.
They tell the story through the lives of war correspondents Sam Esposito and Lisette Vo, sandwiched between a terse narrative about the final decline of opposition to the north. Sam returns to Vietnam as a Washington, D.C., newspaper correspondent after the Kennedy assassination, wanting to get away from the U.S. He’s remained there for 13 years. Lisette is half-French, half-Vietnamese, and American, working for a broadcast news company. “She portends the rise of women in the media,” Pirozzolo said. They remain until the bitter end because of their work. “They’re journalists,” Pirozzolo said. Read More
“In Saigon, we don’t ask many questions… where people came from, who they are or …were.” from Saigon Singer by Van Wyck Mason
Saigon, like Casablanca, Shanghai or Istanbul, is a city synonymous with intrigue, mystery, danger and romance.
Perhaps that is why so many novels, movies, theatrical productions and even comic books and graphic novels are set in Saigon—once known as the Pearl of the Orient and celebrated for its Parisian boulevards, French colonial villas, intimate piano bars and of course brothels. Most folks can tick off The Quiet American by Graham Greene, Good Morning Vietnam by Adrian Cronaur, The Lover by Marguerite Duras and the musical classic Miss Saigon. I would hope the Mike Morris - Dick Pirozzolo novel Escape from Saigon will one day rank with the classics.
Additionally, Apololypse Now, the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola Vietnam War allegory, opens with Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin L. Willard, peering out at a bustling street scene from his seedy Saigon hotel room, as he waits for his mission — assassinate Col. Walter E. Kurtz who is burrowed deep inside the Cambodian jungle.
Good Morning, Vietnam
Though Escape from Saigon includes shades of my personal experiences and recollections from my life in Saigon as a press officer for the Air Force, I always felt a kindred spirit with Good Morning, Vietnam, the 1987 American militarycomedy-drama film, screenplay by Mitch Markowitz and directed by Barry Levinson based on the novel by Armed Forces Radio DJ Adrian Cronauer.
Recounts Wikipedia, “Set in Saigon in 1965, the film stars Robin Williams as a radio DJ on Armed Forces Radio Service, who proves hugely popular with the troops, but infuriates his superiors with what they call his ‘irreverent tendency.’” Cronauer insists he never took such liberties on air, and indeed much of Robin Williams antics are pure ad-lib. Cronauer also goes on to explain that he wrote the book to raise enough money to pay for law school, which he completed and later went into practice. He's told interviewers that potential clients get squeamish when they make the connection between him and Williams thinking he's too wild and crazy to be their attorney
There are plenty of less-well-known works set in Saigon, officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City in 1975, though locals, expatriates and insiders persist in calling their city Saigon. Here is a rundown based on summaries from promotional pieces, Wikipedia and International Movie Database IMDB.
Saigon
Among the classics is Saigon, the Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake noir film set in the French colonial port city. Ladd, as Army Air Corps pilot Larry Briggs, takes on a flying assignment for $10,000 to raise money needed to show his terminally ill friend a good time before he succumbs to his illness. But things go awry when, right before takeoff Susan Cleaver, payed by Veronica Lake, boards his plane. I started watching it, hoping for the perfection of Casablanca—close but not quite.
The Quiet American, Graham Greene’s 1955 antiwar novel about the French Indochina war and genesis of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, was first adapted for the silver screen in 1958. That film turned Greene’s antiwar message into a virtual pro-colonial—anti-communist propaganda film with a heroic CIA agent Alden Pyle, played by WW II hero Audie Murphy. Hollywood was still reeling from the era of blacklisting at the time and Greene was furious over having his novel turned on its head, says Wikipedia.
The 2002 remake was close Greene’s original novel. The film starred Michael Caine, as journalist Thomas Fowler and Brendan Fraser, as the mysterious Pyle, both of whom vie for the heart of the beautiful young Vietnamese woman Phoung, played by Do Thi Hai Yen. There is no shortage of deception, betrayal, and love gone horribly wrong in this film adaptation. Journalist Fowler, who is desperate for his paper to keep him in Saigon, where his character foreshadows the life of the Saigon-based journalists who populated the city during the war—around 400 accredited correspondents at any given time.
The Lover (L'amant)
Based on the autobiographical 1984 novel by Marguerite Duras, The Lover–original title L’amant, is the story of a fifteen and-a-half year old French girl played by Jane March and her older, wealthy and overpowering Chinese lover played by Tony Ka Fai Leung. Though her character is a minor, Jane March turned 18 during the filming thus avoiding legal issues over filming simulated sex with a minor.
Vietnam Historian Tim Doling in Tim Doling’s Heritage Portal has done a masterful job of collecting and posting photos of the locations French director Jean-Jacques Annaud used for the fim. Says Doling, the director went so far as to have a Cyprus-based ocean liner the Alexandre Duma brought to Saigon for key scenes.
Saigon Singer
“In Saigon,” the lovely English girl said, “we don’t ask many questions… where people came from, who they are or …were,” from Saigon Singer
This novel by Van Wyck Mason was first published in a hardbound edition in 1946, and I’ve managed to get a paperback copy on eBay, which I'm now reading. Mason was born into a diplomatic family in 1901. He traveled the world, became an ambulance driver during WWI, joined the French Army and later traded in rugs and antiques. Eventually college professor John Gallishaw, encouraged him to start writing and he found his calling. Mason, who died in 1978, wrote and published 78 novels during his life according to Wikipedia.
From the book jacket, “Saigon where the mysteries of the Orient are hidden beneath a veil of international sophistication…where criminals and traitors of a dozen nations are found and where Major Hugh North came to hunt a beautiful, deadly, unforgettable woman, the Black Chrysanthimum, traitor, spy and blackmailer!”
Escape from Saigon - by Mike Morris and Dick Pirozzolo
The reader is immediately pulled in by the heroes, secret agents, turncoats, romance and danger in Escape from Saigon, the fast-paced saga of bravery, intrigue and the human spirit that follows the lives of diplomats, journalists, CIA agents and Vietnamese refugees who are trapped in Saigon—their beloved city, about to fall to the advancing enemy army.
The action is set during April of 1975, the final 30 days of the Vietnam War as the city's inhabitants look for any way to escape. Among them are Matt Moran, a soldier searching for his Vietnamese wife's terrified relatives; Lisette Vo a Vietnamese-American TV reporter who risks her life to chronicle the events of that fateful time; an American businessman who adopts 300 of his employees in a bid to sneak them out. All this while the enemy army tightens its stranglehold on the city in a novel that reveals the plight of ordinary people swept up by the mistakes and folly of their leaders on all sides of the fight.
Escape from Saigon is ideal for anyone who plans to visit Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, and wants to know how the city evolved from a French colonial oasis to a popular travel destination.
Casey Sherman, The New York Times Bestselling Author of The Finest Hours called the book "... a sweeping saga that places you dead center in the tumultuous final days of the war in Vietnam. Authors Mike Morris and Dick Pirozzolo carry on the tradition of Michener and Clavell in that they make history come alive through rich, compelling characters in a pulsating narrative."
And, Winston Groom, author of Forrest Gump notes: "Escape From Saigon brings to life the war-torn lives of the men and women, soldiers and civilians alike, each trying to escape the fall of Saigon before it engulfs them all. A vivid, unvarnished vision."
Escape from Saigon by Andrea Warren
Also under the same banner of Escape from Saigon, comes Andrea Warren’s young adult novel. Her Escape from Saigon tells the story of the over a million South Vietnamese children were orphaned by the Vietnam War. This true account tells the story of Long, who, like more than 40,000 other orphans, is Amerasian—a mixed-race child—with little future in Vietnam. Escape from Saigon allows readers to experience Long's struggle to survive in war-torn Vietnam, his dramatic escape to America as part of "Operation Babylift" during the last chaotic days before the fall of Saigon, and his life in the United States as "Matt," part of a loving Ohio family. Finally, as a young doctor, he journeys back to Vietnam, ready to reconcile his Vietnamese past with his American present according to the author. Available on Amazon.
Graphic Novels
With the city falling, government employees and military personnel raced to escape by foot, by car, by boat — and, in the case of pilots like Ba Van Nguyen, by helicopter.
The story of Ba’s escape with his family is told at the end of Rory Kennedy’s Oscar-nominated documentary “Last Days in Vietnam,” which PBS produced as part of its American Experience series. Recently, WGBH, the PBS member station in Boston, commissioned the artist Eoin Coveney to retell Ba’s tale in graphic form, which is beautifully reproduced in full color by The New York Times
Marcelino Truong's first book about the early years of the Vietnam war, the graphic memoir Such a Lovely Little War was published in 2016 and named "one the best graphic novels" of the season by The New York Times. In the sequel, Saigon Calling, young Marcelino and his family move from Saigon to London in order to escape the war following the assassination of South Vietnamese President Diem, for whom Marcelino's diplomat father was a personal interpreter.
Says the promotional copy, “With its audacious imagery and heart-rending text, Saigon Calling is a bold graphic memoir that strikes a remarkable balance between the intimate chronicle of a family undone by mental illness, and the large-scale tragedy of a country undone by war.
Marcelino Truong is an illustrator, painter, and author. He earned degrees in law at the Paris Institute of Political Studies and English literature at the Sorbonne.
Comic art interpretations of Vietnam abound in the Marvel Database. Here is Tan Son Nhat Air Base, Cartoon art style
The ‘Nam Vol 1 1 we meet Private First Class Edward Marks
Private First Class Edward Marks landed at Tan Son Nhut International Airport when he arrived in Vietnam. In late October, 1996, he returned to the airport with his squad to defend it from enemy attacks. In February, 1967, he finally departed from the air base to return home.
From the Marvel Database: In this issue we follow Ed Marks through his rude awakening of basic training. He then is posted to the 4/23 Mechanized Infantry .
After a misunderstanding over a bribe with the Top Sgt. he is assigned to platoon of Sgt. Polkow and his band of misfits. There he befriends Mike Albergo prior to venturing out on his first patrol where the guys get ambushed by the Viet Cong in a local village. After the shooting dies down Ed vomits after seeing his first dead body.
As they walk back to base, they accompany an armoured column which falls victim to a booby trap. They are then attacked by a sniper from a hidden bunker, which is part of a wider tunnel system. They clear them out with grenades and request helicopter transportation back to base. Ed finds this difficult as he has issues with flying. On their return the guys go to watch a movie, Major Dundee, while the rest of the base comes under rocket attack. Ed panics but Mike reassures him that the VC will not hit the movie screen because they like to watch too, according to the publisher
From ComiXology Commando #5035: Escape Saigon! In the final bloody hours of the Vietnam War, the P.A.V.N. were at the gates of Saigon. The U.S. embassy was the last refuge for the South Vietnamese who worked for the American government. But as the final choppers ferried the last of the workers to safety, Bill Evans realized that his best friend, Van Thieu, would not make it to the facility in time to evacuate - meaning certain death…
By DICK PIROZZOLO with credit to Wikipedia, IMDB, Marvel and publicity material provided by the works covered here.
Despite the White House talk of "Fake News," there is nothing fake about the journalists who risk their lives to cover American men and women women at war. That includes Carmen Gentile, war correspondent and author of "Kissed by the Taliban" who nearly lost his life covering the war in Afghanistan. Here is what he had to say about the President's out-of-the-blue edict on our transgender warriors who volunteer service to their country and the United States military.
Let me just jump in here and make my point quick and dirty.
I won’t address the reasoning behind President Trump’s out-the-blue transgender proclamation other than note that the President is drowning in scandal and figures he can shore up his base with some good ‘ole fashioned bigotry while securing $1.6 billion from Congress for his asinine border wall.
Now, let’s get into it.
What surprises and concerns me is about this fabricated controversy swirling around an issue that was settled by the Obama administration is the attitudes of some service men and women and veterans I know who seem to think that transgender soldiers, marines, sailor and airmen aren’t capable of performing at the same level of others.
One soldier I know from my time embedding with US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan said he was worried that transgender personnel may not be as prepared to fight on a moment’s notice while undergoing any number of medical procedures for transitioning.
Doctors who specialize in gender-reassignment surgery say the recovery time is two-to-six weeks for most operations. Say you are a Marine who blows out a knee while working out, chances are you will be laid up a lot longer. So that one doesn’t hold water.
A veteran opined that transgender personnel in the military may not be be able to handle the stress of combat operations saying they are, across the board, more emotionally volatile. Yeah, that doesn’t work either considering it’s a blanket statement about an entire group of people that just doesn’t adequately cover all of them and at its best is insanely discriminatory.
Not up to the challenge? Transgender personnel volunteer to work in the very traditional, conservative workplace that is the military. I think, for the most part, most have already proven they can handle the rigors of service.
So while we’re trading in free-ranging, unscientific assessment of the made-up “transgender military personnel” controversy, let me proffer my own:
Trump says eliminating transgender personnel from the military is a cost-cutting measure. By accounts transgenders-related healthcare account for at most $8.4 million a year in healthcare spending. And yes, by now we’ve all read the Military Times piece comparing that to the $40 million the Pentagon spends on boner pills.
You want to talk about cost? How about the price tag of yanking thousands of service people from the ranks of the military and replacing them with new one that will need to be trained to do their jobs, plus recruit new folks to those positions vacated by the replacements.
Look, I don’t know the first thing about what it’s like to be a transgender service person. But I have seen people from all walks of life serve their country with distinction and honor in life-threatening situations. I’m sure a well-trained, transgender soldier, marine, sailor or airmen will do the same if they managed to make it to the front lines of the fight.
Still not convinced? Then I suggest you express your opinions to transgender ex-Navy SEAL Kristin Beck.
She’ll do a much better job than I of convincing anyone not to lump all transgender service people together.
That’s it. I’m done. See? Quick and dirty.
Have a good day,
Carmen Gentile
Editor's note: Growing up, my Dad and I never missed an episode of "The Big Story," a weekly TV drama about real-life, crime-solving hero journalists. To this day my favorite movies, "All the President's Men" and "Spotlight," are of the same genre. Likewise "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" centers on the journalists who devoted their youth to covering the protracted Vietnam War. Among them the fictional Lisette Vo, the first Vietnamese-American woman to report for a major US TV network and Sam Esposito, the ambivalent, Yale '62 graduate, whose truthful reporting for The Washington Legend won him praise from this editors and the generals, but infuriated the vindictive Richard Nixon. In a nutshell, today's real war correspondents like Carmen Gentile, deserve our kudos for the risks they take and their willingness to speak truth to power. DP
Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc's recent visit to the White House underscores the importance the United States-Vietnam relationship that has evolved positively over the past four decades.
Vietnam, a nation of 90 million people, is today not only a trading partner but a key ally in the projection of US diplomacy and Naval power in the South China Sea— a region where China's rapacious behavior over shipping lanes, fishing, and other natural resources, as well as China's building of a military runway on the Spratly Islands has created an ongoing threat to peace. During the visit, Phuc told President Trump, the relationship has undergone significant upheavals in history, but that the two countries were now "comprehensive partners."
In this environment comes fresh insight by Anders Corr, PhD in his forthcoming book, Great Powers, Grand Strategies: The New Game In The South China Sea, "This book is relevant to Vietnam, which is especially attentive to shifts in power between global powers in the South China Sea, including China, the U.S., Russia, the U.K., and France."
Anders Corr displays The Philippines Flag off Scarborough Shoals in the South China Sea
The book, Great Powers, Grand Strategies offers the analysis of a dozen experts on big picture approaches to the South China Sea dispute," according to publisher U.S. Naval Institute Press, "By exploring the international dimensions of this regional hotspot, coauthors Bill Hayton, Gordon Chang, Bernard Cole, James Fanell, and others examine how the military, diplomatic, and economic strategies of the major global actors have both contributed to solutions and exacerbated the potential for conflict."
As editor of the volume, Dr. Corr juxtaposes the grand strategies of the great powers to determine the likely outcomes of the South China Sea dispute, as well as evaluate the ways to possibly defuse tensions in the region."
As part of his research Dr. Corr, who is also thepublisher of The Journal of Political Risk visited all South China Sea claimant countries, undertaking field research in Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Brunei. Dr. Corr has also conducted analysis for USPACOM, CENTCOM, and NATO, including work in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Dr. Corr is also and active member of The Boston Global Forum, a think tank with ties to Harvard University Faculty, that focuses on peaceful solutions to global conflicts, including the current tensions that plague the South China Sea.
Dick Pirozzolo is coauthor of "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" with Michael Morris that focuses on the events of April 1-30, 1975, the last month of Vietnam War.
The Rev. Sarah Robbins-Cole, Pastor of St. Michaels Episcopal Church in Holliston, Mass. and Protestant Chaplain of Wellesley College
Earlier last week, I was chatting with Sarah—my friend and neighbor—who is otherwise known as The Rev. Sarah Robbins Cole. She told me she was working on her sermon for Easter Sunday the theme was letting go. I suppose the idea is there cannot be rebirth without letting go of those things that tie us to the past.
"Any thoughts?" she inquired.
An apt subject as April 30th approaches— the 42nd anniversary of the end of the Vietnam! This was also a chance to plug "Escape from Saigon - a Novel," so I mentioned how "letting go" is a theme running throughout the story. The struggle with letting go is voiced by Billy Freda, the high school friend, who has to let go of the moment he scored the winning point in the championship game, US Ambassador Graham Martin who cannot let go of South Vietnam that had become intertwined with his identity, the reporters who devoted their youth to covering the war and have to find a new life elsewhere, and of course, the two Vietnam veterans who wrote the book—myself and Michael Morris, who saw combat in the Vietnam War as a young soldier in 1967.
Here is what The Rev. Sarah Robbins-Cole, Rector of St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Holliston, Massachusetts told her congregation about letting go on Easter Sunday Morning 2017.
Easter 2017
Marie Kondo of the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing is perhaps one of the best known books that has come our way from the field of decluttering and home organization. If you have not read the book, the basic premise of the book is to get rid of things that do not spark joy. Marie Kondo recommends taking out every item you own, in a particular sequence, and touching each item, and if it does not spark joy – out it goes. She has other helpful hints such as not buying more specialized storage containers to hold yet more clutter, and folding your clothes, for example your shirts, in a way that finding a shirt is as easy as flicking through record albums – because they all are standing on end.
The desire to hold on and to accumulate is as old as time and man. Perhaps it’s because we falsely equate accumulation with security. If I just hang on to clothes, household items, food, photos, books, I will never be in want. Who knows? I might need one of these things later.
Or we mistakenly believe that if we throw things away or recycle them – somehow we won’t remember or value what that item represented.
Or sometimes what is harder is we hold on to emotions and memories - something that has hurt us deeply. Maybe you are holding onto a grudge, or an imaginary contract with someone (that is, unless they do x, I will not forgive, move on, or be nice, etc.,). And somehow letting go would be to admit defeat.
When people have asked me this week what I am preaching on this week – and I tell them that I am working on a sermon about letting go – it has been interesting to hear people’s response.
When I told my neighbor Dick Pirozzolo, who has just published the book, Escape from Saigon - a Novel this year, he said, “funny you should say that”. He is himself a Vietnam Vet, but he said in his research and during his book tour, while he has encountered many veterans who live full and rich lives, he also said that he has met a fair number of veterans who live and breathe their days in Vietnam every day—even though the end of this month will mark the 42nd anniversary of the ending of that war. “After all,” Dick commented, “you are 19 years old, your friends are all back home working in a shoe store, and you are in a strange country, surrounded by people speaking a foreign language, and you are getting shot at.”
But he said, the problem is that what happens to some of us is that we get stuck at 19. Our entire identity is formed around being a Vietnam Veteran and that does not allow a new identity to form. Our lives are dedicated to remembering that time – from the stories we share to the social media platforms we belong to and contribute to.
Another friend of mine, who works with students, said to me, “that is such an important message” because she finds that some of her students cling to ideas, ideologies, and identities in ways that are unhealthy because they perpetuate their sense of being powerless victims in a hostile world.
Or another friend talked about a woman she knew who was the team mom of a volleyball team – and she did everything – she organized uniforms, social events, coaches gifts, the booster club – but at the end of her son’s junior year, at the end of season party, when he was not elected captain by his peers for the following year, she was absolutely devastated. She refused to talk to anyone for the rest of the party and her son never played volleyball again – so attached was she to the idea of her son being captain.
I am sure we all have examples from our own lives - elderly parents who cling to the idea of unrealistic independence, or children who can’t seem to quite realize they have actually reached adulthood, a parent who cannot let go of their adult children, etc., etc.
The subject of letting go is not just a superficial self-help issue. They are deep spiritual concerns – which come to the very heart of our gospel lesson for this morning. Jesus tells Mary – do not hold on to me. Literally – do not cling to me as I am now. I am yet to ascend to the Father. Jesus is telling her that she must not cling to him because his time on earth is done. And why that is important is that first of all, after the crucifixion they can’t just go back to the way things were – and secondly, the ascension is necessary so that the work of Jesus will no longer be constrained to his little corner of Israel – but will spread to the four corners of the earth.
And it’s not just the idea of the physically present Jesus she is going to have to let go of. If she wants to share in that resurrected life of new life and rebirth – she is going to have to let go of everything that is holding her back – she may have to let go of her anger at the Romans for crucifying Jesus, she may have to have to let go of her feelings of resentment at the disciples for handing Jesus over, betraying Jesus, and falling asleep while Jesus was praying when he very clearly asked them to stay awake. She may have to let go of her bitterness toward a world that allows an innocent man to die. She may have to let go of her wrath toward her own people for their maleficent fickleness – who on Palm Sunday lauded Jesus as King – and then jeered Jesus just a few days later when he really needed them.
But let me be clear - there is a big difference between letting go and forgetting. Letting go – means having a willingness to move forward, to not be stuck in the muck and mire of past wrongs. Forgetting is pretty near impossible, and forgiving can be a very long process indeed.
What we celebrate today is the resurrection. We celebrate that when one thing ends – and when we let go and give it to God, and trust that God will do something good and meaningful and life-giving to that of which we let go – we too will live the resurrected life.
God invites us to new life each and every moment of our lives – not to cling to the past – but to be engaged in our lives right here and right now. It is just as Joseph Campbell, the preeminent expert in comparative mythology and religion who wrote: We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us.
Along with being coauthor of "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" set during the final days of America's "first television war," Dick Pirozzolo is managing director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations, an international communication firm based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Reprinted with permission by Consequence Magazine: the international literary magazine focusing on the culture of war.
Escape from Saigon- a Novel (Skyhorse Publishing, New York), by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo, explores the month of April, 1975, when North Vietnam achieved its multi-decade objective of conquering South Vietnam and giving Saigon a new name—Ho Chi Minh City.
This is a fast moving, day-by-day account told through the perspective of diplomats, journalists, CIA operatives, a bartender, numerous Vietnamese, military officers, and Washington officials, notably Henry Kissinger.
The central theme of Escape from Saigon is the human cost of war, especially collateral costs to noncombatants. As the French in the 1950s and then the Americans in the 1960s and 70s established and propped up South Vietnam as an independent republic, multitudes of individuals—not just soldiers—came to Saigon and made it a kind of home away from home.
There they spawned children of mixed nationalities, established businesses, careers, and reputations, and ran innumerable black and diplomatic operations in the shadows of war. These are the main characters in Escape from Saigon: Sam Esposito and Lisette Vo, young American journalists; Carwood, a ranking CIA officer; Jean Paul Pellerin, proprietor of Le P’tit Bistrot, a journalists’ watering hole; Tuan, Vo’s cameraman; Father André Dessault, archbishop of Saigon; Captain Trung, a South Vietnamese pilot and turncoat…and the list goes on. Let’s call this cast of characters a demimonde typical of embattled capitals: idealists, adventurers, drinkers, sharpsters, adrenalin-addicts, opportunists and lost souls.
The crucial military action is reported more or less as a tightening noose, with the North’s forces swiftly strangling Saigon and its inhabitants. Thus, Escape from Saigon’s opening pages make clear that defeat is near and coming on fast, but this narrative framework is somewhat deceptive. It’s true that Richard Nixon’s resignation stimulated the North Vietnamese to break the cease-fire negotiated in Paris 20 months earlier and strike swiftly with overwhelming force. A month or so was all it took. But it’s also true that this war had been going on for generations. Tragically, its outcome was a foregone conclusion all along. Vietnam never really was a two-state solution of North Vietnam and South Vietnam. At the beginning of the conflict, Vietnam was what it was at the end of the conflict, a single country, Vietnam.
So in April, 1975, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam would disintegrate. President Thieu, who has a cameo role in the novel, would bitterly resign and take flight. Saigon would fall like a rotted tree. And tens of thousands of Vietnamese associated with the US by virtue of employment or family connections would feel—did feel—that they must escape or be subjected to brutal treatment by the North Vietnamese conquerors.
In Escape from Saigon one central figure, US Ambassador Graham Martin, is shown making the evacuation of these endangered thousands worse by insisting that some political arrangement could be worked out between the North and South right up to the final days of the South’s total collapse. Martin’s reasoning is that if he indicates he is thinking of ordering an evacuation too soon, he will cause panic and scuttle last-minute negotiations. That is probably true with regard to panic; with regard to last-minute negotiations, the idea of some modus vivendi between North and South is the kind of fantasy that caused such carnage in Vietnam for decades.
The best account I have read of US misunderstanding of Vietnam is George Allen’s None So Blind, a study of US intelligence failures and frustrations from the early 1950s until the end. Allen makes clear that US policymakers were either incapable or unwilling to deal with the realities of Vietnam after the French departure. Bernard Fall’s extensive writing on Vietnam parallels Allen’s analysis from a journalistic standpoint and was just as available to anyone in authority who wanted to know something about a country and a people that was, to be fair, on the other side of the globe.
In a way, Ambassador Martin was the last man who thought Humpty Dumpty could be put together again, the last holdout against reality. In the novel, he is depicted as tight-lipped and stubborn, quite the ambassador. Kissinger, and then President Ford, have to tell him the game is up. Time to leave.
Escape from Saigon quickens as its characters pursue all the strategies imaginable for getting out—“adopting” former employees, smuggling themselves through checkpoints, crawling over barbed-wire to get onto US embassy grounds in hopes of being ferried out to the 7th Fleet offshore, clutching at each other in dangerously overloaded helicopters.
Most of what is described is awful but probably falls short of the experience itself, the uncertainties, the impotence, the anxiety, the physical discomforts and injuries, the strange alliances made between odd couples on the run.
Truisms are tedious but true: those who decide to wage war generally do so in distant, comfortable circumstances for reasons of state, and those who experience war are brutalized and terrified in ghastly conditions. There is a connection between decision makers and pawns, but it is not direct or obvious in what the two groups go through. In fact, if the decision makers found themselves subjected to the immediate consequences of their decisions, they probably would think twice and three times about their decisions. War makers produce war victims in wanton abundance. A war maker who does not understand this is a war maker who has read no history or refuses to take it seriously.
Escape from Saigon is largely accurate in historical terms. It is an events-driven narrative wherein the desperate efforts of people with little to no control over their circumstances are vividly presented. Its co-authors, Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo, have managed to write with a single voice. This is a compelling, well-researched novel. It’s worth reading.
Planning to see the new and edgier production of Miss Saigon when it returns to Broadway after its New York debut 25 years ago? Then consider reading "Escape from Saigon - a Novel" and other currently popular books for historical context before you go.
"While all the action in Escape from Saigon takes place during April, 1975—the final 30 days of the Vietnam War—the novel relies on flashbacks, old news accounts and barroom ramblings to put the events portrayed in Miss Saigon into historical and political context. This makes the novel an excellent read for anyone planning to see the show opening on at The Broadway on March 23—especially younger people who know the Vietnam War only through history classes and stories of their parents and grandparents," says Dick Pirozzolo.
Through the novel's principal characters—NBS-TV's Lisette Vo, the network's first Vietnamese American war correspondent, and Sam Esposito the hard-hitting journalist with The Washington Legend, who infuriated President Richard Nixon with his reporting, the reader learns of the political bungling, missteps and post World War II decisions that led to a war that cost the lives of 50,000 Americana and millions of Vietnamese on both sides of a once divided Southeast Asian nation.
When Miss Saigon returned to the London stage in 2014, Serena Davies writing for The Telegraph, quotedproducer Cameron Mackintosh as saying that inconclusive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will give viewers a new empathy with Miss Saigon’s depiction of Vietnam as a conflict in which everyone was a victim.
"History has almost caught up with Miss Saigon," he says. "When the show opened it was only 14 or 15 years after the Vietnam War had finished. But now that kind of war and the tragedies that spill out of that kind of conflict… nearly every country in the world has been involved: Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq. We are seeing things develop in Ukraine as we speak. I know I’m biased but when I walk into rehearsals I think, “This musical could have been written this morning, not 25 years ago.”Continue Reading
The Sympathizer
"They call them bui doi, the dust of life" is a poignant aria in Miss Saigon that recalls an America of 1975 that rescued and welcomed mixed-race children who would otherwise have been outcasts in their homeland—a stark contrast to today's governmentrefugee ban that rejects the most vulnerable victims of war.
To understand the life of a young Vietnamese War refugee who was living in Orange County, California, look to Viet Nguyen’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “The Sympathizer,” that examines conflicted foreign allegiances and an America-centric view of foreign conflicts. The “Sympathizer” is an allegory for today’s hyper nationalism and fear of theother. Nguyen’s companion book of 2015, “The Refugees” shines a light on the subtle complexities and conflicts of leaving ones native country for a new home in America.
In addition, Lana Noone’s new play, “Children of the April Rain” about Operation Babylift, the ill-fated first flight of mixed heritage children during the last days of the Vietnam War is opening around the country. Rory Kennedy’s film "Last Days in Vietnam" and Ken Burns latest PBS-TV documentary "The Vietnam War" add to the contemporary offerings on the subject.
When I first saw Miss Saigon, I went with agroup of eight Vietnamese. All men. None of us left with a dry eye. Going back, and knowing the decisions and misunderstandings that contributed to the tragedy of Vietnam, might just prevent future generations from making the same mistakes.
“Escape from Saigon - a Novel” by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo was published in January of 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY, 264 pages and lists at $24.95. Further information and an excerpt are available at: www.escsapefromsaigon.com
Americans—many of whom know the Vietnam War only through stories told by their parents and grandparents—are looking back at that painful conflict to understand our contemporary foreign entanglements, veterans issues, the media, and especially the refugee ban as a painful shift in how our nation now treats the most vulnerable victims of war.
The wave of interest in a 40-year-old war that divided our nation and defined a generation accounts for the popularity of current literary offerings on Vietnam—among them “The Sympathizer,” “Tribe,” and the just published, “Escape from Saigon - a Novel." In addition these and other books, there has been a recent spate of films, TV documentaries and theatrical productions over the past year that shed light on a war that ended abruptly on April 30, 1975.
Vietnam War refugee Viet Nguyen’s 2016 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “The Sympathizer,” shines a harsh light on conflicted foreign allegiances and an America-centric view of foreign conflicts. The “Sympathizer”stands up as an allegory for today’s new hyper nationalism and fear of the other. Nguyen’s companion book of 2015, “The Refugees”further examines the subtle complexities and conflicts of leaving ones native country for a new home in America.
Though not strictly a Vietnam War book, “Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging,”by Sebastian Junger, examines the plight of returning combat veterans by likening the military to tribal societies where individuals share loyalty, a common purpose and depend on one another for survival. Junger argues that post traumatic stress may stem partly from the loss of community veterans face as they try to adjust to civilian life. When a 22-year-old Army sergeant, who has made life-and-death decisions as leader of a four man-squad in combat, comes home to be surrounded by people who know nothing of his experience the loneliness sets in and becomes overwhelming.
Published in January of 2017, “Escape from Saigon - a Novel”by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo looks at how the Vietnam War shaped contemporary American attitudes in a fast-paced fictional account that compresses the action into the final 30 days of that three-decades-long conflict and put the endgame in context through flashbacks, old news accounts and barroom ramblings about political decisions made in the 1950s that set the stage for war.
The novel recounts the events of April 1975 through the lives of ordinary people most affected by the fighting and political bungling of the powerful they encounter. In addition to Vietnamese and American civilians there are journalists, French expatriates, US Embassy staffers and CIA operatives, all seeking escape by any means possible as the North Vietnamese Army tightens its stranglehold on Saigon—a city once known as the Paris of the Orient. Indeed, the final scenes of “Escape” recount the courage of hordes of Vietnamese refugees and the aviators and sailors who helped them in the biggest air-sea rescue in history, and an America that welcomed them with open arms.
The story is as much about the war as it is about the evolution of media, with much of the plot being about the journalists who covered what was dubbed America’s first television war.Correspondents back then devoted their youth to covering Vietnam, often for a decade or more and shaped public opinion through vivid, nearly simultaneous TV pictures of battles and newspaper exposés on the Pentagon Papers and My Lai Massacre. “Escape’s” Lisette Vo, NBS-TV’s first Vietnamese-American war correspondent, foreshadows the rise of women in journalism and the advent of 24/7 cable news, while the hard hitting Sam Esposito of The Washington Legend rips into three presidents—especially Dick Nixon—with investigative reports that changed the course of history.
Access to news and information was fairly limited in 1975. There were only three networks. Their anchors were trusted, larger-than-life figures Americans invited into their living rooms. The evening news was appointment TV and we all watched and read essentially the same news—a far cry from today’s media environment with fragmented cable TV audiences and fake Internet news outlets. The technology has improved, but with it Americans lost its sense of community.
In addition to the several books on the Vietnam War, Miss Saigon will be reprised at The Broadway in March and simulcast to local movie theaters in HD to reach a large nationwide audience. Lana Noone’s new play, “Children of the April Rain” about Operation Babylift, the ill-fated evacuation of mixed heritage children during the last days of the Vietnam War is opening around the country. Rory Kennedy’s film "Last Days in Vietnam" and Ken Burns latest PBS-TV documentary "The Vietnam War"add to the contemporary offerings on the subject.
“Escape from Saigon - a Novel” by Michael Morris and Dick Pirozzolo was published in January of 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY, 264 pages and lists at $24.95. Further information and an excerpt are available at: www.escsapefromsaigon.com
Dick Pirozzolo has lived in Wellesley for 40 years, but Vietnam has never been far from his thoughts. Awarded the Bronze Star for his service as an Air Force media relations officer in Saigon in 1970-71, Pirozzolo went on to work years later on U.S.-Vietnam reconciliation, including through extensive writing.
Now Pirozzolo and collaborator Michael Morris—who is a decorated U.S. Army veteran who was awarded the Purple Heart and wound up studying and practicing journalism—have applied their unique perspectives on Vietnam into co-authoring Escape from Saigon: A Novelpublished in January 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing New York.Pirozzolo, who runs a PR firm bearing his name, is getting the word out about the book’s release by answering, which begin with something of a humblebrag by me about my sophisticated reading habits…
I just finished reading The Sympathizer, which is about the Vietnam War and won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I’m going to guess you’re familiar with it and have probably read it, given your great interest in Vietnam. If so, what did you think of that book? And for others who have recently read The Sympathizer, what about your book might compel them to dive into another novel about Vietnam?
I’m partway through The Sympathizer. I did not want to read it while we were editing Escape from Saigon: A Novel. The Sympathizer takes place during the same relative time period and some of the watershed events are covered in both The Sympathizerand Escape from Saigon. Certainly the perspective of a Vietnam refugee who made his way to the States as a child is very different from a couple of Vietnam veterans in our book. I love all the plot twists and inner conflict over allegiances in The Sympathizer. In the long run though, I see The Sympathizer as an allegory for the emergence of a new American tribalism and negative attitudes that seem to be growing toward refugees, in short fear of “the other.”
Escape from Saigon resonates on several levels. It’s a fast-paced story of fear, desperation, courage and love amidst failed politics that hews closely to the historical record. It’s also a story about people—both ordinary and powerful—trapped in a besieged city over a 30-day period — from April 1 “all fools day” to April 30 when the North Vietnamese Army tanks burst through the gates of the Presidential Palace, ending the decades long conflict both in deed and symbolically.
Escape is as much about the war as it is about reporting on the war and a reminder of how much communication has advanced in the four decades. Through two of our characters — Lisette Vo, North American Broadcast System—NBS-TV’s—first Vietnamese-American war correspondent, and Sam Esposito, the hard-hitting journalist with The Washington Legend who infuriates President Nixon—we learn how grindingly cumbersome it was to deliver the news to the American public 40 years ago. Vietnam was America’s first television war, and there were only three networks, whose anchors were trusted, larger-than-life people whom we invited into our living rooms.
There’s certainly a great appetite among sectors of the American public for books/movies/TV shows about war, including WW I & WW II, as well as more recent wars and conflicts. What’s your sense of how great that interest is for material about the Vietnam war, and how have you seen that change?
There is a resurgence of interest in Vietnam. The hit musical Miss Saigon is returning to Broadway in March at the very theater where it opened in the US over two decades ago. Ken Burns has produced a new documentary series on Vietnam that will air on PBS-TV this fall. People seem to have an insatiable appetite for Vietnam War history now. I don’t know what to credit this to, perhaps enough time has passed for Americans to take a fresh look at our involvement in overseas conflicts and to try to learn some lessons from foreign entanglements that lack specific purpose.
Authors Dick Pirozzolo and Michael Morris, flank Tuan Nguyen CEO of Boston Global Forum as they present "Escape from Saigon" to him. Boston Global Forum helped fund research for the novel.
I’m a member of the editorial board of Boston Global Forum, founded by Gov. Michael Dukakis and Tuan Nguyen, a Vietnamese native who is credited with bringing a free and open Internet to today’s Vietnam. Much of the discussions and a number of position papers produced by this think tank focus on peaceful solutions to tensions in the South China Sea and a resolution to the conflict between China and Vietnam. No small point…Vietnam has become our ally in the Pacific, contributing to America’s ability to project influence and US Naval power in the region.
Is there an active Vietnam War veteran-specific community in the area?
The VFW has become welcoming and supportive of Vietnam Veterans over the years and attitudes toward Vietnam vets, indeed all vets, has become more positive. No one ever said, “Thank you for your service” back in the ‘70s.
When did you first start thinking about writing this novel and how long did it actually take to write? Can you discuss your writing process a bit?
It was evolutionary. Michael Morris and I had produced nonfiction books together on traditional American homebuilding.
We first met while working on an editorial project for Field & Stream, we both were experts on homebuilding and the homebuilding industry. We were also Vietnam vets so our conversation turned to our experiences in Vietnam and we often talked of doing “something” on the Vietnam War. We considered film, a definitive history of the war, and at some point—I don’t recall a eureka moment—we came up with a historical novel, and to make it manageable we decided to focus on the tumultuous 30 days of April 1975. Skyhorse Publishing, in New York, liked the concept, signed a contract, gave us an advance and we were off and running.
As far as writing in tandem—the episodic nature of the novel make it work. The rest was a matter of bringing our unique perspective and knowledge to the work—Mike served in combat in the field, I worked in Saigon as a press officer.
Note: Dick Pirozzolo will be speaking at R.J. Julia Booksellers, Madison, Connecticut at 7 PM, March 14. Dick Pirozzolo and Michael Morris will be speaking at Boston Global Forum, Harvard University Faculty Club at 1 PM, April 25 (BGF is open to press and the academic community) for details and to RSVP email: [email protected]
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