Remembering Vietnam: A week when ‘it all fell apart’

It’s Vietnam week, the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

The war inflicted a tremendous blow to the psyche of a nation that defines itself by the wars it’s fought. Vietnam was the first war the United States lost.

WBUR in Boston today has produced a fine video with remembrances of the last days.

“It all fell apart around us,” a former Marine says. “But we didn’t fall apart.”

The last two Americans to die in Vietnam were part of the embassy guard.

Charles McMahon, of Massachusetts, and Darwin Lee Judge, of Marshalltown, Iowa, died 40 years ago Wednesday in a rocket attack on Saigon.

When Judge was buried, he didn’t get a military funeral and only one reporter showed up.

That mistake wasn’t corrected until 2000.

Related: The gentleman journalist (NewsCut).