Dick Nixon told us that “everything we knew about Vietnam was wrong,” except for the end of it. Our pal Jake served in Saigon in the waning days, and then as a promising young officer in the Intelligence Plot of the Chief of Naval Operations.
By the spring of 1975, it was all over but the shouting. The ground troops and the POWs—at least the ones in the hands of the DRV—were home and no longer news. Those who knew the ground understood that the last offensive was underway. The troops of the South were fleeing in disarray. In it’s way, it was not much different than the way we left Afghanistan. Some things recur in the human experience.

Jake was a Lieutenant then, the finest rank it is possible for an officer to have. Lieutenants are bullet-proof. They can get out of the service, as most did in the days of the Draft, or they are permitted to make minor mistakes of enthusiasm.

Sometimes they are permitted more.

The Admiral and Dr. Dave were sitting on the couch one night, talking about responsibility. The Navy prides itself on pinning it on whoever is in command.

“Chester Nimitz got a court-martial for grounding USS Decatur in China,” said the Doc. “It didn’t hurt his career, but of course he was only an Ensign and the charts of those waters in 1907 lacked detail.”

“Ensigns are bullet-proof,” I said from the safety of my brown chair.

We went back and forth about who usually got hung for really serious screw-ups, and the results were inconclusive. Some of the biggest mistakes are never punished, or even acknowledged.

That was America at its zenith. We could do massive things in many places simultaneously, and absorb the consequences unevenly. Some paid immediately. Some much later. Some not at all.

In 1975, Commander Tom—already a company man and a future DNI—stood in the back of the briefing room and let the Lieutenant speak. Jake told Admiral Holloway, the Chief, that the North was going to overrun the defenses around Saigon, and that the war was going to end on terms favorable to the enemy.

Jake once told me about the delicate process of moving the truth forward. They tried it first on Congressional staff who seemed willing to listen. Bobbie Ray Inman and his leadership team wanted accuracy and truth in the denouement, but with a certain care.

Admiral Holloway had rows of ribbons that ran from his left pocket nearly over his shoulder. He had first gone to war with the Vietnamese a decade earlier. As Seventh Fleet Commander, he had personally led the cruiser-destroyer gunfire strike against Haiphong and unleashed massive carrier air strikes against Hanoi during LINEBACKER II, the effort that produced the temporary cease-fire in 1973.

“It’s over?” the Admiral asked, trying to process the information.

Jake nodded.

The other flag officers leaned forward, surprised that someone had said it so plainly.

“Yessir,” Jake replied. “It’s over.”

Sometimes it is good to be a Lieutenant.

So 1975 passed and life went on. No one paid except those who went to war, and the ones who loved them. Of the men who served in Rex’s intelligence program, one was lost, presumed dead. That was Jack Graf, a crusty LDO who should have known that no one is bullet-proof.

Lieutenants Ken Tapscott, Al Hollowell, and R.O. Williams were killed in the line of duty.

Sometimes it is not good to be a Lieutenant.

Years later, after we had convinced ourselves that oceans still protected us, we learned otherwise. On 9/11, the illusion failed completely. We were not bullet-proof at all.

By then, the last of the men who had paid early were gone. Naval intelligence had to re-learn lessons that had already been purchased by Jack, Ken, Al, and R.O.—the hard way.

It will be interesting to see how it is going to be this time, don’t you think?

(The Waterfront at Cat Lo, Republic of Vietnam, 1970)

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
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