WEBVTT

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(upbeat music)

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- [Female Narrator] On April 30th, 1975,

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capital of South Vietnam, Saigon,

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was captured by the North Vietnamese forces.

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This event would come to be known as the Fall of Saigon

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and mark the end of the Vietnam War.

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- [Faye] The Fall of Saigon is a major event

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^and people are trying, the Vietnamese are trying

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to get out of the country.

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They know that it's gonna be run over

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by the Communists, so they're trying to get out.

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Everyone's trying to get out.

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And they're coming lots of different ways.

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They're getting on helicopters.

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They're getting on broken down boats,

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some of them drown out at sea.

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And they were being processed through our bases in Guam.

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- [Narrator] Refugees were moved from Guam to United States

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through four bases, Fort Chaffee in Arkansas,

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Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania,

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Eglin Air Force Base in Florida,

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and Camp Pendleton in California.

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- [Faye] In April, we were opened up.

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We had 24 hours, marines were setting up the tents,

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cleaning out quonsets that were supposed to be torn down,

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fixing them up, cleaning 'em out

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and making 'em into homes for these refugees.

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So, Camp Talega for example, had three camps.

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Two of them were quonset, and one of them was tents.

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It had to ways to feed them,

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they started coming up with different ways.

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And during that time, we ended up with

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many thousands of refugees that came through the base.

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- [Phillip] At that time, it very crowded.

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^And many people, we're talking about over thousand, thousand

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of refugee, so they daily activity I can see that we have

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many Marine and tried to help us.

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And actually, we just be there

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and tried to pick up some classes, some,

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you know learn some English, learn some American culture.

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- [Narrator] At it's peak, Camp Pendleton housed

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over 18,500 refugees.

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There were 50,000 moving through the camps

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over an 8 month period.

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- [Phillip] I'm obliged and thank so much for all the marine

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and civilian, you know in 1975,

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happening all the Vietnamese refugee.

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And now I hope I can do something

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for Camp Pendleton, for marine.

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(fades into explosion)