This image is provided by Sidney “Sid” W. Bondurant, MD, of Madison, one of Mississippi’s medical heroes who is also a Vietnam veteran, a gifted historian, and a past contributor to our Journal. This historic photograph is featured in this issue to salute our Vietnam veterans and to remember that fifty years ago the Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 resulted in a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all U. S. forces, officially ending the Vietnam War for Americans. This bloody conflict began in 1955 as an extension of Cold War divisions between communist forces supported by the Soviet Union and China and anti-communist forces supported by the United States and other allies. It evolved over twenty years into extensive direct U. S. military involvement. After the last U. S. troops departed in March 1973, the peace accords fell apart, and the fighting resumed without U. S. involvement, lasting two more years. (Although all U. S. troops left Vietnam by the end of March 1973, the so-called “Secret War” continued with bombing missions in Laos for six months more until the press exposed what was occurring.) The fall of Saigon in April 1975 pronounced the end of the war, with North and South Vietnam reunifying the following year. Dr. Bondurant writes, “I was just going through the latest edition of JMSMA and as always read the ‘old pictures’ section. Earlier in the day, I had been conversing with a friend and fellow Vietnam veteran about our ‘old days’ when we were in Vietnam. That led me to thinking that in January 2023, it will be fifty years since the ceasefire went into effect there, and the war ended for us who were in the combat zone. It did not really end; we kept on running bombing missions over Laos for another six months, but there had been an agreement signed, and no one else was being sent from the USA over to that hellhole.”
Dr. Bondurant sent this impressive photograph taken in the final days of that conflict fifty years ago. He notes, “The picture attached shows a Navy SH-3 helicopter, call sign ‘Big Mother 61,’ landing on the USS Reeves (DLG-24) somewhere just off North Vietnam, returning from a mission. The USS Reeves was designated North SAR (Search and Rescue) at this time and was the closest ship to North Vietnam on the day of the ceasefire. The Commanding Officer was a US Naval Academy graduate, Captain Lee Baggett, Jr., USN, whose hometown was Oxford, Mississippi. North SAR duty was rotated, so it was not always the Reeves, but North SAR Medical Officer was one person in late 1972-early 1973, and that was me. Our main responsibility in the war was to try to rescue pilots who were shot down on bombing missions over North Vietnam. Rescued pilots were frequently injured, and a medical officer was required to be aboard for this reason. It has been fifty years or so, and I cannot say for sure just what mission happened on the day of this picture (it could have been just delivering the mail!), but it is a representative picture. The photograph was taken by HM-3 Mike Reddington, USN, who was my junior corpsman on the Reeves. Mike sent it to me years later, saying that I was on the helicopter, and he thought I might want to have it.”
The Laos bombing missions, called the “Secret War,” persisted for six months more. Dr. Bondurant describes that final period: “We maintained ships just off the coast of Vietnam and had air controllers on board guiding the pilots over Laos. After the January ceasefire, North SAR was disestablished, and I was transferred to the USS Fox (DLG-33) at PIRAZ Station. PIRAZ was ‘Positive Identification Radar Advisory Zone.’ We finally ceased the bombing about July 1973. That is when I came home and got transferred to another Navy unit based in Athens, Greece.”
With thanks to Dr. Bondurant for submitting this image, I also extend great appreciation to our nation’s Vietnam veterans, a large number of whom are Mississippi physicians. If you have an old or even somewhat recent photograph of interest to Mississippi physicians, please send it to me at drluciuslampton@gmail.com or by snail mail to the Journal. — Lucius M. “Luke” Lampton, MD; JMSMA Editor
