S1E15: Afghan refugees are here. How did we treat Vietnamese refugees?

Prof. Demmer: 130,000 Vietnamese evacuated in 1975 along with the US military. Over time, one million Vietnamese refugees settled in the U.S.

When is the right time to leave Afghanistan? And when was the right time to leave Vietnam? Are we leaving our allies in Afghanistan, defenseless before the onslaught of the Taliban? Just as we left our allies at the mercy of the North Vietnamese? What will time tell? Will Kabul go the say of Saigon? And if so, will it take two years? Or will Kabul fall faster?

One rare soldier who served in both wars believes that the same thing that happened in Vietnam is happening now in Afghanistan.

To understand what happened in Vietnam and its aftermath, we spoke with Professor Amanda Demmer, an assistant professor of history at Virginia Tech, whose research and teaching are focused on the boundaries between war and peace in American history. Her recently published book is highly pertinent to our conversation, and it's titled After Saigon’s Fall: Refugees and US-Vietnamese Relations, 1975-2000.

To learn more about Professor Demmer's scholarship and contributions to America's history of war, visit her academic homepage at https://liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-history/faculty/amanda-demmer.html.

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