In the summer of 1972, the President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, informed the American public and the world, that he was pulling all American Combat troops out of the South Vietnam. Except he didn’t.
This was a period when a pitched battle for the entire country was underway for South Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops, equipped, logistically supported and often led by Soviet soldiers, had invaded South Vietnam just as the peace talks in Paris were beginning to make some amount of progress. As America drew down its Army combat forces in South Vietnam, considerable American Combat Power was thrown into the battle to stop what became known as the 1972 Easter Offensive by North Vietnam. This was air power on a scale not seen since World War Two. Massive strikes by United States Air Force aircraft, from Late WWII era A-1E piston powered fighters to B-52 strategic bombers and virtually everything in between, large and small. The United States Navy committed vast numbers of carrier based Navy and Marine fighter and bombers. Ordinance of all kinds, from WWII to the newest, high-tech weapons, smart bombs and new types of explosives, were rained down on the communist forces to stop them in their tracks and destroy vast numbers of their armored vehicles with much success.

And the United States Army? Well, it pulled its forces out and went home, except it didn’t. At least not all were pulled out. But those where were left in South Vietnam were officially denied. Their operations, though there were many hairy, dangerous and incredible ones, “officially’ did not happen. The heroism of many dedicated Americans, in the face of mortal combat every day for months, was and still is denied.   

To this day, the U.S. Army aircrews, maintenance, security, infantry and support troops in those units still are told that “officially” their service in combat in South Vietnam from June to December 1972, did not happen and is not credible in their records. While you might say who cares now, those soldiers and their families certainly do. Worse, getting care provided routinely to combat veterans by the U.S. Department of Veterans Administration is most often denied because of that “officially” denied period of service in combat in the Republic of South Vietnam in 1972.

I was one of those U.S. Army Soldiers. I was a Regular Army Captain, a Ranger and Combat Helicopter Pilot. And I, like all of my comrades in the three U.S. Army Air Cavalry Troops who were left in South Vietnam in direct combat with North Vietnamese forces were declared expendable. All our operations, despite the official orders from the senior command in Saigon to carry them out, were declared to never have occurred, right up until mid-December 1972. 

When I came back from Vietnam in December of 1972, I was to take leave, talk to no one in the media and await orders for my next assignment. When I reported into 18th Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, NC, in April of 1973 I was asked where I had been. Surprised, I told them on leave from Vietnam. The Corps G-1 Staff told me that I had been considered AWOL because I was supposed to report to Fort Bragg the previous June. I was stunned. I asked to see the Corp G-1 himself. I was told he would not see me and to report to my new unit, the 196th Aviation Company. The 196th is a Chinook unit at Simmons Army Airfield on Fort Bragg. I reported into to the unit commander and told me to disregard what I had been told at the Corps G-t shop. I soon found out that in my “official” Officer Personnel Record microfiche, there were no records from that period in South Vietnam. Instead, there was a letter, on 18th Airborne Corps Letterhead, that simply stated “The whereabouts of Captain John T. Hoffman during this period is unknown by this Command”.

This issue was an aggravation for the rest of my military career, yet I retired as a full Colonel. It was also an issue for me when, after I retired, I was diagnosed with Lung Cancer as the result of exposure to Agent Orange in South Vietnam. For two years the VA denied me care at the local VA hospital because “Officially” I never served in South Vietnam. Then through a senior official’s intervention, the VA was enlightened in my case, and I was accepted for care. I have always been concerned about who from my unit did not get that care because no one intervened.

Many have asked me to write down my story of service as a combat helicopter pilot in South Vietnam. For many years I used my notes from that period to draft chapters that I shared with friends and family. I also tried to get my father, a Class of 1944 West Point Graduate and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, to consider co-writing a book about our time in South Vietnam, but he never quite got around to writing his own story before he died of lung cancer as the result of exposure to Agent Orange. Yes, we were both serving in South Vietnam in 1972.   

To read the rest of my story, look for my book, The Saigon Guns, at your favorite online book seller.