By Daniel J. Hoffman: combat vet from the MAYAGUEZ Operation, the Last Battle of the Vietnam War. This story is true. I know, I am alive today because of the heroic and amazing flying by a young Air Force Helicopter pilot who saved my life and the lives of almost 80 Marines forty years ago. *lead image is a stock image It was May of 1975, just two weeks after the dramatic evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Southeast Asia was in turmoil and after American Forces had withdrawn from the area, rouge elements of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodian Navy captured an unarmed American Merchant Vessel. The S.S. MAYAGUEZ was seized in an act of piracy in international waters and taken to a small island named Koh Tang that was 29 miles off the Vietnam Cambodian border in the Gulf of Thailand. Fearing that the ship and crew would be taken to mainland Cambodia, an ill-advised and hastily planned operation was quickly thrown together in an effort to rescue the crew and recapture the MAYAGUEZ. Heroic Air Force Helicopter pilot, Bob Blough who saved my life and the lives of almost 80 Marines forty years ago. The only ground forces available in the area were Marines stationed on Okinawa, Japan. I was a 2nd Lieutenant Platoon Commander with the 2nd Battalion Ninth Marines. We were quickly pulled out of the field and were flow to a USAF air base in Utapao, Thailand from which the attack
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