That was the end of the Rustic operation, but not quite the end of American involvement in Cambodia.
With the withdrawal of American air support, the ability of the Khmer Republic to survive was considered doubtful. The NVA was beginning to pull out of Cambodia in order to help with the final push to take total control of South Vietnam. The Khmer Rouge was continuing to grow stronger. Their leader, Saloth Sar, emerged under the name of Pol Pot1 and conducted regular artillery and rocket attacks on Phnom Penh. In reality, Lon Nol’s Khmer Republic controlled very little territory outside of Phnom Penh.
In November 1973, a plan called Tactical Air Improvement Plan, Cambodia, was developed and USAF Brig. Gen. Harry C. (Heinie) Aderholt was put in charge of it. He operated from Bangkok, Thailand, and among his first acts was suppling the Cambodians with more aircraft, primarily T-28s and helicopters, and bringing the aircraft they had to Thailand for much-needed maintenance. He also set up a training program in Thailand for Cambodian pilots.
Heinie Aderholt also took on the problem of moving supplies to Cambodia. River convoys were out. There was no air cover and the U.S. Navy was no longer available to organize them in South Vietnam. USAF C-130s were still flying airdrop missions to Cambodia from U Tapao, Thailand, but the total cargo moved was small compared to the needs. Because of the political ramifications of loss of a C-130 over Cambodia, General Aderholt recommended that a civilian contractor take over the supply mission using unmarked USAF C-130 aircraft. Birdair, a division of Bird & Sons, was a contractor that had been operating for years in that part of the world and was acceptable to both the U.S. Air Force and the Thai government. By the time of its termination in 1975, the supply airlift had grown to be the largest since the Berlin airlift in 1948–1949. The story of that support is well told in Gen. Heinie Aderholt’s biography.2
The Lon Nol regime held out until 1975 and made a series of offers to negotiate with the Khmer Rouge. None of them were accepted.3 In April, the government of the Khmer Republic collapsed and Lon Nol and his family left Cambodia. By April 10, most Americans and the embassy staff had been evacuated to Thailand. The American Embassy closed on April 12.4
Although everyone was expecting a massive attack on Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge, it didn’t happen. On April 17, two weeks before the fall of Saigon, the Khmer Rouge just marched into the city and took over the government buildings. They established Democratic Kampuchea under the leadership of Pol Pot and ordered the immediate evacuation of everyone from Phnom Penh. This was the beginning of the genocide action in which, by some estimates, more than a million Cambodians were slaughtered.
In May 1975, Khmer Rouge naval forces boarded and captured an American cargo ship, the Mayaguez, in international waters in the Gulf of Thailand. Since there were no lines of communication between the United States and the Khmer Rouge, President Ford approved a naval bombardment of Kompong Som and an armed assault against the island where the Mayaguez was being held. In actuality, the Mayaguez crew had already been released before the assault began. The assault cost the American navy and marines over eighty casualties, both killed and wounded, and the loss of four helicopters.5 Some OV-10s from Nakhon Phanom flew missions in support of that action, but they were not Rustics.
Some other loose ends need tying off.
Col. Lieou Phin Oum and his family were already in Thailand and entered the American refugee program. With the help and sponsorship of Lt. Col. Dave Sands and some of the Rustics, including Col. Ray Stratton, Colonel Oum and his entire family were evacuated to the United States and settled in Austin, Texas. Dave was the commander of an O-2 squadron at nearby Bergstrom AFB and affiliated with a church group who could officially act as sponsor. Dave and his church group provided Oum and his family with a fully furnished home, clothes, food, and entry into the community. Oum used his skills in communications to earn a living, and all of his children entered school and earned college degrees, most of them in technical fields.
Capt. San Sok (Sam) disappeared and managed to make his own way to the United States as a refugee. He located Mark Berent, who was able to help him. He worked at various jobs in the United States but eventually returned to Cambodia, where he now lives a few kilometers from Kompong Thom.
Lt. Col. Kohn Om, after the Rustics left, was sent to Battambang as commandant of the Air Force Academy. By mid-1974, he was back in Phnom Penh as the deputy chief of Air Force Intelligence. He continued to fly as a pilot and had every opportunity to escape in 1975. He might even have crammed his family into a T-28 and brought them with him—many Cambodian pilots did that. As he put it, “I couldn’t throw away my country just to save my life.” In a story that deserves to be a book itself, he and his family walked to the Vietnamese border and settled in a small Vietnamese community as farmers. Since exit visas were nearly impossible to obtain, he decided to go back across Cambodia to Thailand and attempt to enter the United States as a refugee. During that trip, he was captured by the Khmer Rouge. He managed to escape and made his way to a refugee camp across the border in Thailand. In Bangkok, he met Mark Berent,6 who he had known as the air attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. Mark vouched for him and met him when he finally arrived at Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C. With some help from the American Ambassador to the United Nations, Jean Kirkpatrick, and the former Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird, travel from Vietnam was arranged for his family. In 1986, eleven years after escaping from Cambodia, his family finally arrived in the United States. Kohn Om and his family are now American citizens and live in Virginia.
Dung Ngoc Le (“June,” the Night Rustic maid at Bien Hoa) made it to the United States as a refugee and now lives with her husband and children in Virginia.
Missue, the Rustic mascot, was brought (some might say smuggled) to the United States by one of the Rustic backseaters and lived in luxury to a ripe old age.
Mark Berent retired from the Air Force and became a successful author in his own right. He lives in Arizona.
The Rustics scattered to the four corners of the country and beyond. Some stayed in the Air Force until retirement. Many stayed in the aviation field and several became airline pilots. In 1995, the Rustics began rediscovering each other and formed the Rustic FAC Association. They learned that there was no official history of the Rustic operation, so they began collecting information on it. This book is one of the products of that process.
Today, Cambodia has enjoyed a few years of stability in its government and its economy is slowly beginning to recover from the ravages of Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge, and the North Vietnamese. There are efforts to attract investment and tourists are gradually returning. In November 2000, some of the Rustics went back to Cambodia to visit places they knew very well from the air and meet people they knew only as voices on the radio. One of the objectives of the Rustic FAC Association is to aid Cambodian relief and assist that country in its efforts to restore its civilization. For those wishing more information, the Rustic website is www.rustic.org.
If nothing else, the war in Cambodia showed that massive airpower cannot compensate for a basically weak ground force. The Cambodians were overmatched and the United States could not put troops on the ground to help them.
It is hard to think of anything good to say about the war in Southeast Asia, but the friendships the Rustics established in Cambodia and their efforts in behalf of that country were a small entry on the plus side of the ledger. For almost all of us, that was the most memorable and satisfying period of our military careers.
Jim Reese (Rustic 57) describes the feeling many of us carry:
I was still a second lieutenant, fresh out of flying school. There I was, going through FAC training with orders to Vietnam in my hand. One night we had a party and one of our flight instructors, a combat veteran, had a couple of drinks and began to get a little melancholy.
“I really envy you young pilots. You’re about to begin your combat flying assignment in Vietnam. Enjoy it, because it’s the best assignment you’ll have in your entire Air Force career.”
I did not want to hear that! I hadn’t even begun my Air Force career. Did he mean that after this it was all downhill? That the rest of my Air Force career would be boring and purposeless by comparison? That couldn’t possibly be true.
But, of course, it was true.