* The sea off Con Son Island was also the place from which US defense attaché Richard Armitage, aboard the USS Kirk, went against orders in 1975 and led all thirty-two ships of the Republic of Vietnam navy, loaded with thirty thousand refugees, a thousand miles away to the Philippines the day after South Vietnam fell. So many choppers filled with additional refugees landed on the Kirk’s deck that sailors, after evacuating the refugees, pushed the choppers into the sea to make room for more. Armitage, a former naval officer, had to negotiate with the US and Philippine governments to allow the refugees to disembark.