BUON MA THUOT, Vietnam -- All Jay Scarborough wanted was a few days in the cool central highlands. He ended up witnessing the beginning of the end for the Vietnam War, then spent eight months as a civilian prisoner of war.
"My life has been pretty mundane since then," the Albany, N.Y., attorney said in an interview on the eve of today's 25th anniversary of the communist forces' capture of Buon Ma Thuot.It was the communists' first major victory in a final push that surprised both sides with its efficiency and speed. In just over seven weeks, the communist fighters would capture Saigon, the capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam, and reunite the divided country, ending a conflict that killed some 58,000 American troops and 3 million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
Now, Buon Ma Thuot is going all-out for the first major commemoration leading up to the April 30 anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
The military's normally low profile will remain high next week when William Cohen makes the first visit by a U.S. defense secretary since the war's end.
Scarborough said in a telephone interview from Albany that his memories from 1975 are perhaps the most vivid of his life.
Scarborough, then 28, was taking what was supposed to be a two-month break from law school on a Ford Foundation grant to photograph documents in the Cham language.
But he figured out pretty quickly that Buon Ma Thuot might not be such a good place to take a break.
"The Air Vietnam office was mobbed," Scarborough said. "At 6 p.m., the provincial chief said no more gasoline was to be sold. Then we heard that the Viet Cong were only two kilometers away. At 3 a.m., they began to shell the city."
The technical school compound was adjacent to the South Vietnamese army's 23rd Division, a major target.
"I have never been so scared in my life," he said. "Artillery . . . was landing 100-200 yards away in volleys of three. None landed in the schoolyard."
The attack came as a surprise. Nguyen Thien Luong, then an infantry captain, said Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces made a feint to Pleiku and Konton that drew away much of Buon Ma Thuot's protection.
Meanwhile, tanks advanced from several directions, backed by overwhelming superior numbers of troops. Four hours after the attack began, tanks were rolling into the city.
While pockets of resistance remained, the siege effectively was over.
Scarborough went to the Agency for International Development compound, where he waited nervously for two days with a dozen people, mostly missionaries. He had heard about the South Vietnamese air force bombing the town center of Phuc Luong after losing it.
"I thought they would flatten Buon Ma Thuot, too," he said.
Finally, a North Vietnamese soldier informed them they were captives. They spent six months in a POW camp for South Vietnamese forces, then two months near Hanoi.
"We weren't mistreated," Scarborough said. "They didn't know what to do with us. We were just all concerned about our health. A lot of people got malaria and gastrointestinal problems.
"We listened to the Radio Hanoi radio reports, and it seemed that someplace was falling day by day. It could have dragged on for two years. That would have been hard."
Instead, it was over on April 30, although captivity dragged on until late October when the group was released.
Despite the experience, Vietnam has gotten under Scarborough's skin. He has been back a dozen times.
The large scale of the celebration in Buon Ma Thuot illustrates the importance the government places on marking the anniversary.
And it remains clear that Vietnam, would welcome U.S. aid, investment or reparations. With annual per capita gross domestic product of only $370, Vietnam is one of the world's poorest countries.
Negotiations are under way with Washington on setting up joint research into the long-term effects of toxic defoliants like Agent Orange that have been blamed for ailments among those who were exposed and birth defects in their children.
Nearly five years after relations were normalized, the two countries also are trying to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement and other pacts.