logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2023
51m 31s

No place like 'Nam

Bbc World Service
About this episode

March 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the departure of the last American combat troops from Vietnam. Vietnamese journalist Nga Pham uncovers the surprising story of the US veterans who served in Vietnam during the 1960s and early '70s, and have since returned as retirees and decided to make the country their home. Can it just be the cheap housing, affordable healthcare and low cost of living? Or is it a way of healing from the psychological trauma of their experiences serving in the US military during the war in Vietnam?

Up next
Yesterday
Love on trial: India's age of consent controversy
Set against the backdrop of one of the world’s toughest child protection laws, Brishbhanu Baruah explores how India’s landmark Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso) is reshaping the lives of young people. Introduced after the 2012 Delhi gang rape, Pocso has been ... Show More
26m 44s
May 2
Mapping Epstein's global connections
The personal correspondence, photographs and papers of the late convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein have been released to the public in stages, beginning in December 2025, after an almost unanimous vote in the US Senate. The released files run to three and a half ... Show More
26m 29s
Apr 25
Inside the Mugabe dynasty
Late Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe died in 2019, but in the years before and since his death, his three children with his former wife, Grace, consistenly made headlines for all the wrong reasons. In April 2026 Bellarmine Mugabe pled guilty to a firearms offence in South Afri ... Show More
26m 29s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2020
Unsolved: Did the US abandon soldiers in the Vietnam War?
<p>At the close of the Paris Peace Accords, the US and Vietnam agreed to return any POWs to their home country -- however, for decades after the close of the conflict, people in country reported seeing missing American soldiers, sometimes held by foreign officials, sometimes on t ... Show More
57m 26s
Jun 2022
Vietnam's 'Napalm Girl'
It’s 50 years since Kim Phuc's village in Vietnam was bombed with napalm. The photograph of her, running burned and crying away from the attack, became one of the iconic images of the Vietnam War. Christopher Wain was one of the journalists who witnessed the attack, and who helpe ... Show More
10m 21s
Sep 2021
Surviving the fall of Saigon
When South Vietnam fell in 1975, most could not escape. In the last days, the US airlifted its remaining personnel and some high ranking Vietnamese officials - but millions were left behind to await their fate. This is the account of one South Vietnamese veteran who remained in S ... Show More
13m 49s
Aug 2021
US withdrawal: The fall of Saigon
The last remaining US forces pulled out of Vietnam on April 30th 1975 as communist North Vietnamese troops took control of the country. There was a desperate scramble to evacuate US personnel and some Vietnamese colleagues who feared brutal reprisals at the hands of the communist ... Show More
14m 34s
Jan 2023
Pacification in the Vietnam War
<p>This year marks the 50th anniversary of the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. It was one of the most costly conflicts that the U.S. has ever fought, causing immense loss of life on all sides. US intervention was defined by the strategy of 'pacification', but what exa ... Show More
46m 8s
Aug 2021
US withdrawal: The Fall of Saigon
<p>The desperate scramble to evacuate the US embassy at the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, also the 1940s Indian radio station calling for independence. We'll look at life as a 'human shield' in Iraq under Saddam, the man who invented the term 'genocide' and why, and the messy d ... Show More
55m 11s
Apr 2022
EP273: What Would My Life Be After Firefighting? and Last Men Out of Vietnam
On this episode of Our American Stories, James, a retired fire captain, shares his story of firefighting and the emotions that come along with it. Authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin tell the remarkable story of the evacuation of Saigon in Last Men Out: The True Story of America's H ... Show More
38m 13s
Apr 2023
324: Fall of Saigon: The Nightmare Begins (Part 1)
It's 1975, and in the final act of the Vietnam War, the U.S. have ordered all remaining civilian and military personnel to be withdrawn from South Vietnam. The communist Viet Cong are closing in on the city of Saigon, the hub of America’s presence, as choppers evacuate the 6000 A ... Show More
49m 14s