Thursday is the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, signaling the very end of American involvement in Vietnam. It left a scar on the country that still shows today.

In a Time Warner Cable news special report, we take a look at the end of the war and how our vets are still dealing with the aftermath. In part one, we begin with a look at a North Carolina hero who spent nearly eight years as a prisoner of war.

 

CHARLOTTE -- What may be just old, grainy footage to some of us is still a vivid memory for Retired Col. James Quincy Collins from Charlotte.

"Evidently, the pilot got the word: 'We've got to get out of here. The enemy is coming.' They started lifting off while people were still grasping for the sleds at the bottom," Collins remembers.

On April 30, 1975, the last American aircraft left the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon just before the Communist North Vietnamese invaded.
        
Col. Collins remembers the people's desperation.

"Just hanging there! I remember that!" he said. "They were willing to give their life, if it took it, to try to get away from there."

Collins, now 83 years old, is retired.
        
But back on September 2, 1965, the Air Force pilot was shot down flying a helicopter southwest of Hanoi.

"An ejection....or an explosion. I....I don't know how I got out of that airplane," Collins recalled. "Broke my femur in three places above the left knee and some head injuries. The good Lord saw fit to save my life for whatever he had in mind for me."

Collins spent nearly eight years in captivity with thoughts of his wife and three sons back home.
        
He made a promise to himself if he ever got out, "I was going to have a place with a view."

Collins now has that view at Cypress Retirement Community in Charlotte where two silver stars and pictures of the past hang proudly.
        
What doesn't stay in the past are his thoughts on those lost in Vietnam.

"[There were] 58,000 lives just like mine, just like you, whose names are on a wall in Washington," said Collins.

As the 40th anniversary of that last evacuation arrives, Collins asks only one thing from the people: Remember.

"Some people were willing to give their lives in defense of America and America's policies and it's hard to find that nowadays," he said.