--- title: Jim Webb Recalls the End of the Vietnam War description: Former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, the only combat veteran to run in 2016, recalled the fall of Saigon Thursday. canonical: https://time.com/3842896/jim-webb-vietnam-war/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-01T11:21:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:43:33.972Z article:section: Politics og:title: 2016's Only Combat Veteran Recalls the Vietnam War og:description: Veterans have become increasingly rare in the presidential race. og:url: https://time.com/3842896/jim-webb-vietnam-war/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteab8b66f7f1161bb/6987edde2dce01f6d99e19af/471668098.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Former VA Sen. Jim Webb Marks The 40th Anniversary Of The Fall Of Saigon At The Vietnam War Memorial og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 2016's Only Combat Veteran Recalls the Vietnam War twitter:description: Veterans have become increasingly rare in the presidential race. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteab8b66f7f1161bb/6987edde2dce01f6d99e19af/471668098.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 2016's Only Combat Veteran Recalls the Vietnam War > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell May 1, 2015 11:21 AM UTC  Former U.S. Sen. and Vietnam war veteran Jim Webb (D-VA) speaks during a ceremony commemorating the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial April 30, 2015 in Washington, DC. Former U.S. Sen. and Vietnam war veteran Jim Webb (D-VA) speaks during a ceremony commemorating the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial April 30, 2015 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee—Getty Images by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell May 1, 2015 11:21 AM UTC Jim Webb offered a rare sight Thursday. Standing on a grassy knoll overlooking a pond at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the likely 2016 Democratic presidential contender spoke in bitter detail about the [the fall of Saigon](http://time.com/3840657/saigon-fall-lessons/) 40 years earlier. A “very liberal, anti-war Congress” cut off funding to the South Vietnamese shortly before Saigon fell to the Vietcong, Webb argued. “If our political leaders had done a better job with their duty, we may have seen a different situation in Vietnam.” But more unusual than the topic — a war Americans increasingly consign to history — was how Webb spoke: as a combat veteran. Despite an unusually large field, the only veterans among the potential candidates in the 2016 presidential race are Webb and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who flew a transport plane for the Air Force in the 1970s but never saw combat. To Webb, that experience — along with stints in the Department of Defense and one term as a U.S. Senator from Virginia — makes him unusually qualified, if he decides to run. “I understand foreign policy and defense policy,” he told TIME after his speech, standing with a scrum of reporters on the grass. “I’ve worked on it every possible way you could do it. I grew up in the military I served in combat. My son served in combat. I spent five years in the Pentagon. I served as a military planner in the region.” ### See the Most Iconic Photos of the Vietnam War  An American 1st Air Cavalry helicopter airlifts supplies into a Marine outpost during Operation Pegasus in Vietnam in 1968. Larry Burrows—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images   The Reverend Thich Quang Duc, a 73-year-old Buddhist monk, soaked himself in petrol before setting himself on fire to himself and burning in front of thousands of onlookers at a main highway intersection in Saigon on June 11, 1963. Malcolm Brown—AP  American jets drop napalm on Viet Cong positions early in the Vietnam conflict in 1963. Larry Burrows—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine gun fire into the tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops in an attack on a Viet Cong camp 18 miles north of Tay Ninh, northwest of Saigon near the Cambodian border, in March 1965. Horst Faas—AP  Newly-landed U.S. Marines make their way through the sands of Red Beach at Da Nang, on their way to reinforce the air base as South Vietnamese Rangers battled guerrillas about three miles south, on April 10, 1965. Peter Arnett—AP  A Vietnamese mother and her children wade across a river, fleeing a bombing raid on Qui Nhon by United States aircraft on Sept. 7, 1965. Kyoichi Sawada—Bettmann/Corbis  A mortally wounded comrade at his feet, Lance Cpl. James C. Farley, helicopter crew chief, yells to his pilot after a firefight in Vietnam, 1965. Larry Burrows—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  A Viet Cong prisoner captured during Cape Batangan battle awaits transfer to a US POW compound in 1965. Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Colleciton/Getty Images  The body of an American paratrooper killed in action in the jungle near the Cambodian border is raised up to an evacuation helicopter in War Zone C in Vietnam on May 14, 1966. Henri Huet—AP  American Marines during Operation Prairie near the DMZ in Vietnam in Oct. 1966. Larry Burrows—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Wounded Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jeremiah Purdie (center, with bandaged head) reaches toward a stricken comrade after a fierce firefight south of the DMZ in Vietnam in Oct. 1966. Larry Burrows—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Jan Rose Kasmir confronts the American National Guard outside the Pentagon during the 1967 anti-Vietnam march in Washington on Oct. 21, 1967. Marc Riboud—Magnum Photos  South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of the National Police, fires his pistol into the head of suspected Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem (also known as Bay Lop) on a Saigon street on Feb. 1, 1968. Eddie Adams—AP  A grieving widow cries over a plastic bag containing remains of her husband which were found in mass grave. He was killed during the Tet offensive in 1968. Larry Burrows—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  The battle for Saigon in 1968. Philip Jones Griffith—Magnum Photos  As fellow troopers aid wounded comrades, the first sergeant of A Company, 101st Airborne Division, guides a medevac helicopter through the jungle foliage to pick up casualties suffered during a five-day patrol near Hue in Vietnam in April 1968. Art Greenspon—AP  A wounded U.S. paratrooper grimaces in pain as he awaits medical evacuation at base camp in the A Shau Valley near the Laos border in South Vietnam on May 19, 1969. Hugh Van Es—AP  South Vietnamese forces follow after terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc (center) as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places on June 8, 1972. Nick Ut—AP  Released prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., as he returns home from the Vietnam War on March 17, 1973. Sal Veder—AP  A North Vietnamese tank rolls through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, signifying the fall of South Vietnam, on April 30, 1975. AP  A CIA employee (probably O.B. Harnage) helps Vietnamese evacuees onto an Air America helicopter from the top of 22 Gia Long Street, a half mile from the U.S. Embassy on Apr. 25, 1975. Corbis There was a time when it would have been unheard of for the only combat veteran considering a run for president to be an underdog with little chance of winning a party’s nomination. From 1948 to 2008, every single presidential contest featured at least one veteran of the armed forces as a party nominee, many of them decorated war heroes. There was John McCain in 2008, John Kerry in 2004, Al Gore in 2000, Bob Dole in 1996, George H.W. Bush in 1992, and so on. But in 2012, for the first time in more than 70 years, neither party nominee was a veteran. And in 2016, the same is likely to be true again. Webb has a long resume of combat credentials. He served as a lieutenant, and then a platoon commander in Vietnam, earning a Navy Cross, a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, and two Purple Hearts. A [Navy account](http://web.archive.org/web/20060829180040/http://www.homeofheroes.com/valor/1%5FCitations/07%5FRVN-nc/nc%5F19rvn%5FusmcS.html) has him capturing Viet Cong soldiers, throwing claymore mines into bunkers, and shielding soldiers from grenades with his own body. He was later assistant Secretary of Defense and U.S. Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan. Military veterans such as Webb aren’t just a rarity in presidential races. Their numbers have declined dramatically among all politicians. In the 92nd Congress (1971-1972), 73% of congressmen were veterans. Today, fewer than 20% of members of Congress have served in the military. On the Supreme Court, only Justice Samuel Alito has served. That reflects a broader trend in the United States since President Nixon ended the draft in 1973: fewer and fewer Americans have served in the military. Today, 12.7% of all adults are veterans. Among senior citizens, those number are much higher, with more than half of men ages 65-69 having served in the military, and 81% of men over 90 counted as veterans, according to a Gallup [poll](http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/176453/veteran-status-shared-experience-among-men-not-others.aspx) last year. Webb’s military past hasn’t made him a hawk. He questioned the Iraq War months before the invasion began in 2003, doubting that a war against Saddam Hussein would help the United States combat terrorism. But on Thursday, he struck a bellicose tone on the Vietnam War that a non-veteran might hesitate to use. Pointing at the nearby Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which lists the name of all the American dead from the war, he said a memorial with the names of the South Vietnamese would be “four times” as big. And then he boasted, “if there was a wall for the communist soldiers who we fought against in those battles, that wall would be 24 times as big as that wall.” ### See 3 Amazing Pairings That Show Vietnam Then and Now  Rebel tanks are drawn up in front of the presidential palace in Saigon, on Nov. 3, 1963, during coup that brought the downfall and death of South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. AP  A man takes a family photo in front of the former presidential palace of the former South Vietnam U.S.-backed regime in Ho Chi Minh City, on April 10, 2015. Hoang Dinh Nam—AFP/Getty Images  The body of a South Vietnamese captain is carried on an army tank surrounded by many soldiers and civilians in a funeral procession on Saigon's main street on Nov. 5, 1963. Horst Faas—AP  Heavy traffic in central Ho Chi Minh City during the morning rush hour on Nov 22, 2014. Sean Gallagher—National Geographic/Corbis  Newly landed U.S. Marines make their way through the sands of Red Beach at Da Nang, on their way to reinforce the air base, as South Vietnamese Rangers battled guerrillas about three miles south, on April 10, 1965. Peter Arnett—AP  Students play football on the beach in Da Nang on Nov. 19, 2013. 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