I awoke this morning with with both a lightness of heart and a heaviness of spirit. It is April 30, 2025, the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, America’s first humiliating loss as a world power. It is not an easy fact to look in the eye.
Though I’ll often write upon rising, I usually shy away from doing videos. But this morning, the atmosphere felt almost as it did on the morning of April 30 on Phú Quốc Island when I was visiting ten years ago. That morning, I arose early to greet the dawn at the beach, not far from where my father, James E. Welch, fled the country with his staff and their families.
Granted, it’s much colder here in Upstate New York, but the spirit of the day moved me easily from bed to quick cup of coffee to nestling on the floor with notebook and recording equipment.
This one-take video is far from perfect (why do iPhones capture eye contact perfectly in vertical mode and not in horizontal?) , and perhaps a little too long, but I offer it humbly as a genuine moment of reflection and recollection.
However you experience this day, this anniversary, I hope you take a moment to commemorate it with a thought, a prayer, a remembered story of someone or something that gives you hope and expands your ability to act courageously in the world.
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