Iain Armitage on the Legacy of Richard Armitage, His Late Grandfather: Saved the Lives of 31,000 People During the Vietnam War

EXCERPT:

ARMITAGE: “No it’s — it was — it was a super hard loss. I really love and respect — love and respect — always will love and respect my grandfather, and he was a phenomenal man who did so much good for our country. He single-handedly saved the lives of 31,000 people in Vietnam right before Saigon fell. He was a key American diplomat during the Indo-Pac negotiations in the early 2000s and the late 90s. He did so much amazing work for America and its allies all around the globe and was such a cool guy and had so much knowledge and wisdom. I think one of my favorite memories, it’s really hard to pin down just one, the past four, five years, a few times a week, every week, unless we were really out of town, I would go over to his house and we'd just talk for hours, and he was such a fun and funny guy to talk to. He was also so multi-faceted, so interesting. I think just getting to to to talk to him about his memories and things he’d experienced and things he'd done around the world was always so fascinating, because I always knew I was getting one tenth of the real story and the rest was classified and I would never know it, which was king of the coolest feeling because the tip the iceberg that I was getting was more than I’ll ever do in my life, more than you’ll ever do more in your life, more than anyone could ever dream of.”