How I Escaped Vietnam

They say history is written by the victors. That fortunately tends to come undone over time.

"A most noteworthy and still sensitive example of this double standard is the Vietnam War. The international community was outraged at the American attempt to militarily prevent North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam and ultimately Laos and Cambodia. "Stop the killing" was the cry, and eventually, the pressure of foreign and domestic opposition forced an American withdrawal. The overall number killed in the Vietnam War on all sides was about 1,216,000 people.

With the United States subsequently refusing them even modest military aid, South Vietnam was militarily defeated by the North and completely swallowed; and Cambodia was taken over by the communist Khmer Rouge, who in trying to recreate a primitive communist agricultural society slaughtered from one to three million Cambodians. If we take a middle two-million as the best estimate, then in four years the government of this small nation of seven million alone killed 64 percent more people than died in the ten-year Vietnam War.

Overall, the best estimate of those killed after the Vietnam War by the victorious communists in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia is 2,270,000. Now totaling almost twice as many as died in the Vietnam War, this communist killing still continues.
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WSJ.ART.HTM

The horror, the horror of deserting the South Vietnamese to their fate! It was the beginning of the end of America's greatness. Our lifeblood, money, is being sucked out while American workers languish in unemployment. In 30 years we will be a second rate power with no industry to fuel the economy. Our grandchildren and their children will know poverty, homelessness, plagues, epidemics that not modern nation should have. I'm no prophet; I just read the signs of the times. Yes, Vietnam has risen from the ashes under Communist rule. Ho Chi Minh is smiling from above. I was there in 1971-1972. I left my girlfriend and our son behind as I went home to a corrupt nation. I regret coming home; I should have deserted and stayed with them. Too late now. They are probably dead or have gone on with their lives.

I am a 1968, 1969 veteran of the war. I was a Navy Hospital corpsman with the Marines, in Quantri Province at Cam Lo and Camp Carroll. These little series of articles today are greatly appreciated by me. They do however bring mixed emotions. I too am a Catholic,educated by the Nuns and Priests in Louisville, Ky. I was able to graduate from college before going to Vietnam. I went because my government said so. You may think that is naive but in 1966, I felt that way. I was so glad to read you all got together. Blood is thicker than water, great for your family. I believe I could talk to an NVA veteran oraVC veteran now. But I would not want to hear any recriminations. Just like after WWII we helped rebuild Europe and Japan I am glad to read we are making inroads to bringing back Vietnam. We aren't perfect by a long stretch, but your family is a great example of USA is better in 1975 than what you had. Welcome to America, the freedoms we offer and the availability of visiting your home when you can afford the trip and when you want to. John

When I saw the illustrations for How I Escaped Vietnam, I had a shock of recognition. Twenty-some years ago, Lou Alpert, at the time the head of Whispering Coyote Press, informed me that my picture-book manuscript she had accepted for publication, The Song Of The Last Miguel, a tale of a talking carousel horse, would be illustrated by someone named Minh Uong. I thought that decision was kind of funny. Here was a Jewish-American writer with an invented tale about a talking horse in Mexico, to be illustrated by a Vietnamese artist. Only in America!

I have never met Mr. Uong; writers and illustrators of picture books rarely meet. But since then I have followed Mr. Uong's career with pleasure and pride. For the past few years he has been a featured illustrator for the business section of The New York Times; I've cut out and saved as many of those illustrations as I could.

Now, with this harrowing account of how he came to the US, Mr. Uong has proven to be as passionate a storyteller as he is an artist. I am proud to be associated with him.

"Passage to Freedom" a Girl Scout Gold Award documentary project on the Vietnamese Refugees
http://youtu.be/n9Wj6WOUxUE

I was aboard USS Coral Sea my very first time at sea covering the evacuation as a 19 year old seaman. It was a very depressing time for us as we all felt like we were running out on our friends.

It is amazing that the author's parents survived. The NLF routinely sent assassination squads into each community as they took it. Any intelligentsia, anyone perceived as having ties to the RVN or any prostitutes were taken to the edge of town, shot and dumped in a ditch. 66,000 died that way in the immediate aftermath. Many thousands of others were sent to reeducation camps.

I did not realize that so many Vietnamese refugees died at sea. Very sad. Very little about that war was happy. Glad that the author and his family were able to find each other and find peace.

Minh-please write a follow-up article. I would love to read about your return to Vietnam. How had Saigon changed for you? Did you recognize places from your childhood? Was your older sister the only family member you reconnected with? Please share more if you can.

Love this story. Great people who came to the USA back then. I am very familiar with the hard work and contributions they continue to this day. All of them are proud to be Americans and thank the USA.

So glad the writers outcome was good. Also, thank these people for coming here and assimilating into our country. Don't recall any of these people killing us after they got here.

The family that lives across from me endured the war in Vietnam, following which the husband was put in a labor camp for five years while the wife grubbed along under cover, sewing to support her quartet of children. and fearing every day that the ax might fall on them.

Eventually they managed to come to America where the parents worked hard to give the children their version of the American dream. The kids earned PhDs medical and business degrees, were top of their class, and now earn enough to have set their parents up in a fine house in a safe neighborhood in a livable city.

The parents welcome their kids back home for family dinners, they are close knit, and wonderful neighbors, maintaining their property scrupulously and greeting we neighbors always with a smile and warm pleasantries.

What's not to like about immigrants? They out succeed the bulk of us and are so grateful to live in this country, they give back 200% and my welcome mat is out for them all. Could you or I have lived through their troubles, survived and prospered as so many of them do?

This story reminded me of a girl I had met this year. I am living in Hawaii now, and this spring I met a Vietnamese girl named Tai at the local coffee shop. She was with some of her friends or classmates and I asked what her major was. She stated she was a P3 student at University Hawaii at Hilo. P3 meant Pharmacy, 3rd year I later learned. So I calculated she was in her 7th year of university or graduate school. I asked her where she was from and she quickly said California. Noisy me asked her where her parents were from, she paused a minute and stated Vietnam. I knew she was a first generation American from the Vietnam war allowed to come to the USA. I spoke with her several times this summer before she left to go to Honolulu for her final year and gtaduation. I told I admired her determination and wished her well in her medical future. She smiled and said thanks. Her story one of being children of emigrants, if we may call the Vietnamese boat people that are making America great because of diversity.

It is the clear spirit of people like this writer that have me fulfilling a dream within 2 weeks of visiting Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

Thank you for sharing your story. The courage of parents during war, the will to save their children, and the resilience of humanity is what is so painful yet encouraging in this story. It has made me cry. That is the horror of war. But your resilience and your family's will to survive gives me hope for all refugees. Your history shows that we must not close our doors or our minds to the hope that other humans have to live in peace.

It's always interesting to me to hear other immigrants' stories.

Like the author, my family too escaped from Vietnam, albeit later, in 1979, and as one family out of the hundreds of thousands of "boat people." Later, I read that the mortality rate of "boat people" was around 30% -- our family was extremely lucky in that we succeeded on our first attempt, did not get caught by the N. Vietnamese gov't, faced minimal inclement weather on the South China Sea, had an experienced/ honest ship captain, and encountered no pirates. I am grateful every day to be a US citizen and am reminded of my own journey every time I read about refugees, no matter the country they come from.

What is it about the United States that insists on invading other countries simply to make wars and create refugees? As this author's (and the author is a male for those of you with reading comprehension issues) story attests, those refugees are probably the best thing that comes out of any war of aggression. Would it not be so much better to skip the wars of aggression and simply honor the words of Emma Lazarus:

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Great article for Europeans to read to understand what it means to be a war refugee, in the context of our refugee crisis. I am personally not attracted to go and visit Vietnam as a tourist because of the memory of that war.

Minh is a friend of mine. I never knew all of this story. Tears filled my eyes reading it and looking at the art that so amazing depicts his experience. So timely, to read something so touching and so succinctly written: They were just told to get on their bikes and ride away... It's happening now, and yet so many refuse to believe that the refugees just need refuge. That's it. Safety and a chance at a life. I can attest firsthand that Minh's life is a life well lived. I only hope that others can have that chance too. Thank you so much Minh for sharing.

As of now the political views in Vietnam are effectively controlled and reinforced by the quasi-Communist government in Hanoi. This government is made up mostly by the North Vietnamese. Undeniably most of them were affected and suffered a great deal by the long and brutal Vietnam War. It's naive to think that the Hanoi regime and many North Vietnamese could be so forgiving and ready to forget their deep hatred for the American. As the matter of fact all that hatred is still there but cleverly hidden due Vietnam's fragile economic situation and diplomatic predicament with China.

Quasi-communist Vietnam's diplomatic relation with the US is simply for their own economic survival. Their hearts and minds are really with Russia who has been with them through thick and thin during the Vietnam War and beyond. Vietnam effectively sees the world through Russian's views.

This is a country where one single sentence of online criticism of their own government in a social network would immediately get deleted by the web moderators, and the hapless poster risks being banned or worse, yet, criticism of American politics and society is all fair game. Government agents are embedded in online social networks to spread lies, mischaracterize current events, and actively promote anti-American sentiments using the most demeaning terms possible. Their activities are getting even more intensified as the result of the rivalry between the US and Russia in Ukraine and Syria.

in 2001-2 in Hanoi I visited something I thought was called the American Atrocities Museum - including captured US tanks and airplanes - it was a few km north-west of the Hoan Kiem Lake - can't find mention of it in google now - but guess they're changed any name to suit modern diplomacy

in 2001-2 Vietnam seemed to be transitioning from communist 'hate the capitalist running dogs' to 'we want tourists money' - an example was strolling the waterfront restaurant strip for dinner in Hoi An - there were about 6-8 restaurants side by side I thought I'd look at before deciding - an attractive girl standing outside the first one in the middle of the road gave me the come-on seductive smile and 'hello my friend' and proffered her menu - I said 'thanks but I'm still looking' - as soon as I had passed her she swore at me in very foul language.

I was 'wow - guess I won't be coming back to this one !' - but also 'wow - these folk really have no idea about enticing prospective customers who are just looking, to ever come back' - I believe the propaganda education of 'hate Westerners' was still fresh - the new message was 'but get their money' - they hadn't quite worked out how to best do that yet.

When I did chat to locals about any antipathy to the west - I was told - nah - we've kicked out many aggressors - the French before - their main enemy was China ! (famous story of Halong Bay - Vietnamese ships enticed a attacking Chinese fleet onto underwater spikes and sank the lot)

Without in any way minimizing what the author and her family suffered, or denigrating their building of a new life here, I wonder at,
"We went back to the hotel exhausted and thankful we don’t have to work the land to make a living."
Imagining millions of ordinary Vietnamese people who through 100 years of occupation and war (French, Japanese, American and Chinese) would been thankful that they could work the land to make a living.

I have returned to Viet Nam several times since the war, most recently in 2014 when I spent a month as the guest of doctors and head-nurses of Viet Duc University hospital in Hanoi. While in Viet Nam I visited Dien Bien Phu, Pleiku and Dak To in the Central Highlands, Khe Sanh in the former DMZ, Da Nang and China Beach, Ha Long Bay, Sa Pa and dozens of other places. I have often pondered why we Americans knew so little about the history and culture of Viet Nam before our government decided to get involved in its civil war. Think of the suffering that could have been avoided! What a tragedy. So sad. So terribly sad.
An American Veteran
1965 to 1968

Viet Nam is #1 on the Climate Central list of countries that will be most affected by locked-in sea level rise caused by global warming.

At 2 degrees celsius warming, 29% of the country's population will be living in flooded areas; at 4 degrees, this number jumps to 52% of the total population.

Both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are in the top 20 urban areas globally to be affected by sea level rise. With a 4 degree warming scenario, it is projected that 60% of the population of Hanoi will be affected.

The resilience of the Vietnamese people will be tested once again.

Thank you for your story.

I remember that the gangs in Seattle learned not to mess with the little boys and men from Viet Nam. They had seen too much to take trouble.

I also remember the tiny, tiny woman next door and her 4'6" husband and their 5'11" daughter! They and we laughed about that. And when in a fire I carried their aged, revered, stroke ridden father down the stairs, I should not have been surprised that every day someone in the community would bring a vietnamese meal for my family until years later I left for active duty.

And now I have two vietnamese american grandchildren.

I look forward to the next episode.

It is worth remembering what happened after the end of other civil wars. Usually, if you are on the losing side, the other side shoots you. That's essentially what happened after, for example, the Spanish, Greek, or Russian civil wars. Or, for that matter, what Pinochet did in Chile. Or what happened to collaborators with fascism after World War II in France and Italy. Useful to remember this, when thinking of the fate of Vietnamese who supported an American invasion that killed well over one million people. Maybe re-education camps were less harsh than other historical alternatives...

What is left unsaid in that (and many other) story is why the whole family felt the need to escape from their country. I guess, everyone had their own reasons, but vast majority of South Vietnamese did stay put and it does not look like they suffered much for it. Was it really necessary to risk one's life and suffer so terribly?

you were lucky and didn't get caught like I did. It was brutal (beat up and no food) 7 days in Cong San prison; However, we are lucky and made it; unfortunately for some who killed in Ocean (dead engine, ran out of fuel, lack of food and fresh water), by Cong San (got caught or being shot at), Thai pirate, etc...

I have been to Vietnam twice since 2010. It is a beautiful country. There seems to be no bitterness towards Americans, perhaps because over half the population wasn't born yet in 1975, perhaps because the Vietnamese are a forgiving people. There are some visible scars. A damaged royal palace in Hue, the wrenching War Remnants Museum in Saigon, the occasional deformed 40 year old, the legacy of agent orange.

I did not serve in the armed forces as I was strongly against the Vietnam War. I hope the Times publishes a follow up from this author after her journey. Its going to be an emotional roller coaster.

On my first trip to Vietnam I read a book by Andrew X Pham who also fled Vietnam by boat at age ten and eventually made his way to the US. His book, Catfish and Mandela, chronicles his childhood, escape, life in the US and his return to Vietnam in the 90s, interweaving the stories. Its quite powerful and a lesson in tolerance for refugees.

Beautiful article. Thank you. I served in the 1st Cavalry in Vietnam back in the mid-sixties. It was (and is) a beautiful country full of beautiful people. I was invited into Vietnamese homes for dinner and was amazed at the generosity of the Vietnamese people! And in a few short weeks, I learned that there was no way the Vietnamese people would tolerate any other country running their lives.
I also learned to respect Vietnamese children, fishermen and other workers for their intelligence and resourcefulness.
Thanks again.

Leo Toribio
Pittsburgh, PA

We are acquainted with one local Vietnamese family who have strong feelings about their original home; they take pride in their new home here, and their children excel in the local schools. They operate a small business here and, when the subject came up, I told them I was glad they are here.

Put me in mind of a coworker of years ago; Enrique had fled Cuba, leaving his house, yacht etc. behind. He was proud of his US citizenship but made no bones about it: "I did not want to come here." His children, and theirs as well, gave him great pride - several MD's and PhD's, generally a justified pride.

This is our image of the refugees who have come here to St. Louis, those two plus a whole community of Muslims from Bosnia. These latter don't make much news; they're busy in constructive pursuits such as making a living, and that quietly. Like virtually all of our forebears.

All this is why it's so distressing to hear some candidates fulminating against today's needful refugees. It's to our own disadvantage and loss.

Thank you for sharing your story, Minh. I, too, am a refugee, though I left later in 1980. I was born among the ashes of Saigon in April 1975, so the war is forever seared in my soul. I shared my story in a blog post recently: kathynle.com. Coincidentally, I also recently returned to Vietnam this past year and have been working through the ghosts of the past. I would love to connect with you in some way and hope that you see this comment.

I was one of the American soldiers that served in Viet Nam. I was in the infantry and was stationed in Northern I Corps, near the DMZ. I remember traveling the countryside many times looking at the architecture, or what was left of it, thinking how beautiful the country must have been before the wars had begun. I often thought that I would like to visit it now, returning to those very places that we had patrolled and possibly became involved in firefights, and seeing the country for what it really was and could be again. When the north invaded the south I recall feeling despair and disgust. Despair over all the blood shed for nothing and disgust over having been involved in the war in the first place. My heart went out to the people of Viet Nam, North and South. I often read articles like this one and think about how horrible the lives of the VietNamese people had become, largely because of the involvement of the West.

I hope that Minh and his family have a wonderful if bittersweet time on their return. I wish that the United States would be as quick to sent those of us who were in country for war back to experience the same country in peace. Sadly, that will never happen. The politicians who make war wouldn't understand my feelings, and most likely don't understand Minh's feelings either.

Hopefully in decades ahead we will read similar stories of Syrian families finding safe haven in America.

Thank you for this story.

For me, a USMC veteran who served in Vietnam, America's greatest shame of that war was our failure to assist Vietnamese refugees escape to a safe haven after the war. For part of my tour, I worked with soldiers in a Vietnamese Ranger battalion. I hope they survived and found a way to lead a productive life after the war.

I had the pleasure of traveling in Vietnam for 19 days in late 2013. We started in Hanoi and progressed south to Hue, Hoi An, Nha Trang, Da Lat, and Saigon, as it is often still called. We saw many sights around all of those cities, and met not a few Vietnamese as well. By all appearances it is a happy, prosperous country. There are very few physical reminders of the war but I'm sure that people of my age (66) or thereabouts remember it all too well. I have met several emigres over the years; a number of them came out on boats, some on airplanes. All have done well in the US. I had been scheduled to enter USAF pilot training in 1971 but turned agains the war. I didn't go to Vietnam during the war, 2013 was my first trip there. I still remember it vividly, mostly for its beauty and friendliness but to some extent for the pivotal event it was in my youth.

My escape from Vietnam came in 1969, when I managed to get myself kicked out of the Air Force. It was, of course, the opposite of pulling up roots and leaving my native land; in my case it was a homecoming. I never understood why our leaders thought we had any business killing people halfway around the world, and I still don't. I returned to Vietnam as a tourist in 2008, forty years after the Tet Offensive, and found a tropical paradise with the best food in the world, beautiful, friendly people, and barely a hint of the U.S. national nightmare that dominated the first decade of my adult life.

I'm glad this family found a home in the U.S., and I am glad Vietnam won its war of independence.

I read an essay like this and realise how very lucky I am. True, America is not a perfect country. True these are parlous times. I have lived as an ex-pat for eight years. I have been impressed by other countries, especially in northern Europe. But this is my home and I am grateful for it. Grateful to have done my time in uniform so I can feel I have worked off the debt I owe to those who made a place for me. Grateful I do not have to escape and live in fear of a return home. Grateful for a small, simple life without dread.

I do not know that I would want to sustain the author's pain.

what a journey you and your countrymen and countrywomen had to go through, and how far you have come. Thank you for sharing