Crisis and luck

An eyewitness account

“To see a World in a grain of sand

And a Heaven in a wildflower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

and Eternity in an hour”.

—- Auguries of Innocence

—–by William Blake

1945 2 million Northerners died of famine

1954 Partitioning of Vietnam at Ben Hai River

1965 3500 US Marines welcome w/ lei (China Beach)

1968 US Embassy in Saigon breached – Cronkite CBS comment

1970 Kent State massacre (protesting Cambodia bombing)

1973 Paris Peace Agreement

1974 Watergate

March 29, 1975 Da Nang – Convoy of Tears

April 17, 1975 Phnom Penh fell

April 22, 1975 President Thieu resigned

April 22, 1975 Ambassador Martin ignored Kissinger’s evacuation order

April 23, 1975, President Ford at Tulane University: “Game over!” # President Johnson’s stance at John Hopkins back in April 1965

April 25, 1975, President Thieu left (Scotch hang-over while Martin pulled the flight stairways out- as if to unhook SVN life support)

April 26, 1975, ARVN planes took off, one-way to Utapon, Thai Land to salvage

April 27-28, 1975 bombs and rockets rained down on once world’s busiest airport

April 29, 1975, Big Minh facilitated regime change both in 63 and 75 – had P.M. Vu Van Mau call the Embassy to start a 24-hour emergency evacuation of all US personnel.

In all, 4.6 million tons of bomb dropped, 150 billion dollars spent and 3.4 million dead

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Monday Night April 28 – 1975

Living by the airport, my sister, her husband and four kids witnessed columns of smoke rising from the airport ammunition depot. All six packed up and sheltered with us – to stay out of bomb range. My brother, a Medic Captain, home with us as newly divorcee. At 4 AM a barrage of bombs hit again. Casualties: 2 US marines at Gate 4 – and 8 of my sister’s neighbors.

Air traffic circulation ceased as hundreds more died holding on to embarkation paper and meager possession. For context, throughout previous weeks, we saw half-empty seatless World Airways C-141s ferry 50,000 passengers out to Guam. Most ominous was Operation Babylift, the Ford Administration “Exit with honor” whose US Air Force Galaxy crashed. Death tolls: 206 downstairs orphans, orphan-wannabes and tag-along.

A month earlier, at Da Nang and Nha Trang Airport pilots were overwhelmed with unruly mob; hence, people got punched or plunged from mid-air. Worried about aircraft overload, one of my classmates, Air-Force enlistee, decided to jump out right on take-off. His self-preservation reflex costs him 44 years from Saigon to San Diego.

His “sliding doors”. Now mine.

Tuesday around Noon April 29 – 1975 at the corner of Ban Co – Phan Dinh Phung (now Nguyen Dinh Chieu St.) District 3, formerly Saigon.

My sister and her youngest were waiting anxiously for her husband and my brother. A stranger approached:

”Do you know the way to the river?”

It dawned on her. The US was leaving for good (“decent interval” from 1973 to 1975)! This central-region curfew-violator had strong urge and momentum to flee – his fear struck a chord: he didn’t care for the propaganda on the radio, where Prime Minster Vu Van Mau called for reconciliation (Ambassador Martin – himself was in deep denial, doubling down on prolonging negotiation to honor his son’s sacrifice in that war.)

Meanwhile, my brother and brother-in-law – both with job training in Denver and D.C. – frantically roamed city streets in vain. Former DOS colleagues and even the boss, Ambassador Bui Diem, just shrugged:” Je ne sais quoi”! (Diem himself went off-script – like everyone else Ford included – when South VN’s last 722-Million USD funding request got voted down).

Resigned to fate after a futile and frantic search, my brothers had their quick chow before dozing off (out of habit of tuning out the adult rant – blah blah blah – I tuned in to my mid-day music: “It’s a little bit funny…this feeling inside… I’ll buy a big house where we could live …”.

“After all, what could possibly happen!” my father assured no one but himself: “One was with custom enforcement then DOS, the other, a medic- trainer – both non-combatant. Re-education camps, if it came to that and sure it was, would be lenient. Don’t you all know there is an enforced curfew?”.

“If people could roam, so can we. There must be a way out”, my sister retorted.

That direction-seeking Central refugee sure made a strong impression on my sis’ mind – a mind full of legalese and analyses, skepticism and doubt e.g. only when one hears the gavel, and even then, there is still hope of an appeal.

Unrehearsed and unprepared, the nine of us sardine-packed into a tiny car (our Italian Job smallest of cars). My mom’s teacher salary and saving – soon-worthless – had been quickly and equally divided up on the previous day (should we be separated – frequent occurrences on previous North-South evacuation). Now that I had distanced myself from the event, I could appreciate the wisdom: a cousin of mine never got news of her MIA husband after the collapse of central VN.

The adults had done this. Uprooted in 1954, they were given 300 days to pack not 2 minutes. P.S. Yesterday, I re-read my mom’s hand-written last testament. In her late 80’s while in US assisted living, apparently, in denial and with dementia, hence, she discounted the fact that the house we had left behind that very day, was long ago confiscated, first the upstairs then the whole house in exchange for my dad’s decade-in-the-waiting passage to America. Naively she urged my sister to split the sales proceed equally, just to show her consistent concern and care.

My father wished us good luck: “I am too old to worry as to what might happen”. He, my part-time Dad, French Artillery Army discharged, worked at Air Vietnam corporate account. His other family (before monogamy was written into law per Diem’s sister in law’s initiative) lived a few blocks away; being in two-minds, he was bogged down with overseeing two residences and my younger half-sister. His sliding door!

Ban Co, where we lived, was a northerner-refugee enclave. Walls got eyes. Not that one would look for or find tranquility there. Moving about in serpentine and narrow alley, residents tolerated one another – often times, turned captive audience of our live music and loud quarrel.

For fear of rousing up neighbors who were also restless and rattled (per Ken Burns, 1/3 of Saigon residents were indifferent to the nation’s change of the guards), we tiptoed and avoided eyes contact. “Where are you going! or worse, we knew it! they had been collaborators”.

For insurance, I called in a few markers. Mysteriously at the ready holding Carbine N-1 and in militant black clad, our next-door “homeboy” escorted us then pulled back the barbed wires for us to back out. His “wink” – like an emoticon – concealed our tacit understanding – “we’re even!” (On that day, I cashed out all my social “deposits” e.g. hey, let me light that cigarette, just as my mom her savings.)

First hurdle!

TAN SON NHUT AIRPORT

Its perimeters were airtight secured. We learned later that 5,000 evacuees – a portion of them died while trapped inside, US dollars and classified papers burned, 2 GIs dead. Outside, we drove pass a cordon of RSVN troopers who fired their M16’s indiscriminately in the air (my hot-war soundtrack was often peppered with AK-47’s, M-16’s and Colt-45’s).

“Stay out!”

The property was condemned – per Ambassador Martin’s in-person assessment earlier that day after stolen A-37’s had dropped bombs and destroyed the runway, rendered Freedom Birds rescue inoperable.

Feeling futile and witless, I signaled a time-out. My pre-text was the extra fuel (should the journey take us down the Mekong). In fact, it’s for me to say goodbye to a friend. Emptying his Jerry can, he made small talks, asking where we were heading.

I just shrugged. Our ambassador on either side didn’t even know.

The day before, one of our friends had flown the coop. Bewildered and betrayed, we helplessly watched people looting his house. Consequently, I did not want to pile more on my friend (just in case). His father, a local skipper, was well-positioned should they decide to set sail. (Years later and gold bars behind, he did get to the US as part of the Boat People exodus.)

Second hurdle!

US EMBASSY

A few blocks out, we were at the Embassy where just two days before my friend and I were in line for a Visa application. Yet the situation turned completely chaotic. Surrounding streets might observe curfew but not there.

Thousands, mostly young, foreign and native were scaling its steel gate or snaking through concertina wires. Marine sentries (170 plus reinforcement as the day went on), in flak jackets, helmets and bayoneted M-16s cherry-picked Press credentials and foreign Passports in life-and-death urgency.

According to “Paper Soldiers”, out of resentment, someone aimed a Carbine at those guards. Luckily, both guns and camera were confiscated. No one wanted further panic and bad press. Few who maned Press Attache Office just shrugged: case dismissed! Unlike across the ocean where White House was in deep discussions about sending marines to rescue marines, but the idea was shoved.

We spotted a familiar face: my second uncle, a chauffeur for some agency. He was backing out to get runway distance before scaling over people – just like Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard. After his disappearance behind the 14-foot wall, our hope was dashed. Not with 4 kids, a 60-years-old Mom and meager luggage.

Luggage included mere photocopies of an USAID form letter showing US Embassy logo & letterhead: “Any help that can be rendered to …. the bearer of this letter, will be appreciated” signed by Robert B. Brougham, Acting Training Officer, USAID with my name scribbled in – last of nine.

Reality hit us like a brick. Cold-sweated!

Turned around? Not with barbed wires and checkpoints mushroomed by the hour. Rumors of some down-river options did not help. Per Tiziano Terzani, Hwy 4 was blocked, while at Hwy 1 Newport Bridge saw hot battle resulting in burnt tank like scenes in A Bridge Too Far. The extra fuel from friend was just my wishful thinking.

Growing up sheltered and buffered from the front, I was boxed in. The Mekong? A mystery. With no power and no connection, we were deflated and besieged. The whole city was.

Years of fighting and endless propaganda (farewell address by Thieu and subsequent tearful resignation by President Huong, not to mention 4-O-clock follies the Press detested) reduced to worthless currency and credentials. We even lugged a bi-lingual Larousse along (whose hard-cover concealed a one-hundred-dollar bill my brother-in-law carefully slipped in).

Dazed and dispirited, we leaned against the wall to rest while across the street, all adrenalines. Waves after waves of sweat-slickered shirts kept at it. Mad-Max in 105% heat!

The lit was finally blown. The irony of ” dreaming of a White Christmas…and children listened” over the radio when Operation Frequent Wind started was salt on bloody injury.

At 3PM a groundskeeper of the Embassy tied a long rope to secure his 30 relatives for hush hush entry into the rear gate. Quite a tough call for on-post Marine sentry. His colleagues meanwhile were locked inside a enclosed building to burn a million dollars’ worth of cash.

Suddenly echoed an ear-deafening screeching noise. An oil-dry manual 10′ shifter. An inexperienced bus driver who could not tell which of the three clutches? The likes of my chauffeur-uncle (who had walked out of his job).

As it turned out, at-risk passengers had assembled at 13 safehouses. Those buses, already full, were rounding the corner heading toward tourist district. An Embassy’s hasty plan B route to replace airlift.

Lately, I met a Special Forces translator. He was abandoned only to make it to Hong Kong years later. Apparently, he missed his Rendez-vous (short notice and shortage of drivers – themselves left the job).

Third hurdle!

Back in the car once again, we tailed the convoy. Tu Do Street (now Dong Khoi), once bustling with tourists and foreigners was then a ghost town. Over the bridge we slid onto a less-wealthy district 4 (a mile apart, but miles apart). At maximum speed, impossible today, the lead bus skidded suddenly then made a sharp left to Pier 5. Had my brother failed to floor the Simca, leaving no gap between bumper-to-bumper, we would have been cut off. Those drivers always had ready a bottle of Scotch to bribe the guards who perhaps couldn’t care less about a convoy with car in the rear (later that morning 4:58AM, the last 11 marines tossed tear gas instead of liquor down the US embassy stairs after locking up decade-long involvement).

Those precious brief seconds slipped us right through. Our “sliding doors”. The boom barrier slammed shut mechanically and mercilessly like a “guillotine” balanced by its counterweight. If I had had two heads, one would have rolled – most likely – the romantic side of a pre-med aspirant, who just a few days earlier, had collected donation in our SPCN Lecture Hall for Central-Region refugees – not knowing he himself end up mumbling in disbelief:

“Do you know the way to the river”.

CLUB NAUTIQUE PARKING

Inside the gate, in broad daylight, shirtless bystanders were milling about, lurking and looting. Office supplies and abandoned equipment littered the ground. Even police changed to plain clothes to join in: “Finally US Aid got to us – furniture and air conditioner”.

What had been bottled up e.g. class resentment, religious and ethnic strife, 400X Hiroshima worth of bomb – 4.6 million tons to be exact- agent Orange and agent CIA, death and destruction, displacement and dispossession – finally popped, Khmer-Rouge style: the inmates running the asylum.

My brother saw a parked car whose chauffeur slump over its steering wheel. His body was the only one on the lot that wasn’t moving. There was nothing more dangerous than young men who suddenly be in the possession of a loaded gun. Heck, even young girls too (revolutionary chic’s!).

(pg102 of Terzani’s book lists an inventory by the University of Van Hanh, whose students collected: 1,525 carbines, 2,596 M-16s, 399 M-72s 174 M-79s and three boxes full of pistols. A week before we were collecting donations for refugees in flux from DaNang; student activists always collect something as it seemed).

Private vehicles and Army Jeeps previously status symbols then turned liability (the ultimate was Ky’s handgun and jet used to court his hostess de l’air later turned spouse). After offloading passengers, the convoy U turned to continue its mission. We then became an easy mark.

At the water edge stood an imposing 10-foot sandbag wall, a literal partition between the haves and have nots. This barge-turned-bunker blocked the river view. An 11th-hour arrangement by the Oval Office, the Embassy, and Can Tho outpost, a brainchild of Carmody (see Honorable Exit). Army Engineers Corp retrofit, it’s a marked improvement from previous all-hell-broke-loosed open-air vessels: shoving, slipping in stampede. This time, more like a bunker, it’s reinforced with stacked sandbags for eventual Storm of Steel. No wonder “all quiet on the waterfront”, calm before the storm since Thieu’s swift and sudden withdrawal that caused chain-reaction (the Lion Dance lost its head).

That March lightning-fast retreat left disgruntled civilians and Army – who themselves abandoned by superiors – with no time to evacuate, immediate families included. Mob hysteria could care less friends from foes. SVN dominoes (not the theory of the same name by the Eisenhower administration) fell one by one, folding its MR map from Central Region to Central District on Convoy of tears.

War got close to the waterfront.

Standing atop the sandbag heap – a lone gun screamed: “Just get out of here” seeing my brother-in-law still linger to confirm (Xem xet tinh hinh – situation assessment).

April 29 – Late afternoon, Pier 5

Engine idling, we huddled. Having loaded and unloaded time and again, we grew hesitant. Fourth and final attempt at the water edge? (I could not imagine my mom and brother swim).

Millions of calculations. Nine little heads!

Opportunity cost, push/pull. To climb or not to.

Push comes to shove, if turned around, would the men be sent to Kham Chi Hoa – our city jail per “America in Vietnam”, 41.4 per cent of people shared this appraisal. The jail was wide open at the change of the guards. Or worse, as in Killing -Field chapter e.g. beheaded for wearing glasses?!? so the government does not bother with feeding and reeducating (Hue 68). Not unfounded, since I grew up with episodes of Cambodia “cap duon” (beheading). I got goose bumps every time I passed the Cambodian embassy near my home, or later saw skulls exhibit at the village of Ba Chi. Growing up eye-witnessing a monk-burning at that same intersection was enough of a childhood memory.

Since I barely got my first beer for passing the SAT:” Mama, life has just begun”.

What about the children and their later medical studies, given family high hopes and expectations. For others, like my other half-uncle in the Navy. to stay was to endure re-education, a price to reunite with his mom/brother – a train conductor – from up North.

Without embarkation papers at the Embassy was one thing. To leap on the barge on a civilian’s verbal promise of free get-out-of-jail card was another (Nixon’s nose grew longer in my vivid imagination).

In our stuffy car, a hung jury:” Are we going or not!”. Soaking-wet – like in a Mexican stand-off. Our window of opportunity was fast closing. Chronos vs Kairos, time vs eternity.

A PA “All-Aboard” kept reverberating, percolating to tip the undecisive scale.

Suddenly, a unanimous decision made itself, like poker game’s last draw. It set in motion our entire future. My brother-in-law tossed his car key like a coin toss to a bystander, the same one who had made several passes (canh me) while we were frightened and sweated as if on a guide-less Safari.

To this day, no one knows where the car is …” Eternity in an hour”.

Over the course of those 24 hours, not just key to the car, but key to the country got changed hands (2:30PM) “Infinity in the – empty – palm of your hand”. Like a V shape, we reached bottom before rising.

We filed out leaving behind decades-long of “beaucoup dien cai dau” as the expression goes. In 1973, between Operation Homecoming and Vietnamization of the war, we should have been warned. The day before, when RVN Congress convened to confirm President Minh, only 136 out of 219 were present. Even our Chief of Staff Cao van Vien had fled right behind Thieu.

No more time. The whole city was like a wet sponge that soaked up sweat, blood and tears. Catholic paratroopers shot each other to avoid the ultimate sin of suicide. To us, it just stopped short if we had had two heads to deliberate future outcome.

Apprehension and anticipation, anxiety and anger imploded (what had God wrought!). Like my friend, out of self-preservation, we jumped and hopped to new life.

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Knapsacks and my mom first, over the sandbag wall, followed by kids then adults. We climbed with cramped legs and under watchful eyes, surprisingly unscathed and hassle-free. On the other side we could then have time to then breathe in fresh air.

Growing up, I kept hearing about Operation Passage to Freedom. As Gordon Lightfoot put it: “Just like an old-time movie…the ending is just too hard to take”” If you could read my mind”. It’s my turn, in a digitally mastered version of that old-Black-and-White 16-mm or super 8 footage. What I had imagined i.e. famine and future; family and fortune, took on real experiential meaning e.g. would I be allowed to scribble some post-cards to my dad, as previously sent from the North.

Southward evacuation footage showed old folks craned up in cargo net, swung over then dropped aboard Southward ships, with fanfare and banners e.g. “To join the exodus is to keep your dignity” (Di cu de giu gin pham gia con nguoi) on “tau ha mom” (WWII cargo ships). Suddenly it’s our turn which began in Danang (3/75) – with World Airways chaotic evac to repeat outside of Con Son Island (refugees as cargo in net once again – you become what you ate e.g. rice cargo).

30 days’ worth of retrofitting the barge (3/75-4/75) vs 300 days to pack (54) for the adults. Years later, with ODP, veterans of war were legally and orderly processed for departure. What screwed up in war finally was rectifed in peace.

Instead of a grain of sand, we found a wall-full, a buffer between barge and bystanders (East and West, the twain shall never meet). Melody began to fade in as if to hasten our departure. Songs of my family – given huge generation gap, I could not have previously understood. Cry, my beloved country. “Ben cau bien gioi…” (By the Bridge over Ben Hai). The weight of war – once oral vignettes over meals became mine to take ownership and pass them on.

My brother – a divorcee – while catching his breath after the climb – noticed some weeping girls. With them violins for carry-on and not a single embarkation pass.

We didn’t need form letters or fuel tank after all.

It was unusual since barges were intended for cargo transport, not human.

Then, more folks joined in, among them my math teachers. It struck me as odd that they had on slick tailored white shirts, for A/C air travel (all day we saw only soak-wet shirts) The genius twins looked so out of place, against the backdrop of blood-stained barge. Since I had never seen them outside of school setting, their squatting among us commoners – mandarin among the mass – signified a reversal of social order. A reality reset.

Oh, how society would remarkably improve if everyone behaved as fellow species on an inter-galactic travel i.e. long-haul civility (win/win) vs short-term cannibalism (zero sum).

Our teachers – also northerner – were perhaps pondering:

Will this river-barge be sea-worthy?

How much does it have on fuel?

How long would it take to get to destination X from Pier 5, wherever X was?

And most of all, how much and with what currency exchange/interest rates are we going to live on?

Luckily for them, math was math, wherever one goes.

Suddenly jerked forward, we stopped daydreaming. The future had reached back like a thousand-years-old sleeping giant after its afternoon nap. Our self-initiated Operation Passage officially began.

Paris of the Orient, Hotel Majestic and sister’s bank grew smaller then eventually out of sight.

Tears welled up my eyes. Instinctively, I knew.

An “allez sans retour”, a one-way odyssey. Deja vu for the adult but first for us, I tried to commit the last of home to memory. 18-years of hot and crowded boyhood e.g. 3 pupils to a desk, with books as graduation gifts.

“And Phai Song” …No, you must live (to raise up the children, let me die)

”Mot con ngua dau ca tau khong an co” (when one suffers, all suffer)

”Nhieu dieu phu lay gia guong”….(love one another)!…then Bang!

Like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon I was surrounded by shifting shadows (my niece asked if I already missed my dad – in fact, I missed my friend, albeit already with goodbye. No longer was I safe with guardrails and grammar, conjugation and composition. Even in my best self-deception, I could hardly come up with an excuse for what transpired: a sudden overt act of betrayal – in my brother’s case, AWOL, as we stood on the cusp of a country collapse.

No turning back.

Ebb and flow. No lights and no warnings. What at first seemed easy turned difficult. No check-ins hence no updates. Bait and switch. Twice, unhooked, we were left to float in the cover of the dark, full of doubt, fear, and uncertainty.

Betrayal begets betrayal.

Our fate and future were unknown, with no father nor friend. Nine lives – Band on the Run- at the mercy of shooters and looters. Occasional flashing flares and ear-deafening rockets jolted us. Standing room only. No sleeping, only pounding hearts.

We certainly made for easy targets. Grazing bullets could have buried inside those sandbags since we were at a hopping distance from the bank. Children were too scared to cry. Aimlessness wrenched us throat dry.

Overnight, I turned gray.

Since shielded and sound-proofed, we missed out on all anxiety and action in the city.

That same night, South Korean diplomats as Third-Country nationals, like Iranian and Polish, were hunkering down waiting for evac. They helped themselves to the embassy bar. Around the pool, some even tossed paper airplanes made out of real money. Others, in groups of 45-50, staged for Heli-lift. In one account (Honorable Exit), they commandeered official limos – even a fire truck – to amuse themselves, turning “America” into Arcade.

Eventually and unfortunately, 420 – including hung-over South Korean – were left behind (and had to straighten out those paper “airplanes” to buy some breakfast) – italics were mine. Far Eastern Economic Review journalist reported that “plain dainty Jane” carrying Embassy couch, once seated dignitaries and diplomats from Lodge to LBJ. Slightly burned dollars not sure from DAO or the Embassy later resurfaced in Guam.

Had we made over the wall of the Embassy, we might have moved in full circle.

Intended mostly for our US Ambassador and his crew, Operation Talon Wise, at 4:58AM, pulled anchor, with (Tiger, Tiger, Tiger) boarded next-to-last Chinook- 46 Lazy Ace 09. A still photo showed Martin in crumpled suit and bloodshot eyes aboard the USS Blue Ridge giving interviews.

At 7:50 AM the last eleven marines (having told the remaining crowd that “I will not leave you behind” (Marines’ mantra) except I have to make a bathroom run “mac dai”) tossed gas grenades to cover their own ex-traction – eyes alert, flags (of our fathers) folded – in contrast to Iwo Jima’s military ceremony.

The Architect of War was too hasty by announcing “Peace is at hand”. Then “It’s over” (still with tuxedo giving a high-five in the Oval Office); then next day, at Press Conference, Kissinger retracted: “Sorry! we were eleven-marines short”. That exit closed out US decades- long campaign against what once perceived as Communist aggression and expansion.

By pure luck we evaporated on unseaworthy vessel right under the noses of danger. “Mother wants you to call home”? “Mom, it’s me, Whiskey Joe” overheard on DAO two-way “What are we going to do with the 2 (last US) bodies?” Reply: “Take them to the Seventh Day Adventist Hospital”.

Fourth hurdle

Wednesday APRIL 30, 1975, OPEN SEA

Loud cheers abruptly spread as we got moving again. Apparently, contracted to tow as many barges as possible, the towboat was running – with engine-light on. Everything that moved, especially overworked 75 Marines choppers, moved.

Out of all floating objects, we were the slowest but glad to be moving at all.

An otherwise one-hour chopper trip took us all night.

It was like a D-Day in reverse – screen right to screen left: Huey, Chinooks and Sea-Stallion zipping overhead away from Cap St Jacque. Death of a Nation would be the Super 8 titIe digitally remastered Blu-Ray with surround sound, depicting modern-day “Charlon Heston” in an Apocalyptic black plague and locus of single-pilot choppers which peppered the sky.

Leaf-like boats battered and beaten swung their ways slowly out of rocket range. Under the watching eyes of world opinion and world press, a single-engine boat was hit causing huge splashes against an already bleak Vung-Tau sky. NBC footage showed what was transpiring that day (Last Days of Vietnam).

What started out with a boating incident (Tonkin) closed out with a boating incident.

We wrenched rain waters (from a poncho) to drink and passed around a single bag of instant noodle for 9 people like a scene from Polanski’s Pianist movie (cutting a brown-sugar block). When danger was perceived as passed, one felt an urgent hunger from the rest of the bodyl

20 miles out, before GPS was available, we spotted the 7th Fleet 40+ war ships far on the horizon evenly spread out in battle-arc shape. They were staging with protruded canons looked just like sun rays (Here comes the Sun) on an overcast morning. Apparently, the 7th fleet could have taken out those rocket launchers but were ordered top stand down, showing some restraint. That long war was largely a war of land and air (Heli and B52’s), now that only chopper’s retreat and flair were heard.

Soft flesh and snail’s pace, we’re no match against the force of nature (vast ocean) and man-made military hardware.

Technically, when you got transferred to a battleship (USS Blue Ridge?). it was as good as setting foot on US soil, our Ellis-Island moment.

Unsteady on a swaying gangway. we were however not greeted by Statue of Liberty, but by an oil drum filled with freshly confiscated guns and knives (our TSA checkpoint). A navy sentry eyeballed all carry-on e.g. an open Samsonite in front. Leaning to peak over his shoulder, like a giraffe, I saw sardine-packed gold bars (glistening like les poisons doré– in Au Marche I learned in school).

Not everyone made their escape as hastily.

From one other account, Premier Nguyen Cao Ky also landed on USS Midway where he reluctantly handed over his handgun (purportedly a personal gift from John Wayne).

Passing the Security checkpoint was no cause for premature celebration. unknown X did not equal dreamed US, just yet.

Every hard surface e.g. ship deck had been taken. A Huey tried to drop itself vertically into the bucket-opening of then our abandoned barge. The attempt to force land caused the chopper to make contact with the steel sandbag wall. Embers of fire sparked and loosed blades coming fast at us.

Faces fell flat against the wet floor. All activities on board froze. Except for my medic brother who hitched rides on occasional leaves from Qui Nhon, none of us had ever been near a chopper, much less brushing with its blade.

Pulling off that spectacular stunt i.e. repurposing abandoned barge into a Huey Helipad – without regard for public safety, the pilot, out of mercy, got a provision of water and an inflated raft to look elsewhere. He might very well be our first Boat People.

That day saw helicopters pushed off ship-decks, especially USS Kirk. Tons of steel – sunk to the bottom of South China Sea and by extension the American collective consciousness.

Fifth hurdle!

May 1- 4, 1975 Subic Bay

Per 1954 Geneva Convention, close to 1 million Northerners, a majority of whom Catholics elected to go South. Among whom Mom, Pop and siblings. Then history repeats itself. Joining Exodus 2.0 were me and my sister’s kids.

We chain-linked down two flights below deck to be situated in an ammunition dungeon. That entire trip to the Philippines, we were Jonahs – in the belly of the beast – incubated but unconsolable.

Starved and seasick, like a blur, I mentally blocked out those diesel-stench days (nothing to throw up). Once, I was interrupted by a dinner call: an orange courtesy of officer’s mess. So grateful and fearful (of starvation), I ate it all, peels and pulp. For entertainment, no deep-sea fishing. Just a gentleman on the upper deck kept a duffle bag full of cash. Like ash from an urn, he took his time tossing our “Ben Franklin’s” – Tran Hung Dao bills, one handful at a time. Blood money or unpaid army payroll – were blowing in the wind (unlike at the Embassy, it took 8 hours to burn a million dollars of payroll, an official order from Sec of Commerce ).

Dust to dust. No Sirens.

Only a silent rendition of Auld Lang Syne to end a set that had started out with Bing Crosby’s White Christmas on Armed Forces Radio. “Mother wants you to call home” (since the song already was on the radio every two hours).

Later I met a former RVNN officer. His fleet was escorted from Phu Quoc to the Philippines by the USS Kirk. Their ship’s serial numbers got painted over, old-regime flags down, insignia off – per International-law. Those rusty ships were later donated to the Philippines and Thai Land, courtesy of the US of Great A.

If you want to see old men cry over an anthem, this was it, the last vestige of Free Vietnam.

No tears of joy. It’s not the Liberation of Paris. No sailor kissing (iconic in Times Square), only sailor weeping.

Indeed, on Subic Bay, I spotted a line of subdued and disrobed RVNN’s – in newly issued white T’s and blue jeans. Apparently, not just flags but uniforms, insignias, all-stripped. The big reset.

Failure is an orphan.

In the middle of the night, a dedicated welcome party – handed us a sandwich and a coke. Shoulders stooped, knees-deep in water, we – in single file – waded to strange shores. A decade before, Wayne-like Marines eagerly and energetically splashed waters upon landing onto China Beach in opposite direction, into welcoming leis and arms of our girls in Ao-Dai.

Sixth hurdle!

Summer 1975

After three days of vetting, then a cramped seat on a C-130 floor, we flew to Wake Island. Those same charter planes might have for days flown our troubled sky, carrying orphans and nuns, bar girls and bellhops, civilians and deserters. Per Woodward’s Shadow, it was when DoD Secretary ignored and disobeyed a Presidential (Ford) order:” bring as many aircraft as possible to bear” in rescue attempt. Ron Nessen, Press Secretary mentioned the 129 Marines still un-evacuated in the rear detailed to protect 34 overworked helicopters.

Stateless, we were officially “Asylum seekers” (for an A – alien – number). For the 130,810 of us, 3300 orphans included, our wishes were granted (Senate Judiciary Committee and the Indochina Migration and Refugees Resettlement Assistance Act).

Nevertheless, with funding request denied, an angered Ford (but not without compassion and moral leadership – shown in a stock photo, holding a bi-racial Babylift survivor at SF Airport) bypassed Congress and appealed directly to the VOLAGs and church groups for help with mass resettlement.

That summer – in the middle of nowhere – clear sky clean water, we processed our grief while the US processed our papers. Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front) remarks:” NYC, and by extension, the US, was not all walls made of steel, but of papers”.

We had no desire nor inclination to spend a “vacation” at the expense of the American public. The adults bore the brunt of worry.

Seventh hurdle.

From May to July, fish sticks and French fries, Fruit-of-the-loom, and Head-and-Shoulders. Consumerism reached us on the Island before we even set foot on Mainland. Out of the 4 military installation-turned-processing camps (Ft Eglin, Ft Chaffee, Camp Pendleton, and Ft Indiantown Gap), we ended up with the last.

Without being told, we scattered and resettled in four zip codes. At tearful goodbye, we agreed on Crofton, Maryland, our cousin address, for future references (unless you were foreign exchange students or expat wives, Vietnamese living in America were just a handful). Earlier Congressional brainstorm included an Amish-like self-sustained hectares in Pennsylvania or an industrial city off the coast of Virginia, per Dr. Hung’s book.

To us, Mainland, Maryland (Agnew land) or Disneyland was just as good as any.

Many shot-gun weddings were officiated by the camp Chaplain, a trend that had already started weeks before.

Eighth hurdle!

September 1975, State College, PA

From Central District to Central Pennsylvania, I had to overcome social-economic, linguistic and logistics challenges: barbed wires, boom-barrier, sand wall, raining rockets and flying blades.

My itinerary and ETA were on multi-pages: climbing wall, wading waters, car and cargo planes, barge, bus and battleship. I was flanked by Carbine and Canons, M-16’s and rockets. Finally, a few miles to State College, almost there… hold it … My house-church-designated rep, a divorced Unitarian minister, took his time to show some class: we stopped and scooped up a Woodie-Guthrie-like hitchhiker on Hwy 322. Only then that my liberal arts education could commence – one peck on college typewriter at a time.

Armed with 300 bucks- 1975 fiscal left-over, disbursed through the IRC (International Rescue Committee)- I grabbed Penn State by the horns – “holding Infinity in the palm of my hand”. Humbly yet eagerly I held on to meager high-school transcript on Red Cross stationary and a Letter of Recommendation from the Bureau of Child Welfare – where I volunteered as an interpreter.

Having missed “Move-In” date and months-long school supplies prep, I played catch-up. From night shifts on campus to graduating with a job offer at WNEP-TV 16.

Ninth hurdle!

To my surprise, Happy Valley itself was lagging behind Counterculture movement. Penn State not Kent State. Months-long hair and jeans helped me blend in. Seeing autumn foliage, I realized it’s a 2-seasons 2-wheels country, not a We culture (sharing private medical condition to seek sympathy and comfort from communal support). My first impressions: a driver obeyed a STOP sign amid heavy downpour in the camp. Internalized rules-based behavior. Mono-chronist society, first comes first served.

After a long and lonely winter, I sat on the grass (while others smoked “grass”) and heard “Here Comes the Sun”, Spring break (my Woodstock) opening number. I hummed along, knowing for the first time that “it’s alright” – out of the woods. (The British Invasion arrived via Armed Forces Radio at the same time the US set boots on the ground.) Consequently, we, of the young generation “Come together” as early adopters of Rock and Roll. (See Vietnamizing Woodstock)

Music and mourning aside, I am forever indebted to the 58,220 whose names were on dark marble Memorial in Washington. On his way to the airport, Frank Snepp noticed President Thieu looking away from: “The noble sacrifice of the Allied Soldiers will never be forgotten.” (Thieu’s predecessor, Diem, wasn’t lucky. He was shot by his designated driver in 1963).

A TK – teacher’s kid- I was more influenced by my mom. She always was grateful to her guardian-mother. A semi-orphan live-in at Hanoi French pedagogy boarding school, she would later celebrate each anniversary of “grandma’s” passing to remind us of roots and respect. I could do no less i.e. remember and reflect on the sacrifice of both Blacks from Mississippi and Whites from Pennsylvania. P.S. Just met a son of G.I. Immediate kindred spirit, since his dad went over there and came home utterly in silence.

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It’s been years:

• since that tamarind tree of the US Embassy was cut down to make room for helipad,
• since Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” – about going home – not fleeing from it
• since an NVN T-54 charged and crashed the Independence-Palace gate (no GPS)
• and since trade and travel finally re-established.

But something kept nagging,

“Do you know where you’re going to, do you like the things that life is showing you…” heard over the radio that Wake Island summer.

What made us let go of the endearing for the estranged? Wanderlust?

Was it my brother’s hyper-anxiety? My sister’s protective instincts? My brother-in-law’s nostalgia for that Cherry-blossoms Parade (he showed us those travel slides after his DOS training trip)? Or I just wanted out, being stir-crazy and suffocated in the back – my mom and four of my sister’s kids in tow?

Did we even once think about our father? (We could have just climbed back over the wall or swam back – as 1000 petitioners did on Truong Son, a return ship from Guam). Or during our frenzy fleeing, we reached the point of no return.

A Black-Swan phenomenon.

Among peers, I had friends who:

• left on planned evacuation – Thai
• jumped in then out of plane – Thoa
• got off a helicopter but still in uniform (AWOL?) – Cang
• was with means yet ended up a Boat People – Phong

At Pier 5, our only hope was the known past would serve as guide for the unknown future; somehow, somewhere, we would find kind hearts and firm ground to start over.

Start-over I did, amidst 9% unemployment and a slim 36% of public opinion for us (vs 54% against per Gallup). Like a knife cutting through hot butter, I was on my own (my mom and her Ao Dai left behind in that cold camp without a sponsor; hers, oldest, took the longest from April 29 through Sept 13, 1975).

Living out of a rented basement, I juggled a janitorial shift by night and a Speech class by day! (my Speech class field trip was at a Udall’s campaign on campus).

One has to put the least strain on the system. Culture shock aside, that first Winter, I invited fellow exiled students like myself to cake and music. White Christmas was on second time that year, but with real snow. Fellow sufferers of fate, like our Remarque’s Ravic, in Shadows of Paradise (under the table emigrant surgeon, operated for cash, only after patients got anaesthetized by licensed and legit surgeons).

Joining the huddle mass, we live in quiet desperation. Our American/California Dream has been what we made of it “All the leaves are brown”.

This story could otherwise be told with focus on my sister’s protective instincts or my brother’s fear of reprisal.

My sister, a Director of the Agriculture Development Bank, rebuilt her credentials – hard earning a CPA of Commonwealth Virginia. Her 80th-birthday saw all four children intact! She – strong, sincere, straightforward – thrived on challenges e.g. find a way out, just like other adults crossing earlier River of Ben Hai.

Just like early settlers crossing the last few miles from Ellis Island to Staten Island, we waited anxiously from Wake Island looking to Ellis Island, luckier than most; without desperate need to toss babies (like basketballs), without flying-on-empty or without having to climb over embassy walls.

May God rest her soul (a year shy of her migration 2.0. 50th Anniversary.)

My Medic Captain brother at times couldn’t believe we pull it off. He thought we were to “station” for good out of a Wake Island barrack, like Captain Hawk Eye – in fact our distinguished senator from Rhode Island had suggested just that, Borneo (lepers’ colony?) to save taxpayers some money. To my brother, Maryland is Promised Land. His signature French refrain no longer is “Mexi….co” but Colora…do where he had previously spent a year getting upgrade Medic training. Out of gratitude, he has donated a large chunk of change from his Howard-Hospital paychecks to disable Veterans and Orphans of War. (still he missed that “tasty” sandwich on Subic Bay)

A decade later, my P/T dad joined us, violin in hand (not unlike those weeping girls). That lost decade – being fatherless, aimless, feeling guilty as Hell, God knows I was. Being on my own, unknown and unaccompanied.” I read so I won’t be alone” without the luxury of a college-orientation or parent -visitation day.

Years later my brother-in-law was laid to rest. His car key once again tossed. This time to his granddaughter. His marker: “Life passes like a blink of an eye” (or a Simca on its last leg).

For me, an inter-generational, cross-cultural hybrid, situated in between the Simcar backseats, I am situated in between the twilight of Vietnam and an emerging dawn in America, letting go of self-recrimination while hanging on to Golden music of yesterday. “When I was young, I listened to the radio, waiting for my favorite song that last one was “Your Song” before “Here Comes the Sun”.

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April 30, 1975, was like a bookend. The other bookend -April 1981- found me comfortably settling in a graduate-school library, flipping through the pages of Newsweek, a break from “the Medium is the Message” by Marshall McLuhan.

Its Asia section caught my attention. My people ventured to sea with a 50:50 chance of survival.

An aerial shot showed tiny boats small as autumn leaves, like one that got hit on my own journey six years earlier; women and children were on their vulnerable most without the security and escort of the 7th-fleet. Repeatedly raped and robbed by Thai pirates then abandoned to certain death – unless they could survive on fellow passengers’ dead meat.

Never did I envision a trip back that soon, even with self-recrimination or survivor’s guilt (PTSD).

“He who is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep while gaining that which he cannot lose”, a quote by Jim Elliot, a fellow alumnus, was still fresh on my mind (perhaps also on Todd Beamer’s, when terrorists commandeered United Airlines Flight 93).

After all, my other head already rolled – the other side of Pier 5. What’s left to lose. Having jumped through 9 hoops and hurdles, I might as well make it an even 10. Back to those prison-turned-makeshift camps. Slamming doors not Sliding doors (“When you look behind there was no open door”). At the time, I barely got my US Passport – and my “GoFundMe” were typed letters and licked stamps sent to whoever happened to be in my Address book.

In Hongkong, I offered any help I could: relief supplies, ESL classes, entertainment events and Church-sitting (second tour). Hong Kong Island lock-ins were just as fed up with prison sardines as we with fish-sticks on Wake Island. My multiple donations were spent on international stamps and hot chili for shut ins. And an unforgettable shirtless lone survivor boy who stuttered.

After 2 short tours like a good short-sleeves Mormon, – while distributing needed supplies – I remembered being on the receiving end of a Coke and a sandwich on Subic Bay (what else could a communication major do to counsel – as an example – 2 raped and forced-by-circumstances cannibalism survivors – besides being there – upstairs of Jubilee prison for a show of support).

Backtrack through their sliding doors, I experienced reverse culture shock and eventual catharsis. In Giving I found healing.

Instead of improving my IQ in school, I end up with better EQ in life.

Like that currency-as-confetti man, I found myself, on day off, at the peak of Hong Kong New Territories look back and long for home, which, in the summer of 1981, was off limits.

Our Father in Heaven, our father in homeland…:

Back then, in our long journey into the night, we faced the Unknown not knowing it’s in our seeker’s DNA to constantly grab” Infinity in the palm of our hand” – a truth that hit home to me as it once did my sister:

“Do you know the way to the river”