Thang Nguyen 555

—- Eyewitness account —-

Auguries of Innocence

“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”. – by William Blake

– Historical timeline –

1945 2 million northerners died of famine per WWII

1954 Partitioning at Ben Hai River per Geneva Accord

1968 US embassy breached

1969 540,000 US boots on the ground

1970 Kent State massacre – Cambodia bombing protest

1973 Paris Peace agreement – Nobel Peace Prize to 2 sides

1974 Watergate and war aid (3.25 B promised) denied

March 29, 1975, Da Nang – Convoy of Tears

April 17, 1975, Phnom Penh fell

April 22, 1975, President Thieu resigned

April 22, 1975, Martin ignored evacuation order

April 23, 1975, President Ford at Tulane University: “Game over!” (bookmarking President Johnson’s 4/1965 promises at John Hopkins)

April 25, 1975, President Thieu left for Taiwan (w/ a Scotch hang-over while Martin pulled his flight stairways out and away- as if to unhook SVN life support)

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

April 27-28, 1975, bombs and rockets on Tan Son Nhut

April 29, 1975, Big Minh regime-change expert (63 and 75) – with P.M. Vu Van Mau calling on the US embassy to evacuate all US personnel within 24 hours.

In all, 4.6 million tons of bomb dropped, 150 billion dollars spent and 3.4 million dead. 58.220 US service personnel including the last 2 killed as this story unfolds.

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Monday Night April 28 – 1975

Living by the airport, my sister, her husband and four kids saw smoke rising from the airport ammunition depot. All packed up “to grandma”, to stay out of bomb and fire. My brother, a Medic Captain, newly divorced, was at the time home with us. At 4 AM a barrage of bombs (dropped from stolen aircrafts) hit the airport again. Casualties: 2 US marines at Gate 4 – and 8 of my sister’s neighbors.

Air traffic circulation and control ceased. Hundreds more dead leaving behind hard-earned embarkation paper and possession. Burnt dollars smell mixed with stench deisel.

Previous weeks saw half-empty World Airways C-141s ferried 50,000 passengers over Saigon sky onto Guam. Most ominous was Operation Babylift, Ford Administration “Peace with Honor”. One of the two US Air Force Galaxy’s crashed. Lower-deck deaths: 206 orphans, orphan-wannabes and their tag-along.

A month earlier, at Da Nang and Nha Trang Airport unruly mob got punched or plunged from mid-air to drown. Worried about overload, one of my classmates, in Air-Force overall, jumped out on take-off. That split second self-preservation costs him 44 years from Saigon to San Diego.

His “sliding doors” (a movie about missing the metro, with two versions: one to make it and live a different life, the other, quite the opposite). Now my turn and nine hurdles to face to get from the University of Saigon to Penn State University.

Noon on Tuesday April 29 – 1975, corner of Ban Co – Phan Dinh Phung (renamed Nguyen Dinh Chieu St.) District 3, Ho Chi Minh city.

My sister and her youngest anxiously waited for the sight of her husband and brother. They left earlier on a recon mission around our sieged Saigon. 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, from 3.2 billion to 700 million, and Operation Homecoming for all POW’s)!

This central-region curfew-violator had strong urge and momentum to flee – his fear struck a chord: he didn’t care for the Prime Minister Vu Van Mau call for reconciliation (Ambassador Martin – himself was in deep denial, doubling down on prolonging the back-door 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 the streets, knocking on doors in vain. Former DOS colleagues, under the Ambassador Bui Diem, just shrugged:” Je ne sais quoi”! (Diem himself went off-script – like everyone – Ford included – after South VN’s 722-Million USD final fund appropriation got voted down).

Found out about what a fool’s errand they attempted, both dozed off in exhaustion. The weight of war (all male adults in my family were at one time or another drafted. I myself received the civil service notice – up next! if flunk med school).

“After all, what could possibly happen!” my father assured no one but himself: “One was with custom enforcement then DOS, the other, a medic Captain – both non-combatants. Re-education camps, if it came to that would be lenient. Besides, 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 seeker ignited my sister’s protective instincts and intuition.

Unrehearsed and unprepared, the nine of us sardine-packed into a Simca to face the Unknown. My mom’s teacher salary and saving – soon-worthless – had been quickly and equally divided up on the days leading to that (should we be separated – not unusual and quite a frequent occurrence given their 1954 North-South evacuation).

Now that I have had some distance from the event, I could appreciate that wisdom: a cousin of mine never got news of her MIA husband after the collapse of central VN – photo on the altar or not. Quite an agony.

Uprooted in 1954 at least they were given 300 days not 2 minutes.

P.S. As I re-read my mom’s hand-written last testament, at age late 80’s in US assisted living, apparently, with dementia, she could not tell facts from fiction. The house we left behind that day, later and long ago was confiscated, first the upstairs then the whole house in exchange for my dad’s passage and papers to America. Naively she instructed my sister to split the sales proceed three-ways to show her concern and care.

My father wished us luck: “I am too old to worry what/ifs”. He, my part-time dad, French Artillery Army discharged (and two brothers also fought on previous war), was with Air Vietnam corporate account department. His other family (monogamy was written into law per Diem’s sister-in-law after the fact) lived a few blocks away. A man of two-minds, like LBJ, he was to spend that next decade stoically getting bogged down with two residences and my half-sister. His sliding door!

Ban Co, where we lived, was a northern refugee enclave. Walls got eyes. One would not look for or find tranquility there, except for siesta time. Moving about in a serpentine and narrow alley, residents tolerated one another. Often times during my teen, they were my captive audience of our live Rock music and family loud quarrel.

For fear of rousing up and rattled the cage at siesta (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 a mole”.

At Tet 68, urban combat was brought close to home on the roof in front of our very eyes, as plainclothes police shot out with infiltrated VC force in sandals and black pajamas. Our apprehension wasn’t without precedence.

For reinforcement, I called in a few markers. Mysteriously at the ready, with a Carbine N-1 in black (pajamas), our next-door “homeboy” escorted us out while I pulled the barbed wires cordon out of the way. His silent “wink” – 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 did with her three-decades savings.)

First hurdle!

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TAN SON NHUT AIRPORT

The airport was airtight secured. We learned later 5,000 evacuees still trapped inside. We drove pass RSVN troopers, all spread out like a human crime-scene cordon. M16s fired “pop pop pop” incessantly and indiscriminately in the air (my hot-war soundtrack throughout, from flares to choppers, F-15’s, B-52’s, AK-47’s, M-16’s and Colt-45’s. Carbine N1s were just for students neighborhood watch).

“Stay out!”

The property was condemned – per Ambassador Martin’s in-person assessment earlier. Northern spies stole A-37’s to destroy the runway and rendered Freedom Birds rescue inoperable. Like Chevy Chase European Vacation, we cautiously completed the roundabout before heading diagonally for center of town, passing by my friend’s residence.

Second hurdle

Feeling futile and witless, I signaled a time-out. Not all my social deposit was cashed out just yet. My pre-text? we needed extra fuel should our aimless itinerary take us down the Mekong. Actually, it’s more for me to stop and say goodbye. Emptying his jerry can, my type-C personality friend, rarely spoke but this time, made small talks: “Where are you heading!”

I just shrugged. Our ambassadors didn’t even know.

The day before, one of our friends had flown the coop. Bewildered and betrayed, Phong and I helplessly watched people loot Thai’s house. Consequently, and empathically, I did not want a repeat (just in case). His father, a local skipper, was well-positioned should they decide to set sail. (Years and gold bars behind, he did get to S California.) His sliding door.

US EMBASSY

A few blocks out, we stopped a few blocks from the Embassy where just two days before Phong and I were in line for a Visa application (the adults of my family, per instructions, stay home instead of in line). The authority wanted to quelch a possible city-wide panic. Yet the atmosphere turned chaotic anyway given sudden influx of Central region refugees in makeshift tents.

Surrounding streets might obey curfew but not in front of the embassy. Thousands, mostly young, foreign and native were scaling its steel gate or snaking through its newly re-enforced concertina wires on top

Marine sentries (170 in flak jackets, helmets and bayoneted M-16s, constantly scanned and cherry-picked Press credentials and foreign Passports, all in life-and-death urgency.)

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

We spotted a familiar face: my second uncle, a chauffeur for some agency. Like Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard, he backed out far enough for an imaginary runway before scaling over people. His Hail-Mary hop catapulted him over the 14-foot wall. We certainly would not dare to try similar feat, not with 4 kids, a 60-years-old Mom and luggage.

Not that our luggage was worth showing: (giay to tuy than) 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. (the way they list surviving relatives seen in obituary). In fact, I later read an Obituary of South Vietnam on WSJ printed May 2, 1975.

What could we hope to bring in two minutes.!

Reality hit us like a brick. Cold-sweated!

Turned around? Not with barbed wires and checkpoints mushrooming behind by the hour. Rumors of some down-river option did not help. Per Tiziano Terzani (Giai Phong), Hwy 4 was blocked, Hwy-1 Newport Bridge saw hot battle and burnt tank like a scene from A Bridge Too Far.

Obtaining extra fuel from my friend was just wishful thinking on my part, perhaps to contribute as a male mammal in war, since ALL male adults carry the weight of war and reap its aftermath Sorrow of War.

Sheltered and buffered from the front (150 billion bought us a few decades), I was boxed in. The Mekong? A mystery. No power no connection, we were deflated and besieged. The whole city was (except for those who printed ready flags to switch side).

Years of fighting and endless propaganda (farewell address by Thieu and subsequent tearful resignation by President Huong, Five-O-clock Follies the US press detested) reduced to worthless credentials and currency. Besides a one-hundred-dollar bill my brother-in-law carefully concealed under the Larousse flap, all we had with us was wads of worthless paper piasters.

Dazed and dispirited, we leaned against the wall watching waves after waves of sweat-slickered shirts who kept at it. Adrenalin Mad-Max attack by attrition in ! Survival of the fittest.

” I’m dreaming of a White Christmas…and …children listened” over the radio as Operation Frequent Wind got underway in 105% heat, rubbing salt on bloody injury.

At 3PM, per one report, one of the Embassy’s groundkeepers tied a long rope around his 30 relatives for a hush hush entry at the rear gate. Quite a tough call for those on-post Marine sentries who were also charged 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 learned on the job which of the three clutches to pick? The likes of my chauffeur-uncle (who had walked out of his job). Those temp chauffeurs later stopped for wads of dollars as folks like my brother’s friends hopped on paying cash (albeit not on the plan B list of Righteous American at-risk who had been told to assemble at 13 safehouses waiting for choppers. The convoy of evacuees were heading toward tourist district, since airlift option at the airport, safehouses and embassy was no longer feasible.

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 (only 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 over occupied car bumper-to-bumper, we would have been cut off.

Those drivers always had ready a bottle of Scotch to bribe the guards who couldn’t care less about a car in tow. Next morning at 4:58AM, the last 11 marines tossed tear gas canisters instead of liquor down the stairs to end decades-long involvement.

The boom barrier mercilessly – like a “guillotine” blade in vertical drop, only slow by its counterweight before full stop. Those seconds slipped us right through. Our “sliding doors”. If I had had two heads, one would have rolled – more likely – the romantic twin of that pre-med aspirant, who just a few days earlier, had collected donation in his SPCN Lecture Hall for Central-Region refugees – not knowing himself asking:

“Do you know the way to the river”.

Fourth hurdle

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.” He meant furniture and air conditioner, luxury none of us on “dong” salary could ever afford. Even on my brother’s medic captain’s pay, his first wife couldn’t afford to stay “til death do us part”.

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, divorce and dispossession – coup after coup, long speeches and teary farewell (they, us, them, which side was which) finally popped, Khmer-Rouge style: the inmates running the asylum when the lit blew up.

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 made a U turn for another load. We stood out like a sore thumb, an easy mark among a sea of zombie-like looters.

At the water edge stood an imposing 10-foot static sandbag wall, partitioning the haves and have nots. This barge-turned-bunker blocked our river view. It’s an 11th-hour plan conceived by the Oval Office, the Embassy, and Can Tho outpost, a brainchild of Carmody (see Honorable Exit). Army Engineers Corp retrofit, a marked improvement from previous all-hell-broke-loosed open-air vessels: shoving, slipping in stampede.

Like a WWI bunker, the barge was reinforced with stacked sandbags in all sides for any eventual scenario, i.e. Storm of Steel. No wonder “all quiet on the waterfront”, calm before the storm. Thieu’s swift and sudden withdrawal from Vietnam Highland MZ caused chain-reaction (our 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 their immediate families. Mob hysteria could care less friends or foes. SVN dominoes (not the theory of the same name by the Eisenhower administration) fell one by one, folding MR map from Central Region to Central District, better known as Convoy of tears.

War got close to the waterfront.

Standing atop the sandbag heap – a lone gun (M16) screamed:

“Just get out of here”

as his reply to my brother-in-law lingering and inquiring (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 skeptical. Fifth and final attempt over the sand wall (we couldn’t see who were supposed to board, where and when it was going to start). At the water edge (filled with oil and god-knows-what in the water) I could not envision my mom and brother swim.

Millions of calculations. Nine little heads!

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

Push comes to shove, should we turn 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 about fear of reprisal.

The jail later was wide open at the change of the guards. Or worse, as in the Killing -Field chapter e.g. beheaded for wearing glasses?!? so, the government does not bother with feeding and reeducating (Hue 68 was still on our mind). Not unfounded, since I grew up with episodes of Cambodia “cap duon” (beheading). I got goose bumps every time I passed the Cambodian embassy (that fear was confirmed when years later I saw the skulls-exhibit at the village of Ba Chi.) Growing up eye-witnessing a monk-burning at that same intersection was enough.

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

What about the children and their future medical studies, given my family high hopes and expectations. For others, like my other half-uncle in the Navy. to stay meant to endure re-education, a price to reunite with his mom/brother who was 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 get-out-of-jail card was another (Nixon’s nose grew longer in my vivid imagination – while many among us cursed Kissinger loudly for his China card).

The stuffy Simca carried a hung jury, eerily quiet for a loud family.” Are we going or not!” my equivalent of “are we there yet” since I was soaking-wet under arms – in a Mexican stand-off.

Our window of opportunity was fast closing. Chronos vs Kairos, time vs eternity.

An imaginary PA “All-Aboard” could have tipped the scale.

Suddenly, a unanimous decision made itself, like a poker last draw. My brother-in-law tossed the car key to a bystander, shirtless and made a few passes back and forth (canh me) watching us frightened and frustrated with indecision.

” Eternity in an hour”.

To this day, no one knows where the car is …

and over the course of less than 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”.

Our decent finally reached its bottom.

Knots in our stomachs and knapsacks over our shoulders, we filed out, leaving behind decades-long of “beaucoup dien cai dau” (often heard during my upbringing later aptly delivered by our Kieu Chinh in Hamburger Hill). Between Operation Homecoming and Vietnamization of the war, we should have been warned.

The day before, when RVN Congress convened to confirm Big Minh, only 136 out of 219 were present. Even our Chief of Staff Cao Van Vien had fled right after Thieu. As we speak, our Chief of Armed Forces was on the stairway leading to that infamous helicopter lift.

No more time. The whole city was a wet sponge that soaked up sweat and sulfur, blood and tears. Catholic paratroopers shot each other to work around doctrinally forbidden sin (of suicide). No one had the last say, or if there were, it’s the sound of self-inflicted shots.

Apprehension and anticipation, anxiety and anger all imploded (what had God wrought!). Like my friend who jumped – we hopped (Thoa, this is for you in San Diego. Who could see the future.)

__My mom was helped over first, followed by kids then the adults almost as in the order of those worthless credentials. We climbed without showing any papers in cramp legs and under watchful eyes (similar to that Air America’s chopper’s pilot, who was wearing white short sleeves in that iconic photo.

Miraculously unscathed and hassle-free we immediately claimed our circle. Barely 10 per cent occupied, the barge steel floor was rusty and stain. Except for clueless bus passengers who had been situated while we were deliberating. It was unusual since barges were intended for cargo transport.

My brother while catching his breath noticed some weeping girls. With them only a few violins as carry-on and not a single embarkation pass. We could then breathe in fresh air having dropped behind bunker’s wall.

Then, as the next convoy arrived, more climbed over and joined in, among whom, my math teachers. It struck me as odd since they had on slick tailored white shirts, for an A/C air trip (all day we saw only soak-wet shirts) The genius twins looked so out of place, against the backdrop of that blood-stained barge. Since I had never seen them outside of school setting, their squatting among us commoners – mandarin among the mass – signified a real 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.

Fifth hurdle

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.

1954 intra-country evacuation footage showed old folks in cargo net, craned up and swung over before gently dropped aboard US-assisted French 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 with refugees as cargo in net once again.

30 days’ worth of retrofitting the barge (3/75-4/75) vs 300 days to pack (54) for the adults. Years later, veterans of war were legally and orderly processed for departure under bi=lateral agreement. What screwed up in war finally was rectified 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 previously couldn’t relate to. Cry, my beloved country. “Ben cau bien gioi…” (By the Bridge over Ben Hai). The weight of war – once war vignettes over late dinner now became my inheritance….

Suddenly jerked forward, I 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. We didn’t need form letters or fuel tank after all.

Paris of the Orient, Hotel Majestic and my sister’s bank at ben Van Don grew smaller and eventually out of sight.

Tears welled up my eyes. Instinctively, I knew.

Allez sans retour. Deja vu for the adult but a first for me. I tried to commit the last of home to memory. 18-years packed with memories e.g. 3 pupils to a desk, books for graduation gifts, first date and first beer, all-nighter cramp exam review and all-nighter neighborhood watch.

“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’s Enter the Dragon I was surrounded by shifting shadows. Noticing my wet eyes, one of my nieces asked if I miss my dad. In fact – it’s my friend who we had just stopped by to see a few miles out.

Since I was no longer safe in my cocoon, with guardrails and grammar, conjugation and composition, I realized this would be a cold Turkey. Adapt or die. In denial, I could hardly come up with an excuse for what had just transpired: a sudden, unplanned act of collective betrayal – in my brother’s case, pre-mature AWOL on the eve of a nation on its last leg.

Be Run Be.

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, in the dark, we were left to float and fend for ourselves. We were immobile, without the towhead, floating hearse, full of doubt, fear, and uncertainty. Amadeus underlined music.

Betrayal begets betrayal.

Our fate and future. 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 a hop from shores. Children were too scared to cry.

Aimlessness wrenched us throat dry.

Overnight, I turned gray. Later, not just us who felt abandoned.

Shielded and semi-soundproof, we missed out on all anxiety and action in the city.

That night, South Korean diplomats as Third-Country nationals, like Iranian and Indonesian, Hungarian and Polish, were hunkering down waiting for evac. They helped themselves to the embassy bar. Why let good wine go to waste! Around the pool, some even tossed paper airplanes made out of real money. The same stack my mom divided up among us the day before. Others, in groups of 45-50, staged for Heli-lift. In one account (Honorable Exit), they commandeered an official limo – even a fire truck – to amuse themselves, turning “America” into Arcade, just like a few days earlier at Embassy’s Luau Night after Thieu’s three-hours address.

Eventually and unfortunately, 420 – including hung-over South Korean – got left behind (and had to straighten out those paper “airplanes” to buy some breakfast) – italics 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 circles.

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 while giving interview i.e. “oh, I thought we still had a shot at it”….blah blah blah.

At 7:50 AM the last eleven marines (having told the remaining crowd that “I will not leave you behind” – Marines’ mantra except fora stop at the john “mac dai”), sprayed gas grenades pooof – flares and not Agent Orange for their own ex-filtration – All eyes scanned like a Waymo uber drive, flags (of our fathers) folded – in contrast to Iwo Jima’s military ceremony.

The Architect of War was hasty in announcing “Peace is at hand”. Then “It’s over” (still with tuxedo giving a high-five in the Oval Office); before correcting at Press Conference the day after: “Sorry! we were eleven-marines short”.

That exit closed out US decades- long campaign against what had once iron-clad perceived as Communist aggression and expansion.

By pure luck we evaporated by means of the most unseaworthy vessel (twice at zero mph) 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” (nearest to the airport).

Wednesday APRIL 30, 1975, OPEN SEA

Loud cheers erupted 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 that day: land, sea or air.

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

A 40-miles trip took us all night.

It was like D-Day only in reverse – screen right to screen left: Hueys, Chinooks and Sea-Stallions all zipped overhead and away from Cap St Jacque. Death of a Nation. Digitally remastered on Blu-Ray with surround sound, depicting a “Charlon Heston” type with wide-spread arms in Apocalyptic plague of single-piloted choppers dotting the sky.

Leaf-like boats battered and beaten swung up and down, sideway to stay out of bazooka range. Under the watching eyes of world opinion and world press, a single-engine 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 (Vung Tau).

We wrenched rain waters from the camping “hole” of our poncho (first and last camping trip by our entire family, with adults holding each corner) to drink. A single bag of instant noodle for 9 like a scene from Polanski’s the Pianist (cutting a brown-sugar cube by dad’s pocketknife). When danger passed hunger emerged.

20 miles out, before GPS, we spotted the 7th Fleet 40+ war ships far on the horizon evenly spread out in battle-arc shape. Staging with protruded canons on the ready, battle ships canons spread out, like sun rays from afar. Here comes the Sun – on an overcast morning. Apparently, the 7th fleet could have taken out those rocket launchers but were ordered to stand down, and show some restraint. That long war was largely a land-and-air (Heli and B52’s) war, exhaustive enough without an encore.

At the bitter end, we saw only chopper’s retreat and flares overhead.

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

Technically, when you got transferred to a battleship (USS Blue Ridge?) or any ship 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 any Statue of Liberty. Our “TSA” checkpoint was an oil-drum filled with freshly confiscated guns and knives. A navy sentry eyeballed all carry-on. Leaning to peak over the person ahead in line, the giraffe in me saw an open Samsonite sardine-pack with gold bars (glistening like les poisons doré– in the Au Marche poem I learned at French 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.

Every hard surface e.g. ship deck had been taken. A Huey vertically touched down on the bucket-opening of the barge which had just been made space right behind us. His miscalculated force-landing – steel-against-steel (sandbag walls) as in a custom sheet metal fab shop, with embers and loosened blade coming fast at us.

Faces on wet floor. All activities froze. Except for my medic brother who hitched rides on occasion from Qui Nhon where he once stationed, none of us was ever near a military chopper, much less brushing against its deadly blade.

Pulling off that spectacular stunt i.e. repurposing abandoned barge into a Huey Helipad – without a slight regard for safety, the pilot, out of mercy, got a provision of water and an inflated raft to seek shelter elsewhere. He might very well be our first Boat People. One fewer than around seven thousand who were heli-lifted to offshore ships by Frequent Wind operation.

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

Sixth hurdle!

May 4, 1975, Subic Bay

Per 1954 Geneva Convention, close to 1 million Northerners, majority of whom Catholics, elected or persuaded 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 step-by-step down below deck. In an ammunition dungeon for the entire Saigon to Subic Bay float, we were like Jonah – in the belly of the beast – incubated but unconsolable.

Starved and seasick, in a blur, I mentally blocked out those diesel-stench (nothing to throw up) trip only once interrupted by a chow call: an orange = courtesy of officer’s mess. So grateful and fearful (of starvation), I ate all, peels and pulp.

For fresh air, I climbed up to the open deck, only to see money tossed to the wind, like ash from an urn. In a trance, a guy, like the Tenant in a Polanski film, let go “Ben Franklin’s” – our Tran Hung Dao bills, one handful at a time. Blood money or unpaid payroll – no answers, and if any, the answer is ” blowing in the wind” (at the Embassy, it took 8 hours to burn a million dollars of payroll, an order from Sec of Commerce).

Dust to dust.

No Sirens.

Only a silent rendition of Auld Lang Syne to end a set which opened 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, this was it. National anthem, the lowering of the flag, the last vestige of SVN.

No tears of joy. Not the Liberation of Paris nor D-V Day. Weeping sailor vs kissing sailor, Subic Bay vs iconic Times Square where a nurse in uniform would tilt her head in mutual consent.

Indeed, finally feet firmly on shore, I spotted a line of subdued and disrobed RVNN’s – in newly issued white T’s and blue jeans. Apparently, not just flags and vessels, but uniforms and insignias, also stripped. The big reset.

Failure is an orphan (a/o this edit, Hung Cao turned it around as Acting Under Sec of Navy. And the Philippines now ranked below Vietnam in GDP).

In the middle of the night, a welcome party handed us each a sandwich and a coke. Shoulders stooped, knees-deep wading in single file, we arrived in strange shores. Not A decade earlier, in contrast, Wayne-like marines eagerly and energetically splashed waters upon landing on China Beach into those welcoming leis and arms of our iconic Ao-Dai.

Seventh hurdle!

Summer 1975

After three days of vetting, then a cramped seating on a C130 floor, we flew to Wake Island given Guam already at over-capacity. 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, “Asylum seekers” were with 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). For context, approximately 125,000 Germans, most of them Jewish, immigrated to the United States between 1933 and 1945

The difference this time: no tatoo, and not much of public support. Certainly not Senator George McGovern and more due to an angered Ford (but not without compassion and moral leadership – shown in a stock photo, holding a bi-racial Babylift survivor at SF Airport) who bypassed Congress. Ford appealed directly to the VOLAGs and church groups for help with mass resettlement instead of waiting around for Congressional grandstanding and postering. (Congressional brainstorm: an Amish-like self-sustained hectares in Pennsylvania to an industrial city off the coast of Virginia, per Dr. Hung’s book). We were lucky they did not go for the later option to build “a bridge to nowhere”.

That summer with clear sky clean water, we processed our grief while the US government 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 (Giay rach phai giu lay le = starved but hold on to one’s dignity).

Eighth hurdle.

From May to July, fish sticks and French fries, Fruit-of-the-loom, and Head-and-Shoulders. Consumerism reached us on the Island ahead of Mainland. Out of the 4 military installation-turned-processing camps (Ft Eglin, Ft Chaffee, Camp Pendleton, and Ft Indiantown Gap), we ended up with Pennsylvania, the closest to D.C. where my brother-in-law once visited.

Without being told, we scattered and resettled in four zip codes. At tearful goodbye, we agreed on Crofton, Maryland, our cousin address, for future reference (if you were to add foreign exchange students and expat wives, Vietnamese in America were just a handful including my cousin.

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

Many shot-gun weddings were officiated by the camp Chaplain, mix and match.com as hastily as those songs from home I recorded in our barrack’s bathroom. We all fret separation and extinction.

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 was multimodal: 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, only a few miles to State College, hold it … my house-church-designated rep, a divorced Unitarian minister with time in his hand (he took up Cello 101 at the University), showed some class by scooping up a Woodie-Guthrie-hat-wearing hitchhiker on Hwy 322. “How do you do!” I am Thang, from the war.

Only then my liberal arts education could officially commence – one peck on college typewriter at a time (sounded more like gunshots on my first day. What a nightmare).

Armed with 300 bucks- a fiscal increase from what was in the French dictionary we managed to slip out with us – 1975 fiscal left-over, disbursed and distributed via the IRC (International Rescue Committee)- I grabbed Penn State by the horns – like “holding Infinity in the palm of my hand”.

Humbly yet eagerly, I held on to birth certificate and my straight A’s transcript on Red-Cross stationary. Oh, almost forget that job Letter of Recommendation from the Bureau of Child Welfare – where I volunteered as an interpreter.

Having missed “Move-In” date, I played catch-up: from night shifts on campus to a job offer at WNEP-TV 16 upon graduation.

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 but an I culture (in LA, it’s I-drive then Uber/AI drive) . My first impressions: a PA-licensed driver obeyed reflexively at a STOP sign amid heavy downpour in the camp. Rules-based reflex in a mono-chronist society, first comes first served.

My first impressions = my initial culture shock!

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 sure” “it’s alright”. (The British Invasion arrived via Armed Forces Radio). Consequently, we, “Come together” at least those 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- my mom influenced me the most Old-style gratefulness, she never forgot her guardian-mother since before her time at a semi-orphan live-in at Hanoi French pedagogy boarding school. Years and miles later, she still celebrated each anniversary of our “grandma’s” passing, to remind us of roots and respect.

I could do no less i.e. remember and reflect on the sacrifice of Blacks from Mississippi and Whites from Pennsylvania.

P.S. Last week, I met a son of a G.I. Immediate kindred spirit struck. He said his dad had returned from over there utterly in silence ever since.

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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 an Udall’s presidential campaign on campus).

One has to put the least strain on the system. Culture shock abated, I invited fellow exiled students to cake and music. White Christmas was on for the second time that year, this time, with real snow and boots outside, not 105 degrees back in late April outside of the US embassy.

We all needed a haircut (obvious from first impressions), with invisible tattoo as 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 surgeon).

Joining the huddle mass, we lived in quiet desperation. Our California Dream has been what we made of it since “all the leaves are brown….”. Remarkably, little Saigon is now fed up with Fillet Mignon. They also want wine to go with it, like Alain Delon. Oh well. When in Rome, drink like a Roman.

This story could otherwise be told from the P.O.V. of 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 e.g. tossing babies (like basketballs), flying-on-empty or climbing over embassy wall or Berlin Wall.

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

My Medic Captain brother still couldn’t believe we pull it off. He once thought we were to “be stationed” 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 (like that last lepers’ colony in Louisiana) to save taxpayers some money.

To my brother, Maryland is Promised Land. His signature French refrain “Mexi….co” then Colora…do where he had previously spent a year obtaining modern medical equipment training, courtesy of the US of A DOD. Out of gratitude (he reminisced that “tasty” sandwich on Subic Bay, first food after five seafaring days) he donated back a large chunk of change from his Howard-Hospital paychecks to disable Veterans and Orphans of War.

A decade later, my P/T dad joined us, with 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 semi-orphaned,” I read so I won’t be alone”. No college-orientation nor graduation.

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). He was an integral part of our larger learner’s family (either dictionary or Hit Parade for music). Songs like “Never on Sunday” kept playing in my head as first heard at his home (AKAI tape).

For me, with Vietnam past and dawn in America, I let go things not under my control. Yet at times, the past creeps up, like a vinyl comeback: “When I was young, I listened to the radio, waiting for my favorite song” between “Your Song” and “Here Comes the Sun”, between self-deprecation and self-delusion (Me 1.0 pure Vietnamese. Me 2.0 do or die Americanized “banana” version. Me 3.0 on going, see my other blog).

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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 for a break from assigned reading “the Medium is the Message”.

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 7th-fleet. Repeatedly raped and robbed by Thai pirates then abandoned to certain death – unless they took the last option to survive on fellow passengers’ dead meat.

Never did I envision a trip back so soon, even with self-recrimination and survivor’s guilt ( symptoms of PTSD).

“He who is no fool to lose that which he cannot keep while gaining that which he cannot lose”, by Jim Elliot, a fellow Wheaton alumnus, fresh on my mind and I owe him ever since (perhaps on Todd Beamer’s, another alum, when terrorists commandeered United Airlines Flight 93) for little chance to die.

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. ” A Chance to Die” a little.

Back to those prison-turned-makeshift camps. Slamming doors vs Sliding doors (“When you look behind there was no open door”). At the time, I barely got my US Passport – and my “GoFundMe” (for youngsters who could only relate to crowdsourcing) were typed letters and licked stamps to all in my address book.

In Hongkong, I offered any help I could: relief supplies, ESL classes, entertainment events and church-sitting (on my second tour). Hong Kong Island lock-ins were fed up with camp foods e.g. sardines just as we fish-sticks back on Wake Island.

My micro-fund raising after exchange rate, were spent on international stamps (those par-avion letters were sneaked out in my shoes end of each day and hot chili (in) for them. I would never forget that lone shirtless survivor – a half-Chinese boy who stuttered.

After 2 tours (thanks to student-loan payment deferral program), like a good short-sleeves Mormon, – I was distributing needed supplies to near-death fellow countrymen, before remembered that I was myself was on the receiving end of a Coke and a sandwich on Subic Bay ( a nun and a priest – pastorally handed out). What else could a communication major do to give counsel to – as an example – 2 raped and forced-by-circumstances cannibalism survivors – besides being there – upstairs of that Jubilee prison for a show of support). Again, with culture shock and catharsis, I found in giving there is healing.

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

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

Our Father in Heaven, our father in homeland…:

Back then, in our long journey into the night, we faced the Unknown but intrinsically, our seeker’s DNAs constantly grabbed” 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”.

THE END

Credits for Crisis and Luck, the movie version 🙂

Homeboy w/ carbine N1 escort: Thai, neighbor

Father: Nguyen Duc Tien

Mother: Ngac Thi THo

Sister: Nguyen thi Bich Thu

Brother-in-law: Hoang Dinh Tuynh

Brother: Nguyen Duc Thuy

Myself: Nguyen Duc Thang

Niece I: Hoang Thi Thu Tam

Niece II: Hoang thi Thu Nga

Nephew I: Hoang Dinh Chien

Nephew II: Hoang Dinh My

Friend I : Trinh van Thoa (San Diego)

Friend II: Nguyen Dang Phong (S. California)

Friend III: Do Thanh Thai (S California) who had fled early

Friend III: Cang (pilot) St Louis, ran into him on same ship

Child Welfare Bureau at Indiantown Gap

Sponsor: Rev Ernest Hawk, rep of Sycamore house church

Sponsor: Dr Rustum Roy (Founder of Material Research Lab at Penn State University) and Waslunds at Weis.

Thank you for the shared discoveries and camaraderie along the journey.