Tet 75

Just as in Final Destination, the series, I had similar premonition: Tet 75 would be my last! (God knows I have tried: same time of the year, same place, but as Thomas Wolfe put it, “You can’t go home again”.)

Enrolling in pre-med, I was with a mission: to pass the entrance exam. Yet Tet got in the way. Per Oliver Todd’s Cruel April, diplomats and peace observers toasted to another stint in country, oblivious to its imminent collapse. Instead of cramming and burning the midnight oil, I celebrated Tet 75 in ambivalence and apprehension. After all, we had learned from Tet 68 i.e. things might not be as they seemed, sacred or not.

But being native and naive, I was torn: an uncertain future (Vietnamizing of the Vietnam War) vs a fleeting present (Vietnamizing Woodstock), pro vs anti-war (burning monk at my street intersection, and a burning Quaker – at the steps of the Pentagon).

Since I was not granted the luxury of an elite overseas slot (Colombo program to Australia or Exchange student program to the US, the only option left for me was the draft and death-by-attrition if I flunk the exam. Push/pull forces were at work overtime on my hormonal bursting body.

To ace the exam (which we all knew, not 100% meritocracy in war time), or to act on my premonition – that it would be my last Tet, a Tet I wished just like the ones I had previously experienced : extended families, deceased and alive, who surrounded and sheltered me from upheaval (GI’s deaths, VC’s deaths, neighbor’s death, Nightly news with body and ammo counts, classmate back but body part behind).

In short, it’s our turn to die without “mental reservation”, since the path of war was set.

Tet was the only occasion – more joyful – to see relatives from all over including the countryside, aside from Gio (ancestor’s memorial). Yet that nagging feeling was there while we ate our confiture.

Unable to cope with pressures, I punished myself! Shaving my head was to me, a form of self-mutilation and self-isolation. Then friends knocked. Then dances awaited. Pre-Tet, during Tet and Post- Tet celebration. Tango, Cha cha cha and yes, Rock before slow dance. So much for calling it a day.

My friends and I refused to admit, but we all sensed it. Might as well – self-inflicted (hair shred) and self- indulgent (nicotine inhaled) – our version of Sartre (I have seen a lot of tattoo and nose rings of late; modern youth reaction and rebellion – rage against the machine, “rage against one another”). Rumba on the floor, rumbles on the street. “Would you care to dance”. With each evening out, my dream slipped further away.

Outside, hustling and bustling. Inside, dizzying disco (be sure to wear white for better purple haze reflection): hair-down-to-the-knees (not mine, but my first friend at Penn State still had his) hence, the sexes indistinguishable in a Copernican merry-go-round. Seventeen, Dancing Queen.

How could I remember after all these years? I was resting between set, since Blue Danube, a Waltz number, was for the pros (a friend’s dad, a ballroom-dance instructor, showcased his advanced students).

In looking back, it’s our last Waltz, like the Band’s (RIP Garth Hudson).

Any jam session has its end.

President fled, Palace abandoned, Embassy looted, and home vacated. Even my dad was left behind, a whole decade long, like a ghost in our empty house. The only sadder sight was that of an exile Vietnamese lady practicing her partner-less steps in a dimly lit refugees-club on a weeknight.

Back to the week after Tet 75.

In a Science, Physics, Chemistry and Natural Sciences (SPCN) class, we got interrupted by a classmate who collected donation. She was with sincere heart, but short in public speaking. Even with shaved head and determination to tune out, I felt moved, and asked for the mike. We had a bucket full of cash that day for those less-fortunate seen camping out on campus.

Central-region refugees were pouring in, occupying our school yards, makeshift tents and blankets next to French-grown trees. Children were out, much like Gaza today. Eventually, we, givers joined in the same fate (stateless). I later ran into that same classmate in Indian town Gap camp where we both awaited outplacement, as in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

Seeing my “party all night, study all day”, my brother, a pharmacist medic, injected Vitamin B12 then slapped me – like sending off a “Texan horse” to the wild. If it were to be our last, might as well.

We were so ignorant of the Cold War, Hot war or lukewarm ones. Per LBJ:” Asian boys ought to do it for themselves…” while nations took side, much like now e.g. N Korean in Ukraine. Their predecessors even joined in on one side, South Korean the other – ignoring signed Armistice a decade earlier (Vietnam War? American War? Korean War? with 3 million US servicemen/women on rotation, and close to that many of all races died – Blacks slightly and unfairly disproportionate.)

Who said it was just a Cold War (where built-up arsenal just got piled up unused). Kissinger drank Orange Juice, while picking out targets for his “Operation Breakfast” (said targeting Vietnam but coordinate switch mid-air to neighboring Cambodia – lately more tariff slapped than Vietnam’s). Darker skin endures more, always!

Hence, I felt that constant chill in the back of my neck. I worried for my family, friends. Not the medical-school dream. That was to be expected. But the dread of an imminent collapse, crack and crumble of then reality; shellshock and culture – shock; statelessness and uprootedness. Like “a complete unknown … like a rolling stone” to borrow an expression from Dylan (in years previous, I grew up contained).

For assimilation, I took on American persona (We Are – in jeans and T’s), printed my own “card visit” – as icebreaker, to bait dates over coffee the way Hare Krishna offered free roses. To a life 2.0 with two set of clothes and copies of birth certificate. My draft-deferred card still certified my being actively enrolled in our Pre-med program (so warring society at best could replenish its medic reserve).

All was not quiet on our front, however. A month before our own evacuation, in sheer panic and hysteria, the Highland retreated (Convoy of Tears) triggered mob madness. M-16’s turning against each other, pushed and punched, shoved and kicked. So much shooting and looting that my classmate, in the Air Force, had secured a slot to fly out, jumped off his overloaded plane.

Chaos. Carnage. Collapse.

Those sweat-soaked shirts outside the US Embassy tell all. Inside, the lucky ones entertained their restless children with paper airplanes made out of soon-defunct currency. Those same people couldn’t wait to be on a real airplane – squatting and staging in batches anticipating their heli-lifts.

A thousand-yard stare. No selfies.

We were utterly betrayed and abandoned. No “just one more chance, another dance”: boulevard empty, bunker erected. Eerily silent, slowly dying.

No oxygen, no ventilation, no aspiration, no destination. No time. After hopping on a barge, we rolled over and played dead – radio silent – human cargo in battery-conserving mode. Freight unpaid, recipient address (RFID) unknown, future and welfare a mystery. We were afraid the towhead would change his mind, or worse, we ours (at times, left to float, we thought that’s what it was; luckily, he went for fuel.)

Years later, as soon as I obtained my US passport, I flew back to join and assist those same folks – Barge People looking out for Boat People. As latest addition to the American story, one was to swallow pride and forget our past social status and standing, credentials and currency, calling card and country of origin.

Just put on a new identity (individualistic vs clannish), apply deodorant and Just Do It i.e. wear Nike since branding and manufacturing were all done for (ironically, manufactural origin is now Vietnam itself).

Unlike subsequent camps in the Philippines and Malaysia, we were at the time pampered on Wake Island with PX surplus (expired?) like Benson & Hedges Menthol, Fruit-of-the-loom underwear (irregular?) and frozen fish sticks. Some folks in D.C. just wanted to spend up that year’s pre-appropriated dollar.

“Do you know, where you going to…Do you like the things that life is showing you” played over Armed Force Radio.

Then Paul McCartney “Band on the run” by DJ portrayed by Robin Williams’ GOOOOOOOD Morning Vietnam. See, I had that premonition that if I didn’t go to the dance (live for the moment), my last, I would regret the rest of my days.

Back then, seventeen, Dancing Queens were all out and eager. They too sensed something. Perhaps with more a premonition and intuition than mine.

American band, American bomb and American PX. In black market via the backway, beer run, beef run by dog soldiers (per Robert Stone). We wouldn’t say we never had fun. But boy oh boy, what a stiff price and opportunity cost. When in war, party as if there were not tomorrow. Another serving of whatever, please. Like in the opening chapter of All Quiet on the Western Front (cigarettes as currency).

For tomorrow we will die. If not tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow. Two things one cannot do anything about: the past and death.

I last largely thanks to my mom, her guardrails, her prayer for peace, for the living or deceased.

As I remember and reflect on the events of those times, I want to be keeper of the flame. To pray that Peace might come, that many would have something to eat (fish sticks are OK). That all will be well. The body wastes away, animal instinct/premonition (to fight or to flight) exists, but our spirits God knows will remain – like He who always does. Marcus Aurelius knew this (that life is short). I know this, that Tet 75 was short.

Like A Quiet American, who I now am,” How I wished there had been someone to whom I could say I was sorry”.

Last Monday saw the anniversary of my dad’s passing. He somehow survived that dark decade, home alone. All those years, I was longing and looking for home, yet unable to return; BTW, that’s the legal definition of a refugee.

On my day off from relief work, I sat on the Hong Kong Victoria Peak in the summer of 81, looking in the direction home. Similar time zone, but miles apart. As if, had I stared hard enough, thousand yards out, no Google Earth, I could somehow hover past our roof, underneath sat my dad, in pajamas smoking half-cigarette.

From Tet 75 to Tet 25. For my siblings, dead or alive, my nieces and nephews, cousins and friends.

I remembered those document for the Red Cross to translate but in a hurry and panic, I forgot you. If there were “just one more chance, another dance” but we all know the race against time is one-way.

Boy oh boy; I can use another Vitamin B12 my brother boosted up this Icarus in his flight to a warmer Sun (on wings of wax). I remember because I needed to rest in between set to cool down.

In hindsight and my opinion, it’s my mom’s sincerest prayers that stirred us out of harm’s way, her protective instinct and spiritual deposit deflected our Final Destination. As she joined the very band of ancestors to whom she had often prayed, I, her reservist, step up to ensure the memory chain continue to churn, at least one more Copernican-like Waltz under yesterday disco ball.

Seventeen, Dancing Queen