Thang Nguyen 555

Things they carried. On a small boat. Up State, Up North. Draft-card burning. Bras burning. Hell No, We Won’t Go.

Except this time, it’s Russian. Not long-hair hippies of a Woodstock era.

I remember a concert by Paul McCartney in Moscow way back after the Iron Curtain fell. Youth everywhere just want to hold each other (Love Story) and swing with the music. It’s universal, international and to be expected.

Yet we have Fed’s policy (Paul Volcker’s name resurfacing ) and draft policy. As if human lives could be suppressed and manipulated (they once played human chess).

Repeat.

It’s been 211 days into the war in Ukraine. When it first started, I thought of my neighbors: husband, Russian – wife, Ukrainian. They must have grown numbed by tuning out bad news from afar. We all did way back when I was growing up. Pull the shade and put on the tape. Slow Rock. But eventually what’s “out there” is finally here, at least, for Russian youth, and the 80,000 new dead (Vietnam claimed roughly 60,000 US’).

Mother Russia. Crying over dead sons/daughters. I’d rather see them holding hands in outdoors concert… “when we’re young…our life is an open book….live and let die”.

War and Peace. Yin-Yang.

Population control? Territorial control? Zelensky kept repeating:” We are fighting for our lives” (while you for Democracy or territorial integrity).

Both are right. But the difference is enormous: life and death, arm-chair theology vs real crucifixion. (in “Majestic” the movie, we witness a change of heart when our protagonist decided to stand up for principles against the mighty power that be).

Rinse.

In Vietnam, when fighting wouldn’t get them where they had wanted, all sides resorted to and relied on Election (manipulable). Hence, half-country (like soup and half-sandwich). Johnson was torn between his “Great Society” (and which of the 3 networks to watch) and the war afar. Hence, the draft. Twitter’s founder’s father was 19 when he first landed in VN. Bang. Bullet. Dead.

Back in this country, per a documented account, Election Day now was dreaded as a hazard on par with a potential terrorist attack or natural disaster (Leibovich pg. 221).

There will always be wars. We came, pre-wired and predisposed to warring. Conflicting desires. Wanting vs Needing. What gets me is, warring, and by extension, stirring up controversies and divisions, must be very profitable. After all, why wouldn’t our former President condemn Putin’s act of aggression? He has had 211 days to prepare his tweet” draft. Oh, it’s bad for the brand. It’s not a positive proposition to sell. Zelensky! Find me some dirt, then I’ll sign the military aid package.

Repeat. (Johnson, Nixon said something similar to President Thieu, for the record). The “Palace files” were then conveniently classified and upstaged by Watergate.

The things they carried. Across the pond. To wave a different flag, march to a different drummer. “When we were young, our life is an open book…live and let die”.

Just now, on live TV, I watched the crown, Queen’s, placed upon the altar. Rested on purple velvet. Royalty at rest. May she rest in peace. We all sooner or later join her. May we R.I.P. as well.

The end. Most important event in all of life (we’ve got no say as to our lineage).

I wonder if the Queen or today’s King, often think about the luck of the dice. How they just happen to be there, then. Blessed and extremely lucky to the point of, per selected theology, “being chosen”.

The last time I watched similar funeral, was when she herself sat in partitioned booth, utterly alone to say goodbye to her wedded husband Philip.

This time, her turn. Well conducted and watched. Everyone asks for mercy…”we’re but dust….like flowers in the field”…Eternity in one hour.

I too am very aware of my fate, future and fleeting hope of an eternal life. For the lack of a better term. I know “eternal” doesn’t mean chronologically eternal, or our transitory life would last forever. Just “eternal”.

Perhaps it meant we would get to sit at the table, to be present at the party and have some champagne.

Could somebody tell Putin, Xi-ping and lesser dictators i.e. wannabes: “please pause, think a bit about your fleeting lives, then think of others’…” “blessed are the poor…for they shall inherit the Earth”…

Perhaps in her death, Queen E did pull her utmost weight: towing an entourage of world leaders, making them ponder about past and present Kingdoms.

From Egypt to England. And maybe, maybe, they will be a bit more humane, and less cruel towards others under their charge. For a moment there, I am hearing my own calling ” go ye unto the world and be a force of good.” Do No Evil, you hear, Google.

Still searching, both online and offline, for that heart of gold. And I am getting old. Nearing the end. Without a crowing moment. Unlike she. Our Queen.

It would never be the same Britain, same Bond, same BBC with extended reach and enormous influence e.g. guns, God and germs. in world history and “sun-never-set” geography, British Naval prowess not withstanding.

While the pipe music began to fade out and Sky News about to sign off, the crown to be on display as museum piece, I wish your days be fruitful and filled with warmth and kindness towards our fellow men.

In this case, it’s quite symbolic. Kick it all the way up North, where they belong i.e. with the NE liberals, the humanitarian, rhetoric meets reality…Here. Your immigrants. Your heart delights.

The political football. Venezuelan. Long ago, it was me. A local church which sponsored a Vietnamese refugee family was using me to motivate them (to find work): “Look, he has just arrived the day before. The next day, he found work…albeit night-shift janitorial” (they had obviously been told that “these people” needed to be self-sufficient immediately given the anti-sentiment of the post-VN era). You should have seen the face of the long and curly hair boy in leather jacket, obviously came loaded and more prepared for the US.

Everything (human bodies included) is up and qualified as “political football”, to be punted, tossed, thrown, carried and Hail Married.

After all, it’s the Fall and football season in America. Push them back, push them back, way back.

We love to be aroused. Stimulated. Nudged and pushed. Especially when it came from a bullhorn.

Slogans need to be short and sweet “take back our land” “back where you belong”.

Quite a schizophrenia: “Give us your huddled mass” yet at the same time “We’re not an open border”. Hence, PBS’ The US and the Holocaust series. (Aired by appointment only).

That red rope is not open to everyone. Got to grease the palm. Cash. Lots of it. America = Studio 54. We’re the good fellas.

This land is our (rich folks) land. First-mover’s advantage. Us vs them. The Others. The Venezuelan. The Vietnamese. The Venus (OK, let them in. “I don’t care, do U?”).

It was said that President Kennedy once told a close friend regarding Madame Nhu “that bitch has to stir everything up”… Quite a seductress. Dragon Lady. Affecting the course of a nation. Out of her sheer will. She was the one who punt the ball back then.

Now, with the desire to beat the populist drum, to shout from the bullhorn…people once again punt the ball. To up State, the Ivy League and the elite. Let them handle it. Go Dutch on hypocrisy. The unborn we love. The ones. who by sheer accident of birth, who are here, send them away. We’ll pay your way. By the bus load.

From San Antonio, we decried the inhumanity of that human-trafficking driver whose truck was without A/C which caused the death of many. Yet from the same town, rich FL governor uses state-coiffeur – the next link in the coyote chain – to pay their domestic connection to Martha Vineyard. Beautiful Island, the likes of which you have never seen.

In the US, at times, human = football, to be Hail Married and punt to where they belong.

The 80’s music if you can recall: Boy George, the Police and Bowie. Concert for Bangladesh (My Sweet Lord) and of course, Eurythmics. Every move you make….I’ll be watching.

My niece, in one of the early pictures, stood in the background, while I, foreground. She was watching me and whoever took the photo.

We’re never quite alone. Not now, not ever. With ubiquitous mini-cameras, drones, and surveillance satellites in the age of AI. Good luck. Privacy? what’s that! Crime is down? perhaps a bit deterred, but never gone away.

The camera inside our head is called memory. I was born right after the partition of Vietnam. Throughout my childhood, I had been watching every move everyone made: the way my Dad combed his hair, slick back with “brilliantine”, how my principle wore his glasses, or the head teacher walked around hands behind (hiding the long stick).

I watched the war outside, and the war inside my family. Then how the war inside of me acted out after years of watching, absorbing via osmosis. The education of me. Albeit contrarian and countercultural, like Bob Dylan who rebelled against the rebellious 60’s by turning to religion in the 80’s. “Gotta serve somebody…Yeah, indeed”.

God has been watching over him. The machine over me. And my niece over all of us. She turned out OK BTW. Thanks for asking. Now her daughters are watching her, in turn. We learn from role models. My sister’s hair on her wedding day looked just like that of the Dragon Lady’s (Madam Nhu). The Diem’s brothers, the Kennedy’s and the Mario’s. Watching one another in the way of dress and even mannerism.

We know, or should know, everything is an illusion. Yet we seek status and want to rise above everyone else, with wings made out of wax. Like Icarus flying high toward the Sun. All the while hoping others are watching our spectacular ascent (soon descent, since what rises must come down). One exception. Our protagonist Holden Caulfield, across the street, shooing his beloved sister away. Please go home. Stop following me. Stop modeling after me. Live your life. However, it turns out. You’re not in my charge or I yours.

I did not say anything to my niece. Did not even know she was in the background of the photo. I was just struggling to make it through the 80’s, this side of the Cold War after getting out of a proxy Hot one. Gotta serve somebody, yeah indeed… Every move you make, every step you take…I sure hope Our God on high has been watching. Making notes and marking down all my faults and favors. One day soon, when this life/illusion ends. He and I will have a sit-down to square it all away. Can’t wait. Meanwhile, it’s time for another concert, not for Bangladesh, but Balochistan (Pakistan) (I want to see you Lord, but it takes so long my Lord, my sweet Lord).

Sept 11th’s 21st anniversary.

19 hijackers. Turning Boeings into bombs. 3000 deaths.

We’re all shocked to the core. Even today in looking back.

How could people be that cruel? How could people be that courageous and selfless (to die for others to live).

On that day, on flight (UA-93) we learned all about humanity and history.

That it is a mix of good and bad, of twists and turns.

Like the weather. Climate Change. People change. History evolves.

Yesterday, someone was a 73-year-old Prince. Today, King.

You can float down a lazy river in TX, or river-raft to the unknown (with a banjo soundtrack as Burt Reynolds & friends in Deliverance), and time will take you there (unintended destiny) even with the best-laid plan.

21 years ago, the only plane on the sky late that day was Air Force One. No one knew what was going on. Hence, bunkering and hunkering down. Peter Jennings was still alive then , with rolled-up sleeves, tossing from one live camera to the next (PA, Pentagon and NYC).

Eyes glued to the set. Television, not Twitter, ruled.

Fiction? or real? We all were in total shock. Those imagery were so surreal yet real. Lives were at stake. People stopped on the 41st floor of WTC stairs to help carry a lady in her wheelchair down to ground floor (CBS-News). Firefighters and first responders rushed up to their certain deaths. Brooks Brothers store across the way all covered in dust.

We were proud of being fellow human beings (TX barbecue, anyone? until we dig up any survivor). We were horrified by those hijackers – their grievances on live TV (I need to insert my own pet peeve: I wish those Thai pirates barbaric acts of raping, robbing and killing Boat People on South China Seas were on live TV 45 years ago). Finally, their leader’s head was cut off, files retrieved. Splinter groups have been re-branded and re-grouped to fight ad-hoc battles in Syria.

It costs a lot for those folks in Guadalupe, TX river to float. For Californians to have A/C while outside temperatures are above 100 degrees. It costs lives and continued defense of freedom and free living 21 years after the fateful day.

Preventable? Might be. Future versions of that script, rehashed for next generations, since it’s always been a Cain and an Abel, at each other’s throat.

That’s why history has always been a look in the rearview mirror.

Of regrets, of reviews and retrospect. Let’s forget OBL, and remember Todd Beamer/friends. Even when one of them was a gay guy from SF. Heroes are heroes, heterosexual (and Christian) or homosexual. As long as they stood up and sacrificed for us all to live in, often times, complacency and comfort.

Thank you, guys. R.I.P. Your selfless acts are inscribed in my book, never to be forgotten – more so on this day of 9/11. That day, my friend and I were watching TV, ABC-news, which still was anchored by Peter Jennings. His subsequent cancer death was partly due to a smoke he shouldn’t have touched.

Smoke gets in our eyes that day.

The book, the movie and the song. Three-legged stool. “Where do I begin…”

Love and death, hand in hand. Death in combat and Love during R&R. Cy-clo May (three-wheeled cycles) and cy-clo dap (just plain three-wheeled cycle, manual pedal).

The GI’s Loved it. Today, the backpackers. Old French Quarters, New Orleans , Hanoi or Saigon. The architectural backdrop was definitively Colonial French, overlaying and interlacing with Indo-Co-Chinois.

Somewhere you will find love. Somewhere you’ll find money. Lots of money during war time. All in cash, burned in a hurry, ready in a duffle bag if need be. Seen it with my own eyes aboard a US Navy warship. Just toss them all, blowing in the wind. Dylan-esque.

How many roads must a man to choose…America at war, with foreign powers and persuasions. American Artists in the “moveable Feast”. American Army abroad in the 60’s (Vietnam) after its Feast of the famine (45).

Somehow, there stood a South Vietnam, wobbling, but stood for 21 years nevertheless. Amidst bombardment and chaos like Today’s Ukraine.

Students still showed up. Soldiers too.

A sense of normalcy amidst the abnormal. Tear gas, guard posts and lots of bribery. Then there was the sound of Rock and Roll. Of “hair to the knees”. All Right Now….Maybe tomorrow I will love again…Love is blue. Where do I begin…

Charles Anavour’s Et Pourtant, handed off to the British Invasion (indirectly) of Vietnam. Cultures in collision. Outdoor concerts in the park – French colonial park. Cream and CCR. California Dreaming.

Without dreams, nothing happened. So today, after many decades, the relics and remnants are here, in California. All the leaves are brown.

“and I pretend to pray”…Been “got down on my knees” all these years. Praying for peace in the land. In the town and out in the country. Where the VC’s once ruled the night, the SVN and US Army the day (in strategic hamlets). Per Vu Quoc Thuc’s Ph.D. dissertation, Vietnamese power lies at the grass roots level among which the VC’s had stronghold. Then Nick Ut’s shot of the Napalm girl. Malcolm Browne of the burning monk. The Press loves sensationalism. It sells. It sizzles.

All the elements of chaos were present. Where do I begin,…to tell a story of Love. of the aristocrats of the NorthEastern shores. Of Ivy League. Of unconcerning nostalgia. What do the pajamas people have to do with Eric Segal’s beige beach sweater, besides born out of the same time frame.

A conflict and collision of cultures and concerns. Of the two world views that could never co-exist: the ones with and the other without money. The two C’s. clashing and collaborating (Xi and Putin are meeting to find common ground soon). UK with new PM and anointed King while the US is still struggling with legitimizing its elected President.

Elements of chaos are always present, since the beginning of time. And the times, they are a changin… How many roads must a man, travel…a hundred miles… Lord, I am three, hundred miles, away from home. Chaos, crisis and culture collisions. Yet there still Love amidst of it. With death and money trailing right behind.

Mark Chapman. The name that forever is associated with “The Jealous guy”. Not sure the song had anything to do with his pulling the trigger to kill John Lennon. The talented and the wannabe. Stardom and starstruck.

Takes two to tango e.g. The Fan (De Niro and Wesley Snipes), Play Misty for Me (Clint Eastwood/Jessica Walter).

Not just in India or Britain, everywhere, we have two classes: the powerful and the powerless.

In taking down the former, the latter feel empowered. They stabbed our writer, maimed our journalist, shot our singer and jailed our dissidents.

Disagreement prevails, not dialogue. Nowadays, there is even a prebuttal speech, then an informal rebuttal rally in PA .

Quite a disagreement. Jealousy?

Strong enough to kill. With words first. Then incitement. Keeping the Secret Service busy, on both sides: past and present President.

How come my student debt wasn’t forgiven? (I went on and won two cars at work to pay them back. Check it out, it’s in the record).

Kids today get it easy. But then, back when I was in school, my set of worries were different: AIDS, Nuclear annihilation, and the Challenger explosion. Today, we face Artemis delay launch, Omicron variant and the resurrection of the former Soviet Union.

Inflation rise, old worker age rise and high rises taller everywhere, not just in Malaysia.

Planners who had the foresight to preserve green space, like Central Park, should be remembered forever. Greeneries remind us of nature, of long-lasting values and of that which is bigger than ourselves.

Live your life so they want to shoot, to maim, to jail and to stab you. Wish I could write that well, speak that forcefully and arouse that much passion.

In the end, we’re just nano dust. Stardust and emptiness. But for now, while still kicking, fingers running on the keyboard, let’s make them feel jealous, as much as we are “jealous guys” ourselves.

Back in the late 70s, the dust seemed to have settled at the end of the Vietnam era. We started seeing “Deer Hunter” and “Taxi Driver” (America, are you talking to me?). A period of introspection. Of collective PTSD. Rebuild Better. Then the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Give Peace a chance, like Lennon used to sing.

In death he lives on. Still a jealous guy. Still disruptive and controversial. But not just as an individual; he turned icon. So passionate and personable that a doorman can just shoot him, out of jealousy and envy. For a while, we all thought Hate ruled. That the music died. Even today, we see a stabbing of writer, of journalist, shooting of politician and jailing of dissidents. The human race still thrives, evolves and disrupts itself violently to re-bend the moral arc. Even when we all hold on to the inevitable truth, that all men/women are intrinsically worthy of living and dying in dignity. That our end should be just as glorious as our beginning, when we were showered with enough love for the road.

The inherent right to live and live fully. Mark Chapman should have cheered for J Lennon. Instead, he hummed the song and acted out his illusion of grandeur, as if killing could snuff out and silence the music. About time we click on Youtube and search for Jealous Guy. It will bring you right back to the time I was referring to above. AIDS, nuclear annihilation and the Challenger explosion. Are you talking to me? I am the only one here.

It depends. You can always make a U turn. As in “Boulevard” the movie starred aptly by Robin Williams (coming out). Or learning a foreign language upon retirement? A bit late (for full fluency). One sure thing: it’s never too late to start a healthier diet

https://time.com/6209652/how-to-lower-your-cholesterol-naturally/

We operate on different clocks: internal and external.

Biologically vs socially, the two clocking speeds are at odds with each other.

Time is of the essence. Do it. Fast lane fast foods.

I once experienced a painful night. So far, my longest one yet.

All because I was hesitant (Look before you leap vs, he who hesitates is lost). My values and internal speed are different than that of other people. Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity , the 60’s Sexual Revolution (God is dead) , the 70’s Me generation, the 80’s “Greed is Good” joint forces to produce a synthetic and syncretistic me. If I were to live in VN, perhaps Cao Dai-ism would suit me best.

I have a hard time knowing what switch to turn on given a new stimulus. Perhaps anticipation trumps satisfaction? Aren’t we all! At least, we can agree on a set of core values: protecting our young, respecting our elders, and not consuming more than we need etc.

Yet with social media and its speed and scope, we feel our (inner) selves chipped away one post at a time, like an invisible Michael Angelo hand on the marble, to reveal our hidden selves (meanwhile, our outer layer looks better- due to global supply chain that brings about materialistic abundance).

Voila. Two facedness (not online/offline persona). But within ourselves. Wanting to do good. Yet feeling so isolated. Slated to be a sucker? After all, the Me generation urges us to be free, to go out and get some, to become what we are meant to be. Never too late (to join the Army – to be all you can be?). Only when she’s already been taken (in my case, taken away in a taxi while drunk – date snatching) that it’s too late.

“Come back to me and we will be happy forever” (Boulevard, the song).

I often wonder how many lifetimes needed for suffering and joy be evened out.

Or, if this life was it, with no rehearsal, then it’s never ever too late.

Yet, in mandarin tradition I was taught: respectful always. Unless and until. By forced circumstances. Out of self-defense and preservation.

In freedom, there is free fall. It is fearful indeed. To live one’s life as meant to be is dreadful. No wonder we never stop searching out there for that heart of gold and we’re getting old (per Neil Young). Or “Be the change you’d like to see” per Obama’s campaign. Meanwhile, from Redwood to Hollywood, filmmakers will be glad to drum up more story lines for us to dream on. Of what might have, could have, should have been. All the while change should have occurred within.

Baby now, it’s too late (Carole King). How many lifetimes is enough? One. Provided we accept that which we cannot change. A lot of it we can’t. But once we are wise-up, we change course and act swiftly. Before it’s too late to make that U turn. One retired doctor went back to be a life-guard. Others collect Cuban-cruising cars. All the powers to you’ll. Our protagonist made an U-turn (in Boulevard) to re-claim an alternate life-style he had always meant to be. All the powers and happiness to him as well.

Boulevard.

The majority of South Vietnam intellectuals and elites have passed. Been 47 years. If survived at all, their memoirs would be full of selective and misplaced details. Sold at an ethnic bookstore near you e.g. Bolsa or Bellaire (CA or TX).

Few, but not many, books were meticulously referenced with footnotes, endnotes etc… I either did not want to open them, nor did I want to finish them. I fear the ending. I fear having to experience loss over and over again. The moments.

More immediately, I have just finished Alan Phan’s 42 years of Doing Business In US & China.

My fellow Penn Stater, albeit his accomplishments were way up there: already taught at an University in Saigon while I was still in High School. Nonetheless, the kinship is there. I could relate to his struggles (inked a NJ battery factory deal just to get an EPA multi-million-dollars clean up fine), his dare-Devilishness (taking a Black date to Bel Air Golf Club) and his aching nostalgia (commuting every weekend from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh City).

He had a blog while still alive, and even linkedin w/ me given we’re both from PSU.

What do I do with social media connections who are deceased? Send a message saying R.I.P.? (and drop dead if getting a response).

Back to leaving Saigon, leaving Kabul, leaving Kiev. Somehow, America takes in and takes on a sponsorship role for the huddle mass.

Penniless (or “white-handed” as my brother-in-law used to say, instead of empty-handed).

Given time, we all become “American”, and America’s problems = our problems. No one can tell exactly when that occurs. The only test was when we read about America is in a decline (the ground starts shifting underneath us…look around for a next oasis?).

Like Ruth, the Moabite, “your people, my people”.

By the river of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept. Dried or flowing river.

As long as there is still water. There is hope and link. Global. Our common home. It’s just a plane hop away. Like Alan’s weekend commute. Like a trip to Little Saigon, with plenty a taste of Pho.

I did not want to touch those books. For fear of their ending. For fear of re-living the end of a sad chapter. Our younger generation even sings about it in Vietnam “un film de Coppola”, in French. We’re a diaspora, just like the Jews and Chinese before us. Or the Afghan and the Ukrainian today. Soon, they’ll find themselves with time to look back (history vs news), in context and with perspective. Haunting, introspective and melancholic as it is, their stories will be told again and again via different media and in different times.

Then America gets new blood, rejuvenated and revitalized. In decline? Hope not. Not yet. With complacency and slow-burn, maybe. New horizon, new problem – compounding. Just as soon as I turned away from the above ferry view, I have faced new challenges till today. Non-stop.

Depends on which search results, one may find between 660,000 to 1 million IDP’s emigrated from North to South VN per 1954 Geneva accords’ Operation Passage to Freedom, which allowed for a 300-days grace period. IDP’s could resettle in the region of their own choosing ( stoke by rumors about a certain slaughtering of Northern Catholics under Communism once the dust were settled).

It did not stop there. The mass migration was further exploited: grift and cronyism under the banner of Heaven. By the time my parents picked up their lives and moved South, Madame Nhu was taking French lessons from her soon-to-be wedded tutor. Once married into power, she was so emboldened to the point of tossing soup in the face of her brother-in-law – President Diem. South VN first President had been confirmed via a referendum around the agreed-upon but ignored general election.

He once stood up to Ho Chi Minh after serving a time in a Chinese prison. A stern and stubborn mandarin, he remained single and devoted to the affairs of God and men (even washing dishes in a New Jersey seminary – a strikingly similar tale to Ho Chi Minh’s European sea drift). During his stay in the US, he garnished and gained the support of US Catholics among whom Senator Kennedy (himself got booed by America’s entrenched WAPS).

Mr. Diem and his brothers (Nhu – second in command) on the one side, Mr. Kennedy and his brothers on the other. Madame Nhu on this side, Jackie on the other side. Visual symmetry. LIFE magazine loved it. Something to grace its cover. Headline-worthy, not unlike Mr. Johnson’s line “I’d rather not send our young three thousand miles away to fight a war that Asian boys ought to do it for themselves” when he was “torn between two lovers” (The Great Society and the war abroad). Civil rights and human rights. At home in Kent State or abroad in Khe Sanh.

Hell No We won’t go.

Meanwhile, Madame Nhu filled in the power gap upstairs to the Presidential Palace, where her husband was busy with sanction to root out opposition (which later backfired). Her ascent was swift: from a private student to President’s sis-in-law to self-proclaimed “First Lady”. She had her hands in all the pots: commanded an all-female cadre and shaped legislature reform.

What can go wrong, when your husband handled the security forces!

Well, as Karma had its way, she was sent on a speaking tour abroad and away from the blood shed at home, God-Father’s style (the signal was two fingers, not three, for the Diem brothers. Later that April, a third was tried and executed, leaving the Vatican-endorsed brother/priest a sole survivor in exile).

War was ugly. Just like the World Wars that had preceded it. Or today’s Ukrainian war six-months in.

People grabbed what they could: possession or power (later, President Thieu’s wife boarded a plane to Taiwan filled with furniture and whatever else). Northern IDP’s meanwhile we’re discriminated against, except for the votes on the President referendum. Democracy, in its infancy, had a lot of bugs and baggage. Evidence? His state-level entourage were often seen in all-white suits, IBM-like clones, with sound bytes – today’s Tweet – “if they wanted to ‘barbecue’ themselves, I will be glad to provide plenty matchsticks” – Madame Nhu’s infamous quote. UPI, AP and AFP ate it up. After all, tabloid sells. Just like pictures of a burning monk, so iconic and emblematic of the times.

So our Dragon Lady lived on in France, lots of baguette and no barbecue- nor boat ride. Jackie Onassis she was not. And her Queendom ceased to exist in early 1975. Her legacy: No divorce and No dancing (to prevent G.I’s “dirty-dancing”). Footnotes: In 1982, Amerasian immigration law allowed 23000 to come to America. It is to show, one way or another, hormone always finds its way, especially in war, when soldiers had frequent brushes with death.

Meanwhile, IDP’s kids – myself included – found ourselves with shade-closed “family ballroom dance” (sneaking – just like drinking in the times of Prohibition). One afternoon, I even saw the burning of that monk whose strong smell of lit- kerosene on human flesh I would never forget.

Female or male, power grab is innate and absolute. Both genders are equally motivated when it comes to ill-gotten gain e.g. Tammy Baker and Imelda Marcos. Yet, officially speaking, the Ministry of Information’s spins are of the opposite: God-anointed leader? Even with help from those hundreds of thousands IDP’s votes, the regime was just as ill-fated as the region it was propped up to rule.