I was still in the Army as Saigon fell. We were sitting on our duffle bags in Ft. Bragg waiting for orders that never came.
The lady that cuts my hair was one of the 'Boat People,' left Viet Nam when she was 14 and still cringes at memories of what she calls the "bad times."
I have tried to get some Vietnamese refugees to write stories of their escapes, what Viet Nam was like after the fall of Saigon, and relate them to today.
I guess the memories are too painful for them, but theirs is a story that needs told and told now!
About 10 years ago or so, I worked with 2 sisters and a brother who were Vietnam refugees. One night, during a break at work, the eldest sister related some hair-raising stories to me.
The children were able to get out of the country but not the parents. They were transported and somehow ended up in the Netherlands, sleeping in a field. They had no money, did not know what to do. I don't recall how they made it finally to America, but they did.
They lived together here in SoCal, and everyone worked at least 2 jobs, maybe 3 in some cases. They were saving for the day they could bring their mother to visit. Travel was still very restricted at that time. They did not want to go back. She did not want to live here.
I see you're from Washington too. The gal (Kim) that cuts my hair on the Eastside is also a refugee from Vietnam. I would like to assume it is the same person, but sad to say I'm sure there are countless people with similar stories. I relate her story whenever some liberal bemoans how "Iraq is just a wortheless war like Vietnam".
After the North took over her Dad was taken down to the police station for questioning. Five years later they were told he was alive and at a re-education camp. The following year they were able to make visits when they could afford it. I think it was nine years total that he spent at the camp.
She remembers getting one small scoop of rice a day. Her older brothers got more because they had to work. Her baby sister died from starvation. She and her mom would spend the days begging.
And the same will happen in Iraq I fear. The hatred of Bush is obvious and similar in scope and style to the hate of Nixon. The Watergate style investigations have begun as I said they would (although obviously more scattered and hoping that SOMETHING will stick at some point or other).
The funding battles for the war are beginning. And just like Vietnam, we will have them on the road to recovery and strength (South Vietnam had some good victories as I recall AFTER we had left), and then we will yank the rug out from underneath them.
The only trouble is, it won't be boat people coming to our shores to work hard at being productive citizens, it will be terrorists working hard to destroy us.
I worked with a lady who was also a Vietnamese refugee. Her story was similar to the one in the movie, with her mother and siblings leaving, but the father, who had been an ARVN officer, staying in a reeducation camp. At the same time, about 2003, I also met another refugee of about the same age, he works as a civilian employee of the USAF. I was never so ashamed in my life as when he asked me if I had been in the war, since I'm the right age to have done so, but I was in AFROTC, getting commissioned in '73, by which time the only US fores left in country were advisors, embassy guards and such as that. It was also about a year after the S. Vietnamese, with help from US Airpower and some Marine units, stopped, but did not fully repulse the North's first attempt at a full scale combined arms invasion, which lead to the "Christmas Bombings" which allowed us get the POWs back and have "Peace with Honor". (A peace which left communist regular forces inside South Vietnam.
Well there was no such honor, unless one considers abandoning those you have pledged to protect, "cutting and Running", and not even continuing to support them with fuel, arms and most importantly ammunition.
But I guess we are about to get some more of that sort of honor, when we abandon all the "purple finger" people.
My husband was in Okinawa at the time. Saigon fell so fast that they couldn’t get there in time. He was an air traffic controller and was to help evacuate.