Quest for Freedom: My Childhood Escape from Communist Vietnam

By Son (Samuel) Ngoc Nguyen and Christine Nguyen

“Your story provides insight and shows how fortitude can be much stronger than courage and proves that if you stay true to your beliefs you can overcome.
The Quest for Freedom is a powerful story of survival and triumph. Thanks for sharing it with me!
- Bryan Penn, Principal
Blessed Sacrament Catholic School

“This true story exemplifies and honors the determination Son had as both a young boy, and then as a teenager. He navigates a world no child should ever have to know. He tells his story from the perspectives that made sense to a mind that remained bright despite physical and emotional starvation growing up in Vietnam.”
- Tita Smith, psychologist

“I read quite fast but with this book I had to read every word and savor the story. It is full of life lessons many of us forget and take for granted.”
- Lina Smith, Director of Refugee Services & Immigration
Refugee & Immigrant Center Asian Association of Utah

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Aug 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483454160

Book preview

QUEST FOR

FREEDOM

My Childhood Escape from Communist Vietnam

Son (Samuel) Ngoc Nguyen

Christine Gianchetta Nguyen

Copyright © 2016 Son (Samuel) Ngoc Nguyen.

Christine Gianchetta Nguyen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5417-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-5416-0 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 07/25/2016

Contents

Introduction

1 Under the Mango Trees

2 Relocation

3 A Makeshift Village

4 Scorched Earth

5 Hiding in Saigon

6 The Dark River

7 The Open Ocean

8 Landfall

9 More Questions than Answers

10 Camp of Dreams

11 Journey of Wonder

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Dedicated to the memory of

my dad, Anh Van Nguyen,

my brothers, Tho and Phuoc,

Ralph and Beverly Gianchetta,

Joe Yurkovich

and the hundreds of thousands of refugees

who sacrifice their lives to seek freedom

replacemap.png

I knew the

Pacific Ocean could be my grave

I was afraid but trying to be brave

Knowing that on the other side of the water

Far, far away

In the foreign land, freedom would await.

- Son (Samuel) Ngoc Nguyen

Special Thanks

Thank you to:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for setting up and overseeing the refugee camps around Southeast Asia. They struggled to meet the demands of the waves of refugees fleeing Vietnam. They continue to provide help in all of the hot spots in every corner of the world and silently sacrifice without fame or reward. With unwavering commitment to world peace they have relentlessly been a voice for the voiceless.

Father Godwin (a Jesuit from Malta) who was the voice of advocacy and comfort for the unaccompanied minors at Pulau Bidong and gave us a glimpse into a humane world in the oppressing heat of that small little island.

The Malaysian government for sheltering me personally and other Vietnamese refugees after we emerged from the shadow of death, allowing us to inhale the first air of legitimate freedom.

The ship captains who, for fourteen years, rescued hundreds of boats at sea. The captains of merchant ships were inspired to disregard the policies of their countries, risking both their lives and careers to save lives. Those U.S. military ship captains would not leave boats filled with refugees to perish. The soldiers made difficult decisions to stay with refugees until permission was granted to allow them on board. They did not only uphold their vow to serve and protect the U.S. but expanded bravely above and beyond their duties. I owe a lasting debt to them and I am filled with gratitude for these silent warriors.

The United States of America for accepting me as a citizen in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Also, to the many other countries: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and countless European countries such as France, Germany, Holland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and England. They each answered President John F. Kennedy’s direction: My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. These countries shouldered the burden of the Vietnamese refugees and others in order to ease the pain of human tragedy. It was a sacrifice for each nation. They continue to do so in the face of each emerging humanitarian crisis.

So many of us escaped unharmed but not untouched. Without the generosity of others, I often wonder what our lives would have been.

Introduction

It is difficult to pinpoint how long the Vietnam War actually lasted, because it really depends on the way you define war. Broadly defined, Vietnam fought a war for many decades against Communist forces, starting in 1945 when the French beat back Communist rebels and closing in 1975 when the North Vietnamese Communist troops poured into Saigon. It was a war of at least thirty years. American troops did not become officially involved in the conflict until December, 1961; America pulled the majority of its troops out in January, 1973.

After that 1973 troop pullout, all but a few remaining American soldiers returned to the United States, while the South Vietnamese army struggled on. Some say that as few as ten U.S. soldiers remained to unofficially fight alongside and advise the South Vietnamese government until Saigon’s final fall to Communist forces in April, 1975. At that point, the last of the American soldiers returned home.

During the 1975 fall of Saigon, more than 135,000 South Vietnamese government officers and their families evacuated to the safety of the United States. High-ranking officers used this chaotic time to slip out of the country unnoticed, boarding the remaining American planes and ships. They arrived in the U.S. largely through military bases in California, Arkansas, Pennsylvania and Florida. National volunteer agencies sponsored them under emergency contract with the State Department and they resettled in communities throughout the country with friends, relatives and volunteers.

Back in Vietnam, the American pullout and the fall of Saigon resulted in an immediate and complete Communist takeover. Freedom ceased to exist. Conditions got worse throughout the late 1970s as the Communist government confiscated money and property from those with independent businesses and began punishing South Vietnamese soldiers who had fought for freedom. Countless atrocities and human rights violations occurred. Because of these injustices, close to one-and-a-half million Vietnamese people and large numbers of ethnic Chinese people fled Vietnam between 1975 and 1989.

No one knows exactly how many people risked their lives in decrepit escape boats. No complete records remain; people disappeared without warning and secrets were kept. They undertook escapes in the most desperate of circumstances. As many as one third of the boat people perished at sea. The successful ones reached refugee camps in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Singapore. Almost one million of these refugees settled abroad, including some 725,000 in the United States. I was one of them.

1

Under the Mango Trees

From the kitchen window, I see signs of spring. The snow is beginning to melt, flower tips are pushing through the thawing ground, and the birds who found their way home are chirping happily. Today, after breakfast, I plan to start a new project in the yard. I sip my coffee, thinking about where to begin.

Then it hits me. Even after more than 20 years in the United States I still cannot believe that I am standing in a kitchen full of food purchased in a supermarket. I am drinking hot coffee, which I simply poured out of the pot. I am reading the morning news from the paper dropped on my front porch. I enjoy my own safe home, a family who shares my life, and a job that keeps me busy and challenged. It is impossible for me to take for granted that I live in the United States of America, and I am an American citizen who escaped Vietnam by boat as a child. The changes in my life are astonishing. I look out the window at my young grandsons, Dominic (D.J.) and Dallas Samuel, playing on their swing set, hitting the baseball and laughing, and I think about my own childhood.

I was an eleven-year-old boy standing on the dark shore, and I could see a man on a large boat signaling to me with a flashlight. The man seemed to be indicating it was safe to row out to him. It took forever for our group to paddle through the darkness towards the small flickering light. When we arrived alongside the boat, we silently and quickly boarded. My heart was in my throat. I couldn’t swallow. The boat began to move slowly through the water but none of us let ourselves breathe or make a noise.

We were moving across the dark water in complete silence for about fifteen minutes when we heard a sudden explosion of gunfire. A person standing near me on the escape boat was hit. I think he died immediately, but everything happened so fast that I could not be sure. It was chaotic. Our boat was illuminated by the fierce glare of the gigantic lights from a patrol boat. The police boarded our boat, grabbed our captain, and began hooking up a tow line. As they towed us to shore, people were crying and shouting. I was completely paralyzed by fear and sadness. We had been captured.

This would not be the last time I would try to escape my homeland. My name is Son Ngoc Nguyen and I grew up in South Vietnam during the 1970s as thousands of us fled to refugee camps and beyond. I was born in the ancient city of Hue in the central highlands of Vietnam. My father was a soldier in the South Vietnamese Army who fought with American troops and paid for it dearly. He worked with the French during the Indochina War and later with the American soldiers as a member of the secret police force. I never knew what his work was before he was active in the army. My mother bore nine children over twenty-three years and worked in the fields.

I was born in 1970, the youngest boy in a family of four girls and five boys. My sister, Cam, is the oldest; she was married and gone before I was born. She was followed by three boys, Thach, Loc, and Tho; then came two more girls, Dao and Lan; my closest brother, Phuoc, then myself and finally, my youngest sister, Van. Cam is eighteen years older than I am and Van is five years younger.

I remember the city of Hue for its beauty and its rain. Because the city is located in the mountains along the Perfume River, the climate is different from most areas of the country. It is a little cooler in the evenings and it rains at least once each day. In a country of high temperatures and oppressive humidity, even a few degrees of cooling helps make a difference. Hue was quiet in a way that seemed to be connected to the rain. From our church gardens, I could see the entire city. It was usually misty and foggy. Looking at the view from this vantage point always made me feel heavy and lonely. Maybe I was too young to understand the romance of our city.

My childhood in Hue seems idyllic to me now, thinking back on our three-bedroom house and our yard full of mango trees. Several of the trees were tall enough for my older brothers to climb, and they did so every year at picking time. The fruit grew so big that when the mangoes dropped to the ground during the night, the crash was loud enough to wake me. We had plenty of fruit to eat and enough to share with our neighbors.

Our family was not wealthy, but we lived in a three-bedroom house inside the city with a small yard. We sat outside during the evenings on our long cement porch and reveled in the cool breeze. We were very lucky to be one of the few families who had a bathroom inside of our home. It frightened me to use it, especially during the dark nights, because I was raised on tales of ghosts and spirits in the dark.

Thach, my oldest brother, was the strength of our family, for better or worse. He was very strong-willed and opinionated. Growing up with him, I felt tense and apprehensive. When he was around, it was either his way or, quite literally, the highway. Thach was gone often attending seminary to be a Catholic priest, but when he was home, he was always in charge. We all deferred to him, including my other brothers, Tho, Loc, and Phuoc.

Phuoc was the brother closest to my age; we were only eighteen months apart. We did everything together, including starting school just after I turned four years old and he was almost six. We attended Catholic School and we were both in the same classroom. School schedules allowed students to attend in the morning half of the day, Monday through Saturday, from 8:00 a.m. to noon. It was so hot that school began as early as possible, so everyone could take an afternoon nap to escape the heat. In Hue, even with the regular rain, it was still extremely hot and often the humidity levels were stifling.

Phuoc was a quiet boy, keeping to himself as we walked the mile long route to our school together. Before our first day of school, my mother bought me and Phuoc new raincoats – it was so unusual to have something new that all I wanted to do was wear it right away. We both wished for it to rain that first week so we could wear our new coats, but it didn’t happen.

Many of my memories from this time revolved around Phuoc and me at school. We would sometimes argue all the way to school about who had to carry the book bag and where the halfway mark was that one should hand it off to the other. Neither of us could agree on the location of the halfway mark, and one day we were both being so stubborn that we left the bag in the street and walked away. I eventually turned around to go get it and take my turn. It was always easier on the days one of us carried it to school and the other carried it home. I never felt like I understood Phuoc very well, although we spent a great deal of time together at school, helping with the family farm and completing daily chores as a team.

Our route to school led us past our church, which is the largest Catholic cathedral in Vietnam. The President of South Vietnam donated funds for its initial construction. It was his gift to Hue, the city of his birth. However, at the time of his assassination in the early 1960’s, the project was not completed. His own soldiers killed both him and his brother during a coup. Then, cathedral building came to a halt when the communists took over our country. There were no funds to continue its construction, so it was still a work in progress during my childhood. We were a devout Catholic family, attending church at Phu Cam Catholic Parish every Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m.

When the construction crews were digging a portion of the cathedral foundation, they hit the water table causing a river to run through the basement. For several weeks, the adults in our neighborhood talked of nothing else. There were stairways that led to the basement that now, reportedly, led to rushing water. My brother and I wanted nothing more in the world than to touch the rushing water everyone was talking about, despite my fears of swimming and water. Phuoc and I tried on several occasions to brave the steps leading to it, but before we got close enough to touch it, we would run up the stairs, too frightened to continue in the damp darkness. Just looking at the water was enough of a daring challenge for the two of us. My mother would have punished us severely if she had known we ever attempted the dangerous descent.

Our school building was designed in a U-shape, with solid cement walls and floors and a roof of cement tiles. Each classroom had two windows that swung open with no screens or bars. I loved to jump through the windows to hop in my seat first after recess. I was careful not to get caught doing this wild thing. Surrounding the school grounds were metal bars formed into a secure fence, with two gates that opened each morning and then opened again when it was time for us to go home. In our classrooms, we sat at long tables with matching wooden benches. Five or six students sat together on each bench.

It was an all boys’ school; I do not even know where the girls studied. We had more than thirty students in our classroom varying in age from kindergarten to high school. The classroom had a chalkboard, a few long tables and chairs, and our teacher’s desk in the room. The rooms did not have decorations or maps, just the cement walls, except in the spot where the chalkboard attached to the concrete. Each student received a notebook, a pencil and a reading book at the beginning of the year.

As we arrived at school, we formed four lines to enter the building, with the quietest line allowed to enter first. Several very strict Catholic nuns ran our school. One day, as punishment for playing hacky-sack with a Christmas ornament,