Rush from War: Vietnam Revisited: Based on the True Story of One Vietnamese Family’S Escapes During the 1980’S, and of One American Couple’S Saving Grace

By Patricia Carew

If the Vietnamese refugee left Vietnam under the shadow of history, he alsoin the blink of an eyebecame the first global villager by default. The trauma of his leaving, the effort of his remake, and his ability to marry two or three different spheres in an age of open systems make him a modern-day Odysseus, the primary character in the contemporary global novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543415155

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Copyright © 2017 by Patricia Carew.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017905698

ISBN:      Hardcover         978-1-5434-1517-9

                Softcover          978-1-5434-1516-2

                eBook               978-1-5434-1515-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/10/2017

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: Mother And Child

Chapter 2: Two Countries 1976

Chapter 3: The Trial Escape

Chapter 4: Decision Again

Chapter 5: The First Escape 1983

Chapter 6: Arrival

Chapter 7: Sheer Survival

Chapter 8: Sheer Survival (Vietnamese Language)

Chapter 9: Family Saga

Chapter 10: The Greatest Escape

Chapter 11: Reunion

Chapter 12: The Third Escape

Chapter 13: The Fourth Escape

Chapter 14: The Final Leaving

Endnotes Rush From War

A Brief History Of Vietnam

Endnotes To : A Brief History Of Vietnam

Prologue

Acknowledgements

The actual heroes of this book are the Vietnamese boat people in the two families I write about. To help tell their stories I enlisted good friends whose critiques have supported me invaluably. My gratitude to:

Suzanne Wirtz, scholar of the Classics; Barbara Rainess, publisher at Pedernales Press and wise woman; Irene Ross, teacher and writer; Phyllis Maier, teacher and editor; Amy Schwartz, child writer.

A special thanks to the knowledgeable and passionate writings of Nick Turse, historian, journalist, and managing editor of TomDispatch and a fellow at the Nation Institute.

Introduction

"If the Vietnamese refugee left Vietnam under the shadow of history, he also, in the blink of an eye, became the first global villager by default. The trauma of his leaving, the effort of his remake, his ability to marry two or three different spheres in an age of open systems make him a modern-day Odysseus, the primary character in the contemporary global novel. (Andrew Lam. Re-imagining the Self, Re-imagining America. 2009. http://www.pbs.org/weta/myjourneyhome/andrew/andrew_intro_4.html

Neither Odysseus of old nor the heroes in this book could see into the future when thousands of journeys like theirs, across long and rugged land and water terrains, would result in displaced persons camps more numerous and inhuman than they could have imagined.

Vietnamese boat people left their country in the very long shadow of the most violent war in modern history, legacy of the twentieth century. Unlike ‘economic migrants,’ they abandoned their place of birth not for lack of food or jobs, but for lack of political and religious freedom. Most of all, their lives were rendered intolerable by efforts of occupiers—even their own Vietnamese communists—to eradicate traditional expressions of their culture and their love of land. (The Atlantic. February 1984. Page 253)

The ones among them who reached safe shores are now watching in amazement as millions of refugees, mostly from dysfunctional countries in the Middle East, trudge from chaos into barely open systems of the first world. Considered invaders by many, they stream in, seeking safety, water, food, and a future for their children. Dishonest leaders, terrorism, and climate change spawn the migrant tides, flowing primarily into the continent of Europe. Like the Vietnamese refugees I write about, today’s migrants would rather die quickly in unknown territories than die slowly back home.

In 2014, there were 19.5 million refugees around the world and an estimated 38 million people displaced internally by conflict.

In June 2016, an estimated 65 million* – have been displaced worldwide (main countries of turmoil being Somalia, Turkey, Jordan, Ukraine, Myanmar, Mexico, Nigeria, South Sudan, Burundi). www.refugeesinternational.org

*includes 21 million refugees, the majority from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia

www.unhcr.org

Most chapters in the contemporary global novel correspond to those in the military history of the United States: grandiose warfare against indigenous people; David and Goliath struggles to prop up dysfunctional regimes in faraway places; misreading of the motivations of enemies and under-estimation of their intelligence.

Partly motivated by a need to ‘save’ little Vietnam, the United States invaded and attacked the country, making a shooting gallery of it. Vietnam was a perfect laboratory where a bully could test out thousands of new instruments of destruction. One could argue that America’s fear of communism during the post-World War II decades is the force that drove this vast country whose alabaster cities gleam (America the Beautiful anthem) to make war on that small land in southeast Asia that, for centuries, kept building its resistance bases…ceaselessly for the people’s cause. ("Tiếng Gọi Công Dân"-Call to the Citizens (national anthem of the Republic of Vietnam).

Chapter 1

Mother and Child

1890 Nghe An, Central Vietnam

Resting from her long hours in the muddy rice fields, the indefatigable mother gathered her babies close to her. Their bellies were full and their laughter filled the hot evening air. The boards on the front porch radiated warmth from the long day’s baking in the sun, though enough evening shadows chilled the air.

This was Hoàng Thi Loan’s favorite time of day. There was the oldest who seemed to grow taller every time she blinked, and the middle child with his ready grin. These two knew by heart the lullabies she sang to them, and sank deep into her long cotton dress stained with the field work of the day, to listen. Loan inhaled deeply the scent of her children’s hair. She began to sing softly, her words carrying on the very still air of dusk.

Her chubby, round-cheeked second son, Nguyễn Sinh Cung, smelled as fresh as the morning grass she would tread across at dawn to begin the farm chores; this child preferred the cadenced sounds of poet Nguyễn Du’s narrative verses in The Tale of Kieu. Endnote ¹#¹ He would babble along with her voice.

Trăm năm trong cõi người ta, (Within the span of hundred years of human existence)

Chữ tài chữ mệnh khéo là ghét nhau. (what a bitter struggle is waged between genius and destiny!)

Trải qua một cuộc bể dâu, (How many harrowing events have occurred while mulberries cover the conquered sea!)

Những điều trông thấy mà đau đớn lòng. (rich in beauty, unlucky in life!)

Lạ gì bỉ sắc tư phong, (Strange indeed, but little wonder,)

Trời xanh quen thói má hồng đánh ghen. (since casting hatred upon rosy cheeks is a habit of the Blue Sky.)

illustration%201.jpg

A Sketch by Lauren Lacar

Loan hoped the child would someday appreciate the metaphors in this national epic, and feel its angst. She prayed that her and her spouse’s love for the lilting rhymes of the poem would re-charge his flagging heart years from now. Nguyen Sinh Cung was his milk-name, given at birth. In the future he would carry 11 other names, the final one being Hồ Chí Minh. As surely as his beloved mother Loan treasured this epic allegory of her country with its constant changes of allegiance, her son too would come to appreciate the ‘woe’ written there: a beautiful woman who sacrificed her romantic love—her birthright—to save her family members.

Chapter 2

Two Countries 1976

It was 1976. The United States of America was celebrating its bicentennial—its 200th year of separation from British rule. The young country pulled out all the stops as red, white and blue draped the land from coast to coast. Operation Sail sent 200 tall ships up the Hudson River in a one-week voyage from New York Harbor to the Boston waterfront, allowing visitors to come aboard. Philadelphia, the cradle of the nation, held major league sporting events to please fans. Viking I spacecraft landed on Mars; An American Freedom Train travelled 25,000 raucous miles through all forty-eight-mainland states, leaving from Delaware in April and arriving in Florida in December. Picnics, parades, fireworks delighted patriots everywhere!

After all, this country had done its best to fight enemies very far away, hadn’t it? The men and women who did come home from Vietnam—whole or maimed— would slink back into their loved ones’ arms, into their family routines—but often without a sense of pride. They fervently wanted to talk and scream and read and write about their searing experiences there. Their countrymen and countrywomen loved them for their patriotism, but wanted to forget the actions they saw their own sons doing and suffering in that distant land. Newspapers and TV slowly dunned the consciences of jaded Americans; it took fifteen years for most of them to admit disgrace and disgust with their political leaders. The John Wayne heroes cavorting in Washington D.C. fell from their podiums. Most Americans did not know or care about the alleged anti-heroes writhing in Hanoi and Saigon. The larger country stood unscathed, while the tiny Asian one lay crumbling in bloody ruins.

In this large country, 200 years of constitutional democracy were something to revel in! Inflation stood at a low 5.75%; an average home cost $43,500, while average yearly income was $16,000. A gallon of gas cost 59 cents. Apple Computer Company was born. Younger Americans listened to ABBA, Queen, Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, The Doors, Elton John and Paul Simon. Music—especially rock and roll— consoled and inspired to bravery the U.S. soldiers who had sought meaning for their lives in Vietnam. Sounds were as precious as water. Michael Herr. Dispatches. First Vintage International 1991. Copyright 1977. Knopf.

In this star-spangled country there was as much to fear as to celebrate. Yet in 1976 the general mood of the country was celebratory.

Unlike the USA, Vietnam had not a celebratory event anywhere, anytime in 1976. The civil war that had decimated both North and South of the country had left hardly a family intact nor a village standing whole, nor a city without chaos—anywhere.

illustration%202.jpgVietnamMap1952.jpg

Luckily, and not without wits and will, the immediate family of Ma Văn Khánh—nine members so far and three yet to be born—was mostly intact in the town of Sa Dec, near Saigon. So far, four Mas (on father’s side of family) and seven Nguyễns (on mother Nguyễn Thị Thật’s side) had perished in the war or were maimed. The living remained chained to their memories and to their sufferings, whether in Vietnam or elsewhere.

Khánh and Thật—the Ma parents— had to move around strategically to avoid detection and the capture of Khánh, a wartime captain in the South Vietnam/American army. By 1976, the handwriting was on the wall, the message writ clear by the Communists victors: Your children are ours to control, their futures no longer yours to plan. You will not be able to feed them unless you serve your country as we say. Young men expected to be drafted any day, to defend Vietnam from the crazed and cruel Pol Pot of Cambodia. Endnote ²: Cambodia

Oldest son Thành remembered 1976 in his country because that was the year he announced to his parents that he had to leave them. Even at the age of 13, he knew he could be drafted. ‘I’ve gotta go. They agree with me, deep down, I know. Can’t be afraid.’

The communist takeover of the country in 1975 had disrupted a decade of family patterns, both painful and productive—but all informed by the terrible realities of national strife. Hunger, dying, displacement, mistrust. As early as age seven, Thành noticed long lines of people at banks trying to exchange money so they could quietly leave the country. And it scared and angered him when classmates whispered to their teachers unpatriotic things about their own parents’ doings.

Last night my mom told her sister about the mayor’s loud party on the weekend. D’ya think the guy deserves a guilt trip about a few beers?

"Nah. Sometimes we just gotta live with these Communists if we want jobs later…

Thành had a short fuse about family bonds.

Since his dad had to be away from home so much, in the service of the army, Thành valued every moment that he and his mom were together with their loving family. When his peers at school, for whatever motives, disrespected their parents, something snapped in his brain, like a dry branch severing itself from its roots to crash down on all below it. In his sixth year at school he overheard a common taunt in the schoolyard:

Your dad didn’t look too happy last night when the police broke in and pulled him away by the underwear!

The response was even sadder:

Yeah, but my mom said he could’ve gone without whimpering—she’s on the cops’ side. Says this whole town’s going down because the men won’t defy the VC—they’re everywhere!

Thành often wept at the damage done by that ever-drier branch.

Finally, though hardly in triumph or joy (the South lost to the North) Father Khánh returned home from his army career, this time to stay. Thành was thrilled to have him around full time, but sensed a man overwhelmed by events outside of his control. One evening a few months after the takeover by the Communists, father and son engaged in long, long conversations about their lives.

I remember your birth, son. We were ecstatic. Then came your brother Quang—good years all. You kids played so freely, and mom and I had time to take you to the beach and all the parks. I remember us jumping the waves, you and I. You learned to swim so fast.

Ba, you made me learn! But I wasn’t scared—I was never scared around you. His pleased voice almost broke with pride.

Ba wept as he recounted his years serving the Vietnamese and American militaries.

"I felt so sure we were all doing the right thing—resisting Communism, preparing for our children’s future, defending our whole country from outside influence. The Chinese, the French, the Japanese, the Americans! Why does it never end, son?

Thành offered a swift repost:

Because our land and people are so rich! We can feed ourselves, we have fantastic waterways. We value education. We’re healthy and smart enough to have kept the Chinese off our backs for centuries. Our history is….

The father interrupted heatedly:

Are you sure, son? We’re hungry most of the time. You kids can’t go to school and learn what you should. Your mom is not well. And our soil—will it ever produce again? And as for the Chinese, they’ll never stop trying…Have I wasted my life believing that finally the Americans would save us from our cowardly leaders? (His voice broke…)

I saw it coming—the American equipment, the American style of dress, all their impressive weapons (it was my job to catalogue them and train our men to use them)—it wasn’t US, son, it was THEM. Our own soldiers were more dangerous to one another than we all were to the so-called enemy!"

The son reminded him:

But, Ba, you got a lot of raises, didn’t you? I remember that lots of times you came home and told us how much more money you were making than the year before. They gave you medals for…

Khánh cut in:

I’m so ashamed now, son. The well-off guys in Saigon happened to like me, so they followed my suggestions without question. Sometimes, I knew deep down that the Thiệu and Kỳ cliques ((General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, chief of state, and Air Marshall Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, prime minister) were in-fighting and taking all kinds of bribes from some moguls in the capital, and even from some Americans. Everything moved because of loyalty, or family connections…Sure I benefitted—they had me under their wing.

He seemed unable to stop talking…

One time the Buddhists tried to demand an end to military government and the return of civilian rule. The final straw for the monks was the actual fighting on the streets in Huế and Danang between rebel and loyal government troops. It was the spring of 1966. The Americans got into the fracas, didn’t understand it, saw it as a Communist plot. My side finally prevailed, but I knew the Buddhists had it right. I fed you kids better, but my soul was hurting.

(Jeffrey Clarke. Civilian-military Relations in South Vietnam and the American Advisory Effort. The Vietnam War: Vietnamese and American Perspectives. Edited by Jayne S. Werner and Luu Doan Huynh. Chapter 11. M.E. Sharpe. 1993)

Just then Mother Thật entered the kitchen carrying young Huy. Khánh suddenly broke into uncontrollable sobbing. The baby caught the feeling and wailed loudly, which caused Thành and his mom to laugh uncontrollably! In a moment all four lurched into a wet group hug, where tears trumped mirth. Khánh led the next exchange:

Look at your mother, son. Worn-out with work and still keeping her humor. My wife, how do you do it? You are lovelier than ever, our children burst with energy, your vegetables grow; you sell our fish…

Thành spoke:

I love you so much, Mom. (His voice breaks…) And I know you understand my heart even when I lose my temper minding the kids.

Son, without you, our family could not have made it through these ugly times. You are a loyal son. I was never quite sure I could feed all of you. Somehow I did. And at night I am so tired it’s a wonder I even hear the baby when he calls, sighed Thật.

More family voices and footsteps barged into their midst, so that laughter again rang out in the evening air. Sleep was sounder than ever.

Now that his beloved Ba (father) was back to care for the family, Thành felt he could pursue his mission to escape and prepare the way to a better life to all of them. All odds seemed against him, but not going forth loomed largest in his gallery of fears.

Deep into many dark nights he listened to the defeated tones of his father and friends recounting their doomed expectations of better lives.

I didn’t see it coming…Saigon seemed so prosperous…great food on the streets. I never had such a big salary for such little work! Gave my wife amazing jewelry. Don’t know or care much what she was doing while I was away from home. Those ‘Pukin Pigeons (U.S. air force bombing squads) drank a lot of our beer!" bragged Vann, himself quite portly.

Truyen, an older but healthier-looking neighbor, complained:

I helped get rid of the French in ’54, and thought we had it made! Elections in ’56, the better half of my family returning from the North. Did we ever have a chance once that bastard Diệm made us all vote for him!

Ok, I’m a blind man now, whispered Vo Van Kiet, but it would have been worth both my eyes if my sons could get a decent education. One of them used to play the viola like an angel. His brother smashed it against the wall—they don’t even like each other anymore.

Dr. Huỳnh Văn Huy, Thành’s science professor, murmured:

You’re worried about your sons being enemies…my brother signed up with the Việt Cộng two days after I did—signed with the Americans! Thank God we never had to look each other in the eye and fire.

My land’s all burnt up with napalm. I’ll never forget the day they dropped it. The village kids ran away screaming like raving washerwomen. One of them has no skin on his back, takes medicines every hour.

This last utterance spewed from a respected judge of the province, Hoàng Đức Sơn.

Running From Napalm

napalm-12.jpg

That night Thành could take no more. Ba, excuse me—and gentlemen too. He exited, gagged and retched as quietly as he could, holding back sobs of sadness. He questioned himself:

Wow. First time I’ve been with my dad’s friends. They are so broken and frightened. Will that happen to me in a few years? What am I thinking of? Ba had a good job. He’s much stronger than I am, and he’s a bit broken too.

Just a few weeks before his planned departure Thành heard his parents’ raised voices quarrelling in the kitchen. His dad’s was louder:

How can you be sure your brother Nguyễn Kham will even show up?

He’ll be here before dawn. Why doubt him? He’s never broken a promise to me yet. Thật’s shoulders tensed, belying her calm reply.

Khánh rubbed the scar on his left arm, which seemed to chafe under stress. He knew his wife was very close with her brother, but he had to ask:

Yes, but who will work to feed his kids if he goes with our son?

My sisters and I will share our rice, and my garden is good this year. Don’t be such a worry-wart!

This outburst was accompanied by a purposeful loud banging of pots. Thành smiled to himself. Well, guess Mom won that argument. He was sure that Uncle Kham’s family would be well cared for in their father’s absence.

Thành hated that his parents were fighting over him. Bad enough that he dropped out of school to do this thing—now he was causing trouble in his own home! Only his next two siblings in age—brothers Quang and Ánh—saw the thrill in his pipedream. All the others either cried about it or mocked him for his arrogance.

A few nights before he set out on his own, the three were hanging out in their yard, Thành taking a rare smoke. Rarely was there time for such leisure.

Are you really going to meet Uncle Kham? marveled Quang.

But he has bad kidneys. Our cousins say he has to pee about every hour! Ánh chimed in like his usual funny self.

Thành’s response was quick, but kind:

If you worked on that Trail day and night for five years, your kidneys wouldn’t be strong either! Besides, you guys sweat the wrong stuff. Uncle’s smart and a good swimmer. And he studied astronomy in high school—in his day students finished their education.

"So why didn’t you, brother Thành?" challenged Quang.

You remember that I wanted to, but Dad was away in the army and Mom was always selling those vegetables. She was so tired every night. I felt guilty hitting the books, with her working so hard.

Then Quang reminded him:

Yeah. You might’ve flunked out anyway ‘cause all those government brats get the good grades—even in my class!

This was not the brothers’ first gripe session about school. To them it seemed that only the children of the new ruling politicians—all Communists—received decent grades. Often the Ma boys whined to their parents that they wanted to drop out. Quang especially, gifted in music, usually got in big trouble for holding guitar jam sessions with his friends after school—these were frivolous and detrimental to revolutionary fervor. Teenagers’ music irritated the town authorities, who patrolled the schoolyards and alleys from four P.M. to dusk. Yes, cops were given jobs to rein in juvenile troublemakers.

Thành resumed the bittersweet dialogue between himself and his brothers. He sensed his chance to tease his beloved #2 sibling:

Well, if you and your friends hadn’t kept strumming those songs by the Beatles, nobody would’ve confiscated your guitars! Can’t believe those cops had nothing better to do!

Ánh added:

"You know you annoy them, man. Their own kids keep busy memorizing Confucius Says and are miserable. Sure they get the 9’s and 10’s on the report cards, but school doesn’t let out till 8 P.M. for them! We’re lucky, going to private school." Quang agreed, laughed and picked up his phantom guitar to croon…

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain

Don’t carry the world upon your shoulder

For well you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool

By making his world a little colder

Willing to risk a colder world, the three Vietnamese Beatles joined their raucous voices in the Na na na, na na, na na na na refrain, over and over into the night.

It was long before the communist takeover of their country in 1975 that most parents admitted to themselves that their country was doomed, at least for the lifetimes of their precious offspring. The sudden unification of Vietnam plunged them into more loss of heart’s ease Endnote #³ than ever before in their difficult lives. They began to plan, to scheme, to hide supplies, to help neighbors ready to escape, to save gold for the passages their own children would make.

Loss of Heart’s Ease

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A Family Escaping Saigon

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In that year, tiny rips in the ancient fabric of family unity showed up at village gatherings. There was no more war, but subtle quips exchanged among extended family members:

"Cousin Nhu lost his hearing on