The Foreign Service Journal, April 2015

44 APRIL 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL the USAID compound on the northern edge of Saigon. This would not be the first time my parents had abandoned the life they knew. In 1954, when the country was partitioned, leaving the North under communist authoritarian rule and the South under a nascent democratic government, many Catholics, includ- ing my parents, fearing religious persecution, fled south. Twenty-five years later, my parents again frantically packed up clothes, family photos andmusic tapes to help us remember our cultural identity. Sadly, we had to leave our two dogs behind. The original evacuation plan for Americans and those South Vietnamese thought to be at risk depended on the assumption that it would be possible to continue flights from the Tan Son Nhut Air- port near Saigon andmake use of a limited number of helicopter airlifts from the embassy compound. The North Vietnamese rocket fire on the airport, which left the runways inoperable, created a dire situation. It was at this point that brave individuals like USAID officers Joseph Gettier andMel Chatman sought alternative, last-ditch means to rescue people. They commandeeredmilitary trans- port barges that had been used to carry supplies during the war. The two young Americans, both fluent Vietnamese-speakers, instructed the evacuees to board those vessels in the port. That was howmy parents left their homeland with their six young children. Our escape down the Saigon River, with darkness setting in, was a dangerous one. Near Vung Tau Harbor, where the river opens to the Pacific Ocean, we came under rocket fire. Thank- fully, as I was only 3 years old, I have only faint memories of the journey. As the barge drifted out to sea, crammed with refugees, my father heldme close and solemnly said tomy eldest brother: “Take a good look at your country. It will be the last time you see it.” The next day, we were plucked out of the ocean fromour barge and boarded the U.S.S. Sgt. AndrewMiller . On the evening of May 2, 1975, the flotilla was directed to the U.S. naval base at Subic Bay, in the Philippines. We were then transferred to Guam, and onward to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, one of several refugee camps that had been set up to process the influx of refugees fromVietnam and its war-torn Indochinese neighbors. Our helpers at this stage included Richard Armitage, then a young naval officer who would eventually become Deputy Secretary of State. There were many volunteers who helped us learn English and skills for resettlement and assimilation into American life. Among themwas Phyllis Oakley, with whom I later worked when she was a press officer in the State Department’s public affairs office. Another FSO, Theresa Tull, who would later become the first female U.S. ambassador to Brunei, cared for many children, including person- ally caring for the young children of General Ngo Quang Truong, who stayed behind because he did not want to abandon his troops. Others, like Frank Miller, flew in fromneighboring countries as early as March to secretly rescue people. Resettlement and the Gift of Hope Growing up in the small New England town of Amherst, Mas- sachusetts, was a stark contrast to living in the tropical heat of Saigon, where I was born. The local people and church in Amherst were welcoming and embracing, giving us clothes and other items tomake us feel at home. Seeing snowfall for the first time was exciting! But in a sad reminder of the life we had left behind, I kept asking my father to take me to see the “big turtles.” Still a young child, I could not grasp that they were in Saigon, at the zoo we had often visited before our departure. My father had to tell me that they were now a beautiful memory to cherish, for we had lost our country. I remember my father recounting, in vivid detail, the story of howwe left Vietnam, saying that he wondered who the young Americans were who had helped to save our family and somany others. He wanted to find them and say thanks—for the freedom we have and for the fact that we are alive. Yet while my parents were, understandably, stuck in the past, America was putting the VietnamWar behind it. Indeed, that process likely began years earlier, with the withdrawal of all U.S. troops in 1973 following the Paris Peace Accords. As a student from a bicultural background in a small col- lege town, I felt this tension between the past and the present throughout elementary and high school. When the topic of the war or “Vietnam” came up, there seemed to be a negative con- notation, a sense of shame and a lack of desire for discussion. It seemed that many wanted to forget the war and the graphic television footage of death and destruction that had been its hallmark. At home, my father continued to recount stories as we ate my mom’s homemade pho soup while prewar romantic love songs played in the background. It was at this point that brave individuals like USAID officers Joseph Gettier andMel Chatman sought alternative, last-ditchmeans to rescue people.