My Recollections of Our Journey to The US

Hi All,

From Vui's statement below, made me think of how my Dad also pushed our family to get with the program....

"During the last days of the war, your Dad was the only civilian in our family in Saigon. My Dad and Duong Bay were career soldiers, and if it was not for the sensibility of your Dad, we probably are still in VN now. Your Dad pressured my Dad and Duong Bay to stock up supplies and prepare for the exodus. He forced my Dad to evacuate all of us away from Saigon the night of April 29th. It was that decision that led us to the small fishing boat evacuating on the last day of the war. The fishing boat took us to the last river fuel tanker that left VN. It was this little tanker that survived the seas to get us to Duong Hung's 07 Destroyer."...

From this, I also remember that on one fine sunny afternoon while we kids were playing, my Dad (Cau 5) came back from work early and told everyone that we must leave the country ASAP. He had already bought us kids each a colorful plastic water canteen, which could be worn around our necks, and provided each of us a bag of dehydrated white rice and some money so that we would have something to eat and survive if we should get separated from one another. I remember us kids putting our clothes and belongings into pillow cases getting ready for the journey... He had devised a plan for us kids to go into Saigon first with our Mom so he, Chi Thu and other older brothers can go later after they finish up other business. Saigon was to be the staging area from where we would launch our long Journey to the US. My Dad gave my Mom tons of money for the trip. We were to meet up in Saigon later as a complete family and leave the country from there with relatives. This must have been about a week or two before April 30th, not sure the time span?

I remember it was a great trip to Saigon; it was the first time ever that we had been on a real boat. We had great food to eat on this trip, but we also had some scares due to the rough ocean waves. The trip seemed to last forever due the big scare. I remember someone was making some sort of unsolicited confession while others were praying to Mother Mary. Eventually, us kids (Lan-Anh, Hao, Kiet (me), Quoc, and Da Thao) and my Mom arrived into Saigon via boat to Vung Tau, I think?



In Saigon, we stayed with Co 6 and Di Chieu (my Mom's youngest sister) and visited some other relatives from my Mom’s side like Cau 6 and Cau 4... I remember someone shaved their eyebrows playing with the men shaver. I remember Co 6 was giving us kids’ bath over at her house. I just remember that Saigon was a much busier and have so much more to do than Nha-Trang, where we came from.


Before we knew it, my Dad arrived with all the older brothers and Chi Da Thu. I remember Chi Da Thu and my Dad was telling of the horrors and the deaths that they saw on their land trip into Saigon during the height of the war. How people were getting killed on the streets and ran over by cars and trucks fleeting southward. That at one time, they had shared a ride in the back of the military truck with some soldiers. That one of the soldiers gotten shot and the blood from him was running down the groves in the truck bed as the truck was going uphill. How an M-16 rifle went off next to Chi Da Thu’s ear, nearly killing her…

From Saigon, we started to head out to the sea port.... I remember sleeping one night by the river under cover as we had fear of being discovered or killed. Then I remember taking a small wooden boat out to sea, where the views had a lot of high rocks in the sea, similar to Ha Long Bay, but I was not sure where we were at that time. Some one with clearer memory can fill us all in on our journey... This would be nice to get our complete story of our Journey to America from different perspectives and views. I think it is a unique lifetime opportunity and could be appreciated for generations to come. It was all made possible because of this “Grand Plan” that my Dad put together for all of us.

Pictures below reveal my Dad's legacy in this world if anything...







Perhaps, if we can get enough information from everyone's view, we might have enough materials to publish a book of our long Journey.... Ok, maybe not an actual paperback novel, but maybe an electronics PDF document instead ;-)

-- Kiet