A Childhood in War: Life Before and After the Fall of Saigon
Profilers: James Kuo, Yanni Liu, Max Matthes, Gan Tran, Matthew Villena
Introduction
Interviewer: Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself, where you grew up, and what your childhood was like?
I was born and grew up in Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam since 1963. I’m the youngest child in the family of eight brothers and sisters, one one sister and seven brothers. Because my father is in the army, the ARVN, he’s an officer. So family just moved around everywhere in the country wherever he’s stationed. So as a child, a little child, I always follow with my dad and my mom almost everywhere in the country during the war in Viet Nam. But after, when the war ended, we had to move back to Saigon because you know this is a big city, so the, when the communist came in, when you live in the big city, you take advantage of the thing that you don’t get bothered very much because of the new regime. If you live in the rural, they, it’s very difficult life for you because you know, too many things and you don’t have anything to do in order to survive in the rural. So we’re in the main city in Vietnam, Saigon, the rest of my life until I left the country in 1994, after 20 years in the communist regime and came to America. When I came to America, I was always 30 years old and almost my whole life, my young life, is gone so I have to start over. It’s enough that I have a family, have a daughter, and a wife, and just like many families, immigrant people come to the United States.
I: Do you want to tell us how old you were when the war ended?
When the war ended, I was 12 years old. I remember being in school and when you are in the 6th grade and you are 12 years old, you realize many things about the society and about the war, the people, at least you have some experience about that.
I: Let’s talk about your childhood and your potential. How do you think your dad’s parenting and your childhood was changed by the war?
I mean, parenting, my dad is an ARVN officer and he’s very busy for his work and his fighting, so he’s not very close to his children all the time. He goes in combat to fight with the Viet Cong and mostly here back at home, when I was a child, since I was five until the end of the war. So I don’t get any bad parenting as we live normal here in America so I need to be more specific on that question so that I can focus on what do you want to look at.
Background on Father
I: Did you father share his motivation for joining the ARVN?
As I said before, we, the children, don’t have any, much talk with our father because of his job. He’s not very close to me in the life because of his work, so we don’t hear about his, at all. Even after he came back from the camp, come back from the prison, you know, he didn’t share anything for us. But we figured out, we found out for ourself later on about his life, his work. I don’t think he had a motivation at all because before the war, by early 1950, he was a civil officer who worked for the shipping company in Saigon and then he was under the mobilization order. So, my father had to enter the military academy and he became a reserve officer. Then when the war between the communist and the Republic of Vietnam began escalating, he became an officer, active officer, in the ARVN. That’s the thing that happened to him. As far as I experienced, he didn’t tell me, but I know the way he had no motivation, but he must had to do so because of the war escalating.
I: Did his time as a ARVN soldier and a prisoner of war impact your family, like your mom, or you as a child?
Of course, it’s a heavy impact to family because we are the, the communist call us, the people of the old regime, the regime that they killed off, so we get the impact very much. I can tell you like the loss of the property, was no doubt. But it’s not the big deal rather than the loss of our citizens right. We are not considered the citizen of the new regime because we are the old people, we are the people of the old regime. That’s a bad thing. And there is a restriction in the education for children like me who was a descendant of the people who serve for the old regime. One fortunature, one thing luckily that my mom brought all of us back from the rural back to the Saigon so that we get less impact on the coming of the new regime. For example, we because you know Saigon is a big city and the whole world look into the Saigon and they are control a little bit easier than when you live in the Rural. Does that answer the question?
PTSD and Impact on Family
I: Did it have any impact on your mom when he was gone as a prisoner of war? And when was your dad returned?
When my dad returned from the camp, they called it an educational camp, is that what you mean?
I: Was that right after the war ended or was that like a year or two after?
When the war end, a month later, my dad, they collect all of the officer from the old regime, put them in into, they call them educational camp, that’s what they called them. And then they kept them in the prison depending on their ranking. My dad was in the prison for 13 years. The rest of my mom and us lived in a city, but our life is so difficult, very difficult. As a said, because we’re not considered citizens of the new regime. We do not have the rights of the citizens when were are still in the country, in our country.
I: Wow, so 13 years he was in prison—how did he, I’m sure he had lots of post-traumatic stress afterwards. How did he handle the post-traumatic stress after his time in the prison? Did he hide it from the family, or…?
For this question, I think I got to tell you this. We are in America, we think about when the prisoners came out from the communist prison, they have trauma. No, we don’t have as many trauma instead of you know what. Because, because, I can answer this question from the thing I got from my father comrades who I know from when I lived in Vietnam. They think they have no post traumatic stress because they think they must go over and exist against any old, they know that the regime put them in a camp in a very extreme, difficult, hard condition, but they don’t care, they don’t mind about that. They think they need to exist. You might hear people tell about the trauma after getting out of the camp, this might be true, but for us, for the officer of the old regime, they think they don’t count it as trauma. They think they have to go over it. That’s what I mean for the answer to your question.
I: That was great, thank you.
End of War
I: What do you remember about the end of the war when you were 12?
Oh, the end of the war, do you mean the first day of the end of the war or the first day when the war ended?
I: Feel free to begin wherever you want, it could be towards the end of the war and then on and the aftermath.
Let’s say the first day of the war, I still remember it very well because it was gunfire everywhere in the city where my family lived. It’s not about they celebrate the war end, but they just fired the gun for fun and then to show off. We discovered later on when they gunfire is down, yeah but it’s a terrible experience because we were so scared. We know that the old regime had fell down and the gunfires, we were so scared in that moment. That’s the first day of the war ending. Later, I remember after one month passed, everything turned out very badly because there is no food, no stuff that you can use every day. So, life was very difficult since then and it’s not come back to the normal because Vietnam is disconnected from the other countries of the world, so there’s no, nothing left like food, clothes, everything you use daily is gone. So, the life became very difficult for us. That’s all. That’s the first thing you should see if you ask me what happened after the war ended.
I: How would you say you felt towards the end of the war? Like the day the war ended, did you feel, happy, sad, paranoid?
For myself, I am not happy at all because during the war, I experienced, during the war, when I stayed with my family at the camp or the barrack where my dad was stationed, I was so scared of the communist because I know that when they attack us, they can kill everybody like women, children because they don’t care if you a child or woman. They kill all of them, so the first thing for the South Vietnamese people is that they are so scared about communist, especially people who live in the big cities.
Thoughts on US Involvement
I: I want to hear more about, what do you think about the US involvement with Vietnam?
John Tran: It’s depend on your point of view. If you think, if you think socialism is the event is a good. Is a good. You think the invasion, the involvement of America is bad. For me, I left the country. I don’t believe that socialism of communism regime is a good way for people. So I think America involved in Vietnam War is, is the right thing to do. But sadly, the war, and it’s not favored from for our for side. The reason, one of the reason we don’t win the war is not, we’re not – We’re not strong enough, or we not- we not fight? Well, no, the thing is, because, because, on our society, a different very much from, this communist society, in our society, we have the right to protest if we don’t agree anything. Therefore, in America, they have too many protests from universities. And also in Vietnam. In South Vietnam, student can protest for the war, but if you look at the North Vietnam, or in any communist regime, you don’t see any protest. That’s a big difference. Yeah. And because of that, the, we felt, the world we felt we lose the war. This is obvious.
I: Thank you for your input. Could you talk more about your relationship with the US military, as when your father was in the ARVN?
Do you know when, when the, when America get into Vietnam? I have experience with them very much, because they live next to my house in the in the barrack? So, I really wanting, they love children. When I were five years old, I saw my father, military advisor, US, military advisor of my father. He love children, and even though we, if you can imagine with a poor child in the poor country, and they still love children later on. I knew that. I knew that in here we when we see this child, or children will like them, because this is naive. So that moment, I have a good experience with those military advisors come from US Army, where my father stationed. I have a good experience about– give us toys, candy, M&M candy, take a picture of us. Yeah, they take a picture of my brother myself. It’s very nice.
Life under New Regime
I: Okay dad, I want to ask you—how did you see life change for people, like your father, after the war?
What changed for my father after the war?
I: People of the same status.
Of course, this is after the war, as I mentioned, in the previous question, about that, they even though they get out of the camp, get out of the prison, they can’t, the regime can’t accept them as a citizen of this country. They still don’t see them as a citizen of, they don’t give them back the citizen rights back and for many years after he got out of the prison, and in fact, until he left the country. Like if you have citizen’s rights, you can go to vote, of course, you know the communist regime, to vote is meaningless, but I have given you an example of a citizen’s right. You don’t have that. So, you are second, you are considered as a second citizen, not a real citizen in your country. So you have, but anyway, you have to live anyway. You have to stay anyway, and then you don’t want to go out because you don’t have the money to get out of the country. In fact, after the war, our family was broke, we don’t have money to buy food, but we have to survive because this is the way this war is. So I mean, I yeah, I don’t know. I have a- I really have a hard time when I was there from after the after the war and until I left the country, when I mean, for 20 years under the communist regime, wow. Life is terrible for all of people like us, Yeah I mean, there’s no way to describe that, but [comment off screen] no, no, no, no, but we have to live. We have to live even though, if we have no chance to get out of the country, we have to live and die there. That’s fine. That’s fine. It’s okay.
Final Thoughts
I: Thank you, Dad, is there anything else you would like to share that we have not covered today?
Like I said, there was a very interesting question. I’m so disappointed that I didn’t answer I should thinking about how to answer that interesting question. This is very success, very nice, very, very talented question. But I think I don’t have enough experience to answer them, so I’m sorry, but this is a good question, the good question. The interview today, just my own opinion. I don’t want to set you up in my idea, but I just expressed my own opinion about it, you can think in a different way that’s okay to me, but for me… Not because I’m a member of the the Republic of Vietnam regime, but I, myself never have the feeling that I can accept the communist regime at all succeed. If you look at the North Korea, China or Venezuela, Cuba, I don’t think those countries very advanced country, so I don’t, I don’t think, for me, I don’t think it’s the good lesson to learn to follow with. That’s all.
I: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, bye, bye, okay, thank you so much. We’re going to end it here. Thank you all for being here.