|
|
|
_________________ Home |
ESCAPE
FROM VIETNAM Page 3 As
youths in my neighborhood began to be drafted and sent to Kampuchea, many
stories started circulating back that confirmed my worst fear.
The newly enlisted conscripts were given only a few weeks of basic
military training before they were sent to the battlefield.
Furthermore, they were separated into "good elements", those
who were communist party members or
who were considered to be sympathetic to the party,
and "bad elements", those whose family was involved with the
South Vietnam government in the past. The
"good element" soldiers were given better weapons and used as reserve
troops. The "bad element" soldiers were given inadequate and old weapons
(There were accounts of three men given only one gun) and used in all dangerous
assignments. The objectives of the
Communist commanders were clear: They
intent to push those they did not trust into certain death. In
addition, because of the lack of medical care and supplies, the Vietnamese
Communist Army was incredibly brutal in their treatment of their own wounded
soldiers. More than once, I had
heard of the story that after battles, they dug up large ditches to bury wounded
soldiers, Vietnamese and Cambodian alike, alive. In
this atmosphere of agonizing fear and nervous anticipation of which one of us
would be drafted next, our neighborhood received its first casualty of
the war. One
young man in our neighborhood was drafted two months before.
After four weeks of basic
military training, his unit was sent to a village at the Vietnamese-Kampuchea
border. His platoon was given the
job of guarding the village. One
night when the whole platoon
was sleeping and the sentry dozed off, the Khmer Rouge guerrillas stealthily
came in and killed all of them. After
killing the Vietnamese soldiers, the Khmer
Rouge went on to decapitate and cut open their torsos, taking all their guts,
hearts, and insides out. Besides
the deep hatred between the Vietnamese and the
Cambodians, another reason for this savage act is that the Cambodian
guerrillas believed that by doing
this, their enemies would never be able to reincarnated. As
the body of the young man was sent back to his family, the brutal realities of
the war became painfully obvious to all of us.
During the entire Vietnam War, our city
had been well insulated from most of the fighting that went on.
I only knew of the war through accounts in the newspapers and televised
footage of battles. I had
also seen refugees from Central
Vietnam who ran for their lives during the Communists Easter
Offensive in 1972. A large
number of these refugees lived in temporary shelters in my high school in the
summer of 1972. But I had
never known a neighbor family whose son was killed in such a savage manner
because of war. The tragedy shocked
me into the realization that it
could well be me who would next be killed in an equally gruesome
manner. As I walked by the house of the mourning family, my mind was filled with confusion, fear and desperation. I did not want to die. I did not want to fight for a regime that sent my father to prison, confiscated our property, oppressed and sent us to the brink of elimination. I did not want to kill and hate a people whom I hadn't seen or known before. I did not want to be a part of the instrument that the Vietnamese Communists were using to export their brand of Communism to other countries. Yet, it was very clear to me that it doesn't matter what I wanted or didn't want, my fate would be determined by the same people who didn't hesitate to sacrifice the lives of millions of Vietnamese youths during the Vietnam War. My
mother was equally fearful for me and my brothers' lives.
She also realized that it
would not be long before we could be drafted and sent to Kampuchea.
But unlike us, she knew that
there was something she could do about it: she could find ways to get us out of
Vietnam. Ever
since April 30, 1975, many people had tried to escape from Vietnam by
fishing boats of various sizes. Many
had successfully reached the shores of freedom.
An equal or greater number had perished at sea or ran into pirates in the
Gulf of Siam. The mass exodus
reached an all time high in 1978, when the Vietnamese Communists intensified
their persecutions of the Chinese-Vietnamese.
Though a small minority, the Chinese-Vietnamese possessed most of the
country businesses and economic wealth. Besides
racism, the Vietnamese Communists also considered these people as the "evil
capitalists" and were intent on taking away all of their wealth and
getting rid of them. Many of their businesses were confiscated and nationalized.
However, the Chinese- Vietnamese quickly hide and dispersed their wealth.
To render the currency they hold
useless, the Vietnamese Communist changed currency at least 3 times
during the 3 years since 1975 to 1978. Each
time currency was changed, limits were set as to how much money can one person
changed. Any additional amounts of
the old money one was holding would be useless once the new currency went into
effect. The purpose of changing the currency is to strip away the wealth of
anyone who was holding too much money. However,
the tactic became somewhat ineffective after the first time.
People quickly realized the Communists' intention.
Instead of holding on to the Communist
money, which was pretty much worthless anyway because of the
government's indiscriminate printing for its own use, people transferred
their wealth into gold and American dollars, which never lost their values. Many
Chinese-Vietnamese hide their
gold and dollars underground in the living rooms of their houses or in the
backyards. Home Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
|