Afghanistan is ‘a second Vietnam’
Columbus woman witnessed Saigon
Nga Nguyen can barely bring herself to watch what’s going on in Afghanistan, as it seems to her like “a second Vietnam.”
And Nguyen, 76, would know. The North Side resident witnessed the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.
Nguyen was working with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the American embassy when the city, now called Ho Chi Minh City, was taken over by the communist People’s Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong.
“It was just so scary,” said Nguyen, unable to find adequate words to describe witnessing the city being captured.
She feels the same way about what’s going on in Afghanistan, where the capital city of Kabul fell to the Taliban on
Aug. 15.
“When I see Afghanistan, I think, ‘Oh no, another Vietnam,” Nguyen said. “It’s so sad.”
Like the South Vietnamese people did more than 40 years ago in Saigon, Afghans are desperately trying to escape the country and get to safety to avoid being targeted by the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the United States is working to get U.S. citizens and at-risk
I’d been warned that this would be intense, dropping your firstborn at college. Days later, I’m still not sure I’ve allowed the idea to sink in.
my mirrors, watching his every lanechange and holding my breath whenever a tractor-trailer wobbled beside him or a speed demon blew past. My wife did much the same.
Even off the road we spent much of the weekend looking backward, reminding ourselves to look forward instead.
As parents, this is not easy to do. We can cherry-pick the past, and we try our best to control the future. But that last bit, parents hate to admit, is often a losing proposition.
I’d been warned that this would be intense, dropping your firstborn at college. Days later, I’m still not sure I’ve allowed the idea to sink in.
Move-in on Friday went well despite a triple-digit heat index. By 2 p.m. he was largely unpacked and antsy for us to give him some space on his first day. We told him we’d see him at Rose-hulman Institute of Technology’s convocation the next day.
That night, the first bit of weirdness occurred.
“How many?” the restaurant host asked me.
“Four,” I said out of habit.
The three of us had a nice dinner. Afterward, my daughter and I went down to the hotel pool, very aware of our missing swim companion.
On Saturday morning, college officials labored to put a theater full of freshman parents at ease. They did a fine job overall.
Then they undid all their hard work by breaking out the bagpipes for the convocation. Families said their goodbyes.
Be smart. Have fun. Time will fly. Call if you need anything.
Then the freshmen followed the pipers from the fieldhouse and out of sight up the hill. We trailed behind, passing his residence hall as we walked to the car.
This is a good day; the convocation speakers had reminded us. Four years from now at graduation, they said, our kids would follow the bagpipers up the same hill.
For some parents, this day comes at the start of college. For others, upon enlistment in the service, or a move into an apartment across town or across country.
We are the incredibly lucky ones. I thought of a Pickerington North student, a schoolmate of my son who died this month in a car crash. He played the guitar and piano and was working toward becoming a pilot. He was 17. His family’s heartbreak must be bottomless.
We started the drive toward home. There was no blue Toyota Corolla following behind us to keep an eye on. Once at home, a bedroom would remain empty, with bare spots on the walls and on the desk, where that enormous desktop computer should be.
But this is a good thing. This is a good thing. This is a good thing.
There was very little traffic on I-70. We did not stop for dinner, and the weather held.
We made it home in a little over four hours, pretty good time for a drive of a million miles. tdecker@dispatch.com @Theodore_decker