49 years later, trauma lingers after our fraught escape from Vietnam
As part of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, this is the story of how a South Vietnamese air force officer flew his family and two dozen other evacuees in a helicopter onto the USS Midway for their escape as they lost their country to communist North Vietnam in 1975.
Nguyen Van Dong, now 81, lives in Texas. This account was written by his daughter Ngan Nguyen, who lives with her husband and children in New York City.
April 28, 1975
A heavy fist banged on our front door. My family lived near Can Tho air base in South Vietnam, which was used by the U.S. Air Force and the Republic of Vietnam Air Force during the war.
My father, Nguyen Van Dong, was an air force major. At 3 years old, I hid behind his legs as he opened the door. An officer said the North Vietnamese army was encroaching. He ordered us to evacuate immediately to Con Son Island, along with 40 other families on the base. All able-bodied men, including my father, were instructed to stay behind to fight.
My mother, Nguyen Thi Nghiem, packed frantically for what she thought would be a few days, taking only what she could carry on her shoulders. She would have my little brother strapped to her back, and my sister and me each clutching one of her hands.
Despite the fact that the United States had already withdrawn its combat forces two years earlier, no one wanted to believe that South Vietnam faced an imminent demise, but no one could ignore the reality of the constant sirens and bombs.
Mom, my siblings and I arrived at Con Son in the middle of the night on a Chinook helicopter. During the evacuation, Mom had been too distracted to notice the lump growing on the edge of my face. But now I was feverish with mumps and a throat infection. Fortunately, a friend knew a doctor stationed at Con Son prison. He took us to his home, where he fed us, gave me medicine and urged us to sleep.
Back at the Can Tho air base, all pilots were ordered to meet on Con Son. That included my father, whose mission was to transport the women and children to somewhere safe. Dad’s friends, who were on base duty, had to stay behind. Dad promised to take care of their families until they could reunite with them.
Dad landed his Huey on Con Son Island about 20 hours after we had arrived and leaped with joy when he saw us heading toward him. I can still remember the scent of him as he covered me in kisses. Together we hurried to the beach, where women and children were waiting and whispering about the impending collapse of Saigon, our nation’s capital.
Washington had withdrawn its diplomats – the death knell of South Vietnam. Dad knew that he and his cohorts could not defend a country with a trickle of bullets when the enemy had continued support from China and the Soviet Union.
Evacuation onto the USS Midway
Con Son became the central meeting point for evacuation of both military officials and civilians. At 7 a.m., Dad and his deputy pilot squeezed 31 passengers into a helicopter normally reserved for a dozen. Bags had to be left behind. In the controlled chaos, I saw something sparkly on the beach and snatched it. It was a pack of my favorite instant noodles.
The Huey was overstuffed with people whose lives were completely in Dad’s hands. Everyone kept still, fearing that one small movement could cause a crash. The 40-minute escape was fraught with despair. The wives now realized the dire fate that awaited their husbands. Mom was the only woman who wasn’t wailing.
Dad spotted the USS Midway and flew closer to the massive gray carrier, majestic against the vast blue ocean. The crewmen below navigated Dad’s craft by waving sticks, and he safely landed on a piece of U.S. territory. Crewmen rushed to the Huey as the blades stopped swirling. They counted the number of people disembarking in disbelief and praised Dad’s aviation skills. Whatever sense of relief or accomplishment my dad had was short-lived. He asked whether he could refuel and head back to Con Son but was told there was no going back.
As Dad watched the Americans push Hueys overboard to make room for other landing helicopters, his chest clenched as he thought of loved ones left behind. We were now officially refugees at the full mercy of our U.S. allies. Our luggage was searched for weapons and contraband. The fear was that Viet Cong would hide among the horde of evacuees.
We joined several thousand other evacuees in the dining area below deck and ate the undeniably allAmerican ham sandwiches. Not knowing if soy sauce was available in America, one of our friends shoved several packets into her pockets.
After a few hours on the Midway, officers instructed our helicopter group to board a nearby ship. We had to mount makeshift ropes to board the merchant vessel.
Dad strapped my baby brother onto his back. He helped get every member of his party ready to climb a fraying rope to the ship. Mom safely reached the other side with my sister and me. She turned around and saw Dad’s rope break. Miraculously, he was able to pull himself up while holding on to my brother, avoiding the 7-meter plunge into the netting below.
The merchant ship was crowded with approximately 10,000 evacuees. We docked for about a week, waiting for more to board. Other ships rescued as many refugees as they could, but they were overwhelmed with more people than they could handle. Dad worried about what nation would accept thousands of refugees from an unpopular war.
Food stocks ran low. Each person was rationed a bowl of rice with canned tuna.
Our group huddled in one area of the ship. Next to us, a mother was alone with five young children. Mom offered two bags of instant noodles in her bag. She didn’t know the woman was Capt. Kiem Do’s wife. She had been separated from her husband, a navy officer who famously organized the successful evacuation of more than 30,000 refugees aboard more than 30 ships. The two women became lifelong friends.
I was still weak with the mumps. Mom had a limited supply of medicine and ground the pills using an American quarter. A gaunt woman wailed in agony through the night. One day, after waking from a nap, I saw two sailors throw her lifeless body overboard.
Years later, in the comfort and safety of America, I asked my parents if this really happened. They said there were many who were seriously ill on the ship, suffering from diarrhea, dehydration and even dysentery. Those who died were thrown overboard.
I shuddered thinking how it could’ve been me. But Mom always pointed out how generous people were when they saw me suffering. Many strangers gave me half their rice portions. The extra rice and penicillin saved my life. My parents vowed to each other that once our family settled somewhere, they would do all they could to support their community.
On that ship, news of Saigon’s collapse on April 30 trickled in. Whispers spread from group to group. We learned about the suicides of some generals of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, one of whom was Dad’s mentor. As their fates were shared, the women in our party started weeping again.
Dad left us to take a walk. His tears could flow more freely among strangers.
From refugee camps to New Orleans
Many days later, as we faced starvation, our boat landed by the U.S. Navy base at Subic Bay, Philippines. The Philippine government was initially hesitant to shelter South Vietnamese refugees but ultimately agreed to provide a haven on Grande Island, in the mouth of Subic Bay, on the condition that the transits were brief. We refugees were contained in one area.
Upon arrival, all nine children in our group were famished and dehydrated. Mom opened my pack of favorite instant noodles that I had found on the beach, crushed the contents in a bowl with cold water and gave each of us a sip.
Around us, vendors wandered, trying to take advantage of our desperate plight. Dad’s only valuable possession was a watch given to him by President Nguyen Van Thieu of the now defunct Republic of Vietnam. He traded it for scraps of food and two cans of Coke. Later, he said the Coke brought color back to my face and, for the first time since our evacuation, he knew I’d survive. That, to him, was priceless.
We stayed at the Subic Bay camp for two days, huddled together in makeshift lodgings to keep warm during the cold night. Food eventually arrived, and the men of our group routinely waited in line for handouts, sometimes as long as six hours.
After Subic Bay, we were flown to Guam, a U.S. territory, and processed as political refugees. It was there that Mom felt more sane and settled. But anxiety still plagued her. In moments when she thought about the fate awaiting her endangered family left behind, she’d take out her small bottle of Chanel No. 5. This was the first gift that Dad had brought back for her from his pilot training in the United States. For her, it represented hope that one day, we could return to a normal life.
In the autumn of 1975, after residing at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida for a few months, we settled in a neighborhood of New Orleans called Woodlawn that primarily housed Vietnamese refugees.
Not long after we resettled there, Jim and Betty Adams became our sponsors. Perhaps they chose my parents because they had shared professions as pilot and teacher, respectively. My siblings and I were proud to have two American brothers, Jim Jr. and Dave. Betty spent hours each week teaching my mom English.
Years later, Mom became one of the first Vietnamese American teachers in Louisiana. The Carters, who owned a horse ranch, also “adopted” us. Their son had served in Vietnam.
When we first arrived, Dad had offers to fly for oil companies, given the boom in the Gulf of Mexico and the need for helicopter pilots to fly between rigs. Mom didn’t want to take any more risks and insisted that he find a terrestrial job.
He started as a hospital translator and then became an Exxon mechanic. Mom was the “produce girl” at Schwegmann’s and used her income to give back to the community. On Sundays, she made huge pots of pho and cha gio (fried spring rolls), and opened up our home to “uncles'” and “aunts'” whom I would eventually understand to be young refugees without families.
Mom’s spring rolls would later save us from hostile Cajun neighbors who initially found us threatening as outsiders. They eventually not only left us alone to live our American dream, but also provided support when Mom was suffering from cancer.
Reconnecting with family in postwar Vietnam
Mom died two weeks after I turned 18. Heartbroken, Dad found it difficult to accept her death, considering all they had overcome together. She had survived bombs and bullets only to lose her life in suburbia.
In the wake of that loss, I embarked on a journey to find my extended family. After a trip to Vietnam in 1992, where I reunited with all four of my grandparents, I resolved to find a career that would connect me to them, while honoring Mom’s legacy of giving back.
I spent years working in international development, helping Vietnam integrate into the world economy and improve the quality of life and potential of its people – before pivoting to academia to learn about the region and conflict that had long intrigued me.
On April 30, 2011, exactly 36 years since I left Vietnam, I earned my doctorate in the field of Asian politics. While researching, I found that South Vietnamese stories were underrepresented in the mainstream narrative of the conflict that defined a generation. Having grown up in a community of political refugees, listening to war tales in my youth and witnessing the U.S.Vietnam reconciliation process as a development practitioner, I can appreciate multiple viewpoints.
Reconciliation, however, cannot be complete without the inclusion and healing of the South Vietnamese, who felt abandoned by their U.S. allies, misunderstood, and unfairly vilified and misrepresented in pop culture and war literature.
Younger generations of Vietnamese Americans like me unknowingly experienced intergenerational trauma, carrying the scars of our shared and suppressed history. Our worldview is likely shaped by our parents’ hardships and lived experiences.
As for my father, it wasn’t until the fall of Kabul, in Afghanistan in 2021, that he was finally ready to talk about Vietnam. The post-traumatic stress disorder that had plagued him suddenly came to the fore, prompting him to contact fellow Da Lat National Military Academy peers, now octogenarians and nonagenarians. He visits Vietnam War memorials to thank all those lives lost and hugs every veteran he sees now.
These days, Dad wants Vietnamese people everywhere to succeed and make a positive impact on society. While therapy is still not in his vocabulary, he finds healing in writing, meditating, visiting the local Cao Dai temple, drinking boba tea with his grandchildren and cheering for the NBA Dallas Mavericks.
As a former war pilot, he’s also rooting for Ukrainian pilots as they now bravely defend their homeland.