The Fall of Saigon: A Glass of Water

The Fall of Saigon on 30 April, 1975, a historical event not only for the Vietnamese people but also many Australians, was significantly engraved in many peoples' minds by the historical photo that captured a US helicopter on the top of a building in Saigon during the last minutes before the city fell into the hands of the Vietcong. Even Miss Saigon, the famous musical performance, captures this dramatic moment through the descending of an actual helicopter onto the stage in New York. 

The Fall of Saigon dramatically took place when I, thirteen years old, saw one of the first Vietcong tanks rolling along the main road of the city around 11:15 AM. That fateful Wednesday morning of a fateful day has become an indelible memory for many Vietnamese people. All of a sudden, I recall, the cerulean blue sky of a summer morning turned dark with many gray clouds. The fateful day continued its fateful course when the last US helicopter lifted off from the top of the US Ambassador's building. The helicopter gradually disappeared over the horizon. Saigon was breathing her last breath with the radio broadcast in which the leader of South Vietnam was announcing the surrender of the South Vietnamese government. Bullets seemed to be coming from everywhere. People were running on the road. Shouting! Crying! Chaos! Finally the first Vietcong tank entered the huge courtyard of the palace of the President of the twenty fifth hour. That was it. Game over! 

The iron curtain, as expected, dropped down to close the doors of Vietnam to the outside world. No one got out, no one got in. No news does not always mean good news, for after the Fall of Saigon, the Western countries, the US and Australia received almost no news from Vietnam, in particular the fates of those who were born and left behind. Only when the first waves of those who escaped from Vietnam searching for freedom surfaced, did the many headlines in the late 80s bring news about those who were left behind. Based on the means which those asylum seekers used for the dramatic journey seeking freedom of speech and religion using small boats, for the first time, the name “boat people” was invented. A new vocabulary was born: "boat people." And I was one of them.

In October 1982, with the sixty two other miserable souls, the fishing boat (its length was 12 meters and width 5 meters), that took me to freedom, landed on the shores of Marang, a seaport in Malaysia after battling storms on the ocean for four days and encountering numerous ferocious Thai fishermen who robbed and beat the men and sexually assaulted the young women and a teenager.

The boat had reached its intended destination. And I became a refugee, like Jesus who was a refugee in his infancy. Being called a refugee meant I became a displaced person under the care and protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. For one year and a half, I lived my refugee life in two refugee camps (actually two detention camps), one on Pulau Bidong island, the other in Sungai Besi near Kuala Lumpur. Like many other refugees in the camps, I applied to be resettled in a number of countries, but for whatever reason that I was not aware of, all of these nations rejected my applications.

Living in a refugee camp and being denied resettlement also meant heaven had shut its doors on a newly departed soul. Thus, for almost a year and a half, heaven did not grant me a single drop of water to quench my thirst. My sanguine soul gradually blackened and turned into parched land. While I was suffocating in my complicated life and facing with an uncertain future, the US delegation came to re-process my application applied for the US…

And my miserable life in the detention camps came to an end and gradually it was transformed into a new life. The happy story continued with many more happy events that came along. To prepare those refugees who had been accepted into the US to cope with the new life and culture that was awaiting them, the US government sent us to the Bataan Transit Camp in the Philippines to attend a Cultural Orientation Program. And it was in this center I had my first of many contacts with the Filipinos and their culture. What a hospitable culture! I enjoyed thoroughly my life in the Bataan Camp. Five months in the camp was like five months in heaven.

As I reflect on my journey of faith, in particular, the time when I was on the ocean, the detention camps in Malaysia and the transit center in the Philippines, I gracefully acknowledge that whenever I, not by choice, took on myself the role of the miserable man, I was fortunately granted many glasses of water to slake my thirst. And not only me, but also many of the Vietnamese boat people who fled the country since the Fall of Saigon. Indeed we were rescued by many good Samaritans while our boats were drifting on the oceans. We were taken care by the UNHCR in the camps. And the governments of many nations, in particular, the US, Australia and Canada, the three leading countries opened wide their loving arms to welcome us, the miserable people of the twenty first century into their homes.

When the Vietnamese were thirsting for freedom of speech and religion, they took risks with their own lives in searching for the water that would quench their thirst. In responding to the crisis of the century, many countries of the world took off to the Pacific Ocean for organizing numerous rescue operations to save the Vietnamese boat people. Many refugee camps were erected in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Hong Kong for the boat people. The US, Australia and Canada, the three leading countries, opened wide their arms to take us into their lands. The Filipinos, who are famous for their hospitality, whenever they saw the Vietnamese boats floating on the oceans, stopped their fishing activities to provide us with food and water. Stories of the boat people who were abused physically and sexually by some Thai fishermen were headlines on the front cover of many newspapers. But, the Filipino fishermen only rescued and helped us.

Jesus said, “If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, […] he will certainly not lose his reward” (Mark 9:41). When we were thirsty, citizens of different nations gave us not only a cup of water, but so much more. And they performed this kindness because they cared for their brothers and sisters. These good Samaritans of the twentieth and twenty first centuries certainly will not lose their reward!

Maraming salamat the Philippines!

Michael Nguyen SVD