In 1975, after South Viet Nam lost the war against North Viet Nam, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese military personnel, government workers, and supporters of the South Vietnamese regime were sent to re-education camps. Some estimates are as high as 500,000 to 1 million of such political prisoners. Conditions in the camps included constant political indoctrination, hard labor, and a general lack of food and medicines. Many perished while the rest only survived after the regime allowed their families to send or bring them the food and medicines they needed to survive. Following is my translation of a true story written by the wife of an Airborne officer who was imprisoned for almost 14 years. She uses the pen name of Minh Hoà.
I met him when I was 17 and still in school. He was a third-year cadet [at the Đà Lạt National Military Academy]. He was 20, but in my eyes he was a fully mature, brilliant, and very handsome man.
He insisted on marrying me as soon as he graduated from the Academy, saying that his parents would have no objection. I was surprised and a little scared because at the age of 18 going on 19, I felt very young and clueless. The only thing I knew was that I loved him a lot.
I still remember, while I was young and very naïve, during his fourth year at the Academy, I often sobbed at night. I was scared about losing him in some misty, dark corner of those battlefields where many young men had gone to without ever coming back. But I was determined to become his wife, although he greatly annoyed my parents by refusing to let them intercede in his future even before he had graduated. My family hesitated, but I was their youngest girl, the one everybody spoiled. Then again, my whole family liked and admired him.
So I left school at the age of 19 and climbed into the wedding limousine, thinking I was living my dream of love as a young girl. Then it was time to say farewell to my hometown of Đà Lạt, to my cherished souvenirs of each hill, each sunray shining through tree branches in the familiar coolness of the highlands, each soft breath and whisper in the endearing conifer canopy.
I followed him to become a daughter-in-law in my husband’s home in Sài Gòn. I had not been prepared to be a daughter-in-law, a wife, and I was full of apprehension in my husband’s territory. I did not know what to do, what to say, but his parents and his siblings gave me all their love. His younger brothers always praised the dishes I prepared and cooked!
Our honeymoon week was rushed but filled with infinite happiness. It was squeezed between his graduation leave and before he had to report to his new unit. On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year in 1971, his Airborne Division went to take part in the Lower Laos campaign. The day he left, he was full of joy, like a starling who had escaped from its cage. I was bewildered. He held me tight in his arms and would not let me cry, saying that leaving a wife in tears was bad luck.
I hurried to smile, but the nights after that, in the loneliness of our room, I trembled as I listened to the war news from those distant battlefields. His letters were filled with longings mixed with words that sounded like drunken laughs from a fighter flying forward on his war horse.
My mother-in-law was no happier than me. After business hours, the two of us went to pagodas to pray. She told me: “We must pray that he will only be wounded lightly so that they allow him to come back to us. If not, he can’t come home and will continue to be exposed to danger.” I became even more distraught and panicked, unable to even mumble any prayer. My mother from Đà Lạt also went to a distant pagoda to obtain an amulet of the Quan Âm Bodhisattva to give to my husband to wear when he returned from the battlefield.
After that Lower Laos campaign, my husband came home with his left arm in a sling. I shook as I poured warm water over his body to wash him, being careful to avoid his wound. Still I could not hide my smile, full of happiness, and I thanked benevolent Heaven and the Bodhisattva.
Then he was gone again. Tây Ninh, Kampuchea, and the geographical names of the battlefields that I learned and knew by heart: Trảng Bàng, Trảng Lớn, Suông, Chúp, Krek, Dambe. He went to the most ferocious life and death battles against the devilish enemy. His wound had barely healed and he was gone.
I became the warrior’s wife, staying awake at night. I buried my face in my pillow and prayed to Heaven and the Bodhisattva to protect my husband. As for him, he always came and went, laughing, happy like his unit buddies. To this day, I still remember their names: Tường, Hương, Trung, Dũng, Sinh, Chiêu, elder brother Sĩ, elder brother Tâm, elder brother Quyền.
Every time he came home safe and sound, our entire family joyfully celebrated. Every time he was ordered to go, I became morose and listless while he was full of energy, whistling happy marching tunes. That man never knew what fear was, did not care about life or death, and did not want to hear any wifely lament. He only wanted to see smiles and hear words of love and pampering. He told me he had the strange belief that nothing dangerous would ever happen to him.
I knew I could do nothing but to follow his wishes. I never opened my mouth to make him sad. Our time together was always too short. I endeavored to give him the few moments of happiness of the warrior. I did not want him to worry about anything. We were married for two years but I did not bear any child because he was constantly leaving for the next battlefield, and the days we spent together were few and far in between.
Then the Fiery Summer of 1972 burst out. He jumped into An Lộc where he fought for almost three months against a numerically superior enemy. We received no news or mail from him, not a sentence, not a word. The liaison non-commissioned officer who visited our house every month knew to wave his hand from a distance.
He came home and stayed for one week before going to Quảng Trị. Then he was wounded at the gate to the old citadel, and was taken to the Cộng Hòa General Hospital. I went with his family to visit him and fainted in the car of his elder brother.
Still he recovered, stood up and happily went on his next military operation. I did not know what karma I had for him that made me love that man who was totally absorbed with fighting. I only knew that his dream was to become like a General Patton of Việt Nam. “Our country must become self-sufficient and in a few years we will be really different. The ways of our military will have to change. I will command a large unit. I will be able to coordinate all our military units, from tanks to airplanes, fighting the war like Patton would. Cambodia, Lower, Middle and High Laos, those will not matter to us. Ha, ha!”
I mumbled my agreement since I did not understand much of anything that he whispered to me that night as I fell asleep in the arms of love when he was allowed to return on leave.
Our first child in 1973 was a daughter born in Đà Lạt. He came home to visit us, mother and baby, and his old school. Then he was off again to the defensive line Southwest of Huế.
In April of 1975, his unit was positioned in Thủ Đức, ready to fight to the death with the enemy. His younger brother was the transportation officer for our Navy ship HQ505. The ship stopped in Sài Gòn to prepare for a mission to Phú Quốc island. My husband told the entire family including his parents, his younger brothers and me and our baby, to get on the ship to be safe from the fighting, and then come back when it was over. I thought he would join us, but he chastised me, asking why he should leave when his paratroopers were unperturbed: “The enemy will not win when the Airborne Division counterattack, handing them another Tết defeat like in 1968. The Airborne is used to fight one against four. This battle will be the end of the war.”
He was as excited as if he was going into battle, but then he turned to me and, in an unsteady voice, told me to take our baby and climb on his older brother’s car to go to the harbor. At that instant, I lost all my fear. Carrying our baby, I jumped off the car and insisted we were staying with him. Husband and wife, we would live and die together.
Three attempts at escaping during the first half of May failed miserably. He reported to a concentration camp in June, when I was pregnant with our second child. Our daughter, Dung, arched her body and demanded to go with her father. He turned around, waved and smiled to us. Still the same smile, and he did not appear to care what life or death meant. But, darling, what about your wife and baby?
My husband’s family was blessed. Most went with the HQ505 ship to the island of Phú Quốc and from there to America. My own family escaped from Đà Lạt to Sài Gòn. We lived together, protecting one another. The shops and goods of my husband’s family were confiscated by the new government. I was determined to hold on to his parents house, and I refused to be evicted several times. My sister used her savings to buy another house after her husband escaped with his second wife and the government took over their house and vehicles. I and my brothers and sisters managed to borrow money to try and provide for our aging parents and our young children.
There was hardly any news about my husband, except for a couple of letters from the Long Giao re-education camp. I went there but could not see him. He had been transferred to North Việt Nam.
I was 25 that year. My beauty was fading, but I still got looks from many. Matchmakers whispered into my ears: take charge of your new life, your officer husband was sent to the North, with no hope for any return. Suddenly all my sufferings exploded to the surface: “Do you think that anyone in that bunch even deserve to carry my husband’s shoes?” Then I hugged my children and the three of us cried out of sadness and rage.
No, ten thousand times no! I was surrounded by trash. Yes, only the men from the South who were imprisoned by the Communists were worthy of the women of my generation. My sisters and I called that “the re-education diplomas” that the men had earned. We dedicated our lives to them, even though they were imprisoned in undetermined locations. What choice did we have? I was his wife and worshiped him in my mind and my heart. How could I not despise the scum who attempted to take advantage of our situation?
My sisters and I sold cigarettes, steamed rolls, cakes, French bread sandwiches, Western medicines, Eastern medicines. We also cut and washed hair, applied nail polishes. We always avoided public and opulent places near government offices filled with enemy thieves and turncoats with greedy looks. My siblings and I protected one another, and so, even though we were ragged, I managed to keep my oath.
After overcoming those initial hardships, the three of us received help from my husband’s family in America. It was not lavish but it allowed me to send him care packages every three months, and to save money to go visit him.
[In 1979, China attacked North Việt Nam. All the re-education camps near the border with China had to be evacuated further South.]
He was transferred from the northernmost camp to Thanh Hóa [in Central Việt Nam] for about a year before I received permission to go visit him. My sister and I went around and bought 150 kilograms of goods and supplies for him. Then the old lady at the market who knew us asked us to take another 50 kilograms for her son, because her daughter-in-law had managed to escape by boat from the country. My daughter Dung was then 6 years old, and her brother Long was 4 but the boy had never met his father. I took both of them with me so that my husband could see our son.
We got off in the Thanh Hóa railroad station. An army of porters surrounded the passengers and yelled the services they offered. I and several women who were going to visit our husbands shared the duty of keeping an eye on our belongings. We did not allow anyone to carry them for us, then we dragged our packages and went in search of a place to stay. People who had gone before us had told stories of porters running away with the passengers’ luggage if no one was watching.
At our lodging, we took turns guarding our possessions while others went shopping at the market. I had asked one woman to buy a kilogram of lard for me. When I received it, I started frying it out on a pan in the courtyard. Suddenly my baby son cried and I hurried to run inside. I had not managed to calm and quiet him, when I heard some hubbub outside. I ran out and saw two thieves carrying away the pan with fried lard. My friend ran after them but could not catch them. I cried silently, thinking that lard would have helped my husband assuage his hunger a great deal.
The bus to Thanh Cẩm was filled with wives going to visit their husbands. We, five adults and two kids, got off at the Nam Phát fork to go to Camp No. 5. I dragged each package and then went back out to drag the next one. It was half a kilometer to the camp entrance. My two children were too young to help. Sister-in-law Út was superb. She finished dragging her stuff, then volunteered to help with the packages for the rest of us.
After our papers were checked, we waited for a criminal prisoner to arrive with a buffalo cart. Our packages and my two children were allowed to get on the cart. Then I, Phước, Điệp and my sister-in-law Út and her child walked behind the cart. The path across the camp and forest was 8 kilometers long. We did not know that it would be worse on the way out.
We were exhausted when we arrived at Gate No. 5 of the Lam Sơn camp. With nightfall, my daughter Dung had to help me gather sugar cane leaves to cook the rice that I had bought to make rice balls. I was told that the security guards would not allow political prisoners to have uncooked rice which could be used in escape attempts. While I waited all night to see my husband, I looked at my two innocent children sleep. I was totally tired, but I could not fall asleep. Hundreds of images of my husband danced in my mind. My husband, the Airborne soldier who whistled happily every time he received an order to go to battle, how was he then?
In the morning, it was our turn to go to the visiting house. I was not allowed to go out of the door of a tiny room which contained a long wooden table with two benches. Suddenly, a total stranger stood right in the middle of the door. I was baffled not knowing what was happening. A female security guard stared at me, waiting like a fighting cock prepared to attack. I could not understand why the Northerner woman who was about my age showed so much hatred for me. I just looked back at her and, after a moment, she found in her notebook that he was Đức, the man that the old lady had asked me to go visit on her behalf. It took half an hour to deliver his packages to Đức and to tell him news from his family.
After that, there was only an hour and a half left to meet my husband. I began crying, holding my face with my hands. I could no longer contain my frustration and sobbed louder and louder. Oh Heaven, who on this earth had to struggle through a thousand kilometers to go visit her husband for an hour and thirty minutes?
The two female security guards began threatening me, declaring that I should behave correctly and if I did not wipe off my tears I would not be allowed to see my husband. At that moment, someone who looked like my husband had just stepped through the camp’s gate. I forgot all the regulations, got up and ran to him like lightning. Both of my children cried and ran after me. The two female guards, caught by surprise and unable to stop us, just stood looking.
I ran to take him in my arms and sobbed even louder. My legs folded, all strength gone from them. Heaven! My husband was so skinny that I could hug all of him in my arms with plenty of room to spare! His body had slimmed down considerably, and only his bright eyes with that piercing look remained as they used to be, with a sadness that pierced through my heart. He could not say a word, just held his mouth closed as he looked at me, at our children. I knew he was trying to keep his composure and did not want to cry in front of the security guards. He led me and the children into the visitation house. He firmly took my hand and led me to one of the two benches. The guard coldly pointed him to the opposite bench. Then she sat the head of the table and stared directly at me.
He said that I should make an effort to raise our two children properly. Then solemnly, he told me to go with our two children to a New Economic Zone at the town of Mỹ Tho where Elder Uncle Chánh, Younger Uncle Cương, and Younger Aunt Huyền had already volunteered to go, and were waiting for our family to join them. I was momentarily lost, but then I understood what he was saying. I almost laughed while crying, seeing that he had not lost his sense of humor. Elder Uncle Chánh was what his parents were addressed as. Younger Uncle Cương, and Younger Aunt Huyền meant Younger Uncle Cường, his brother who had taken the whole family on Navy ship HQ505 to escape to America.
The female security guard appeared to like what she was hearing and admonished me:
“You must applaud what he is telling you!”
He looked me in the eyes and laughed out loud. I was about to laugh also, but I bent my head down, angry:
“I am not going anywhere. I am going to wait until you come back, then we can go anywhere you want.”
After that, I resumed crying, my hands grasping his firmly, afraid of being separated from him again. The security guard looked at us and spoke out loud:
“You are such a strange woman! Go to the New Economic Zone and work hard so that he may receive clemency! He has made progress in this re-education camp, but you … all you are good at is crying.”
He could not resist laughing and said:
“Darling, you see how we have all made progress in this camp. Just look at me and you can tell how fantastic the government policies are. There is nothing to worry. You just try to raise our two children to become good people, and tell them not to imitate bad people.”
I cried and laughed at the same time and kept holding his hands while feeling sulky and angry. He called the children and told them to come around to his side of the table. The female guard hesitated, then let it go, but she continued staring at me. He hugged and kissed the children. He chatted with them. Our eyes could not stop looking at each other. My eyes were filled with tears but I could see an immense sadness and love in his. I pitied my two kids who could only be with their father for a very short moment.
Like a machine, I cried and squeezed his hands, repeating over and over that I would wait for him to come home, that he should not worry about us, that I would wait for his return before going to the New Economic Zone, that he should take care of himself, that he needed to keep healthy for me and for the kids. I swore that I would wait for him.
Suddenly I saw tears begin to form in his eyes. The guard felt uneasy and left to go outside. However, she returned right away, making a signal to someone outside. The other female guard who was hiding somewhere immediately made her appearance and announced that time had run out and that our visit was over.
We hugged each other at the other end of the table right before the door. We ignored the guard’s warning knocks on the table. He held my two hands firmly and was able to utter only one sentence:
“I will come back and will go with you and the children. It should not be too long, don’t worry. Thank you for deciding to wait for me.” Then he choked up.
They stopped me at the entrance of the visiting room. My daughter managed to run after her father. Her brother was too afraid and held on to my leg while crying. I held on to a wooden pole and watched him walk slowly toward two large wooden doors. I could not stop crying.
He constantly looked back, his steps wobbly, the one-wheel cart that he was pushing was in danger of falling to the side several times because of its heavy load.
The following morning I was like someone who had lost her soul. The other women in my group were no better. We all started going home, only to learn that we could not retrace our steps. We had to go around the camp almost 20 kilometers to go back to the Nam Phát fork.
We went through a forest, then through empty fields. The sun was harsh and hot as if it wanted to throw me and my two children down to the ground. Our baby boy was very tired and had to sit down several times, his clothes wet with sweat. I stood and used my body to shield him and his sister. I then carried him, and struggled one step at a time. My aunts and sister-in-law had to slow down and wait for us. We had given all our food to our men, and we had nothing to eat or drink. Along the way I was able to buy several sugar cane stalks. I peeled away the outside layer and gave the sugar cane stalks to my children to eat. Neither of them cried even once. Dung was very good. She comforted her brother and encouraged him to persevere.
Our stomachs were empty while our feet were beyond exhaustion as the afternoon sun was setting. Our group wandered among the bamboo groves, over a loveless land. Everyone was scared, we looked warily to the front and to our back, and instinctively became more cohesive.
The more tired we were, the more we wanted to speed up as if we wanted to run. My arms got weary from carrying my boy so I switched to carrying him on my back. I was tired, hungry, scared. I walked and ran, almost falling down several times. Seeing that his mother was too tired, my boy asked to be put down and then bravely began walking forward on his own. Luckily, after 6 PM, when it was almost completely dark, we arrived at the Nam Phát fork. Two security guards came out with their bicycles which they prepared to mount to go back to camp. They told us to wait at that spot for the bus to Thanh Hóa.
Our group sat down on the ground. Once in a great while, a bus filled with people drove by without stopping. After 9 PM my sister-in-law stood up to wait for any vehicle to come by. One big truck with two soldiers was filled with bamboo trunks. Its headlights were blazing on that brave Venus who waived for them to stop. It slowed down then came to a full stop. We gathered around it and promised to pay them a lot of money. Finally, our elder aunts and my two children were allowed into the main cab, while I, the two sisters and my sister-in-law went to climb on the back of the truck. We sat and leaned anyway we could on the bamboo stalks, our legs firmly braced against the sides of the truck.
We spent five hours like that over a bumpy road which often bounced us and threatened to throw us overboard. The two soldiers were kind, did not want our money, and only ate two bowls of soup at our insistence. We got to Thanh Hóa at two in the morning. The women who were visiting their husbands formed a very large group. We exchanged innumerable questions and answers, opening our hearts to one another.
There was no ticket to go directly to the South. We had to buy tickets to go North to Hà Nội, and only from there could we go home. It was the following night when we arrived at the Hàng Cỏ train station in the center of Hà Nội. We disembarked and were walking around completely lost when women from afar descended on us and pulled us to the sidewalks where they had already prepared plastic tarps for us to spend the night on. The wives of the re-education prisoners named the place Hotel California!
Yes, we agreed that our husbands were the “re-education gentlemen” as the Southerners called them with admiration and sympathy, to differentiate them from the criminal prisoners.
We slept on the sidewalks, but none of us felt bad about that. We were next to other people in the same situation. We talked all night, some crying, others laughing. I hugged my two children, fanned the mosquitoes away and dozed off occasionally. The images of my husband coursed through my brain: he was talking, he was smiling, he was starting to tear up.
After this momentous trip and all the shocks during the journey, I was stricken with typhoid. All my hair fell off, and I left my last instructions to my foster sister and asked her to take care of my two children. I thought I was never going to see my husband again.
Nine years later, on the first anniversary of my father’s death, he suddenly stepped into our house. I almost fainted out of happiness, and hugged him closely while I wept with abandon. He laughed out loud:
“This dear wife is only good at crying! Come on, you must now prepare to send your husband to America! Ha, ha!”
My sisters from Đà Lạt rushed down to visit us. We had just finished commemorating the death anniversary of our father, but the entire house was joyful. Naturally I was the happiest! Happiness had come back into my hands. I embraced this source of happiness, and would never let it go far away again.