Escape to America

After the fall of Saigon, a Vietnamese family started planning to flee Communist rule. After several failed attempts, they succeeded. One of the children, David Truong, a 1996 UD law grad, has published Escape to America: A Family Memoir. The following excerpts recount the imprisonments of his oldest brother and of his mother.

The warden threw Tuan into solitary confinement. … The prison off icials waited until late at night to begin interrogating Tuan. They gave my brother a pencil and a piece of paper to write his confession. Tuan provided the same name, rank and serial number that my mother gave her interrogator: We came to Go Cong to learn how to fish and live a new life. When prison officials didn’t like the statement, they ordered my brother to start over. Tuan provided the same, adding a few details about his daily life in Go Cong to make it more believable. Not good enough. Start over again. With each redo came punishment for not doing as directed. 

The guards would tie Tuan to a chair and place him atop a 4-foot-high table. One of them picked up a metal pole, thick as a broomstick — not to strike Tuan, but to target the legs of the chair. With a swift blow, the chair toppled sideways, first slamming into the table, then crashing to the floor. Tuan had no way to break the fall. His arms were bound behind him, leaving his body helpless against impact.

It became a sadistic game — how many ways could they send him crashing down, still tied to the chair? Each fall carved new aches into his body. His joints throbbed, his muscles screamed. But the physical pain was only part of it. The deeper torment came from not knowing if the next fall would shatter a bone or snap his neck. 

By the third night, Tuan was near his breaking point. But for reasons unknown to this day, the guards didn’t return him to solitary confinement. Instead, they dragged him to a larger cell housing several other detainees and dumped him in the middle of the floor.

A former South Vietnamese paratrooper stepped forward and crouched beside him. His hands — scarred, hardened, shaped by war — examined Tuan’s injuries. Then, without warning, he slapped Tuan hard across the face, sending him sprawling back onto the concrete.

“It’s becoming a game for them to torture you,” the paratrooper said.

“Don’t yell, and they’ll stop.

“Next time they beat you, no matter how bad it hurts, keep your mouth shut. If you don’t, I’ll beat you myself when they bring you back.”

The following night, right on cue, the guards came again.

Write your confession.

Fishing ... looking for a new way of life ...

Back in the chair. Up on the table.

Crack. Thud.

The chair hit the ground — followed by silence.

Before, Tuan cried out in pain. This time, not a sound.

In a nearby prison cell, a mother’s prayer was answered. Tuan had found the strength to endure.

And the beatings stopped.

When David’s mother is imprisoned, she meets two sisters, close to her children’s ages.

Dinh and Dao stayed close together and kept to themselves. But they welcomed my mother’s hand of friendship without hesitation. The three soon huddled together when the days and nights grew long. My mother would tell them the same fairy tales she had once told her children to lighten their mood. She assuaged their fears by giving the sisters hope — when you are afraid, it just means you are ready to be brave. 

Hours of conversation later revealed Dinh and Dao’s back story. Their family hailed from the small shrimping port of Yam Lang near the Mekong Delta. They had a loving mother and two protective, capable older brothers back home. The family trade was shrimping and making shrimp paste. …

People from Yam Lang and Saigon share little in common. But Dinh and Dao’s family shared one thing in common with us; they were part of the Rebellion. … Most telling, they had no love for the Communists. …

A seemingly unremarkable event galvanized the friendship between our families. The three were sweeping the streets outside the gates when my mother came across tattered pages of an old Reader’s Digest. Flipping through the magazine later that evening opened Dinh and Dao’s eyes to a whole new world. Beautiful, orderly homes in an advertisement. Happy families in cars. Kitchens with food for months and machines that cook food in minutes.

Welcome to America. The land of opportunity. Home of the free.

My mother played the tour guide, and the sisters hung on to every word.

New York has tall buildings.

California, beaches and sunshine.

Texas, steaks and cowboys.

There are schools everywhere in America. You can learn to read and write, sing and play music, or even learn to drive your car. You can become a nurse, a doctor, or a schoolteacher. … You are, above all, free.

For days, the questions kept coming.

How far away is America?

Have you been there?

Do you want to go?

My mother trusted the sisters with her answer.

We tried but got caught. They took our boat. But we will try again.

“We have a boat,” the sisters said at once.