3 November 1984

HOW CAN I TELL you the story here of Vu Van Hieu? It is long, complex, a story of woe, a story of courage. Late at night Bobby used to visit him in his cubicle in the old bunkhouse. Hieu would be sitting on the edge of his cot, chain smoking, staring fixedly at the cover of a closed dictionary, concentrating, seemingly absorbing the content by the power of his focus. Bobby would sit, maybe smoke a cigarette with Hieu, maybe say nothing for a while. Then they would talk about Viet Nam. Hieu told Bobby about his war, thirteen years in the ARVN, ’62 to ’75, about his imprisonment. “They say, ‘You come for three days. Three-day reeducation seminar camp.’ They keep me for three years. They keep me much longer but my wife’s father have some money to bribe the guards to let me escape. If I stay, if I not escape, I would not be alive. Sometime for two month they put me in a steel CONEX. You remember the steel CONEX box. My ankles in iron shackles. Eat only one bowl of rice each day. Two cups of water. You read report from the Aurora Foundation. That report has pictures of the CONEX they put me in. You know, they tie our elbows together. Lock us in under the sun for two month straight. Most men die. I can see all my bones because I have no muscle left. When the guard say, ‘Okay, your wife pay. You can escape tonight,’ I cannot go. I cannot stand up. I cannot crawl. I have no skin on the back of my leg, only scab. When I move they break. I cannot escape for three weeks until my wife’s brother come and carry me.

“Then I hide. All Viet Namese people suffer food shortages. Some say America has blocked everybody from giving food to Viet Nam. But why does Viet Nam need anyone to give it food? My country grow food for many millions more people than it has but the communists won’t let us grow food. No one want to work for the communists.”

Hieu seldom talked about himself to other vets. But he talked to Bobby, shared with Bobby his deep sense of shame for having left Viet Nam, his profound desire to return. “It take me nine time to escape Viet Nam. Nine time I bribe this official, that official, this boat captain, that river watcher. Eight time they catch us. Once they send me back to the seminar camp where they work people who have no more money for bribes. They starve them and work them until they die, then they throw them like cherry pits into the jungle.

“The communist always know when someone trying to escape. They always know how many to let be successful, how many to intercept. Half of my people die at sea. These boats very small. Just coastal fishing trawlers. Maybe one hundred people on one boat. No one can move. Some baby born on boat next to some old woman crapping or some old man seasick. Many boats sink. Many attacked by pirates who kill the men and children and take the young women.

“We should have fought the war different. We try to fight on fronts while the communists terrorize our rear areas. We should have fought that way too but LBJ say, ‘No Sir.’ If he said, ‘Okay,’ in 1965, there would be no CONEX boxes, no seminar camps, no pirates, no refugees.

“In Thailand I take classes in English and in American accounting practices. My wife die. My children in Viet Nam with their grandfather. You help me write to Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick at UN. You help me write to President Reagan. Because you are a citizen they must listen to you.

“Bobby, you help me go home. Someday—you hear my words—some motherfuck day, we go back and kick ass. Then I come back here with my children and my wife’s family and my children get American education. They think I’m Eastern! Bullshit! I am fundamental American values.”