CHAPTER 17

SAIGON

AN UNWELCOME TANGENT

APRIL 1985

It was near the end of Saigon’s hottest month of the year—April—when my English professor came to me and said, “Phuc, the youth conference is seeking confirmations for this year’s festival, but I cannot send in your registration until you complete this form.” As I looked at him, a resentment burned inside me that rivaled the blistering conditions outside.

The conference he was referring to was an international recruitment and reeducation gathering for students held every four years by the Revolutionary Communist Youth League. The “form” would be my official consent not only to attend the festival but also to join the organization and support its cause.

“But sir,” I explained, “I do not wish to be part of the Communist Youth League. And I do not wish to go to the conference.”

“Kim Phuc,” he said, his expression grave. “If you do not take these steps—completing your formal registration, attending the conference, agreeing to this cause—then you may not continue your studies. Your schooling will end. What is more, you are not just wanted as an attendee but also as a participant. You are to speak on a panel against war.”

I wanted to be known as an excellent student, which meant I must pledge allegiance to communist methods. Well, if that is what was required, then that is what I would do—on the outside, anyway. In my heart? I still abhorred that way of life.

In Russia’s capital city, I joined delegates from more than one hundred countries, all of whom had come together under the banner of socialism, disarmament, and peace. My days were filled to overflowing with speaking sessions, one-on-one interviews, and panel discussions regarding war and its effects. Following each encounter, people applauded my remarks, came forward to meet me, and asked for my autograph. In those moments, I felt like a superstar.

I could not help but flash back in my mind’s eye to a conversation I had had in Saigon just a week before with a small group of classmates I knew fairly well. We were sitting in the classroom, but when our professor did not show up, we went outside to a grassy area and began to chat.

“Nobody will ever want to be his girlfriend,” one of the girls in the group was saying, to which the others giggled and shook their heads.

“No way!” the others agreed.

“Who are you speaking of?” I asked the first girl.

“Oh, Vu. You know, the boy with the scar.”

Vu was a handsome, intelligent young man in our class. The first time I had met him, I immediately noticed a scar on his right hand—we are always quick to spot in others those things that trouble us most, are we not? It was the smallest of scars—from a pocket knife, I surmised. But there it was, permanent proof of his imperfection, a lasting flaw that marred all else about him that was right.

“Who would ever want to hold that hand?” the girl was saying, even as I drifted far, far away, lost in tormenting thoughts. Oh, if she only knew of my own scars. What would she say about me?

For three days after that conversation, I could not eat. I could not study. I could not sleep. I could not talk. I could not smile. Even though I was a Christian, I was not mature enough in my faith to understand how to stand up against feelings such as these. Nobody would ever reach out to me. Nobody would ever care. Nobody would ever find me beautiful. I was hopeless, and helpless, and cursed.

Who would want to hold his hand, with that terrible scar?—I replayed that comment again and again in my mind, changing the pronoun and multiplying the scar.

Who would want to hold her hand, with those terrible scars?

Who would want to hold her hand, with those terrible scars?

Who would want to hold her hand, with those terrible scars?

The words were a lyric I could not get out of my head, no matter how hard I tried. Each time the dirge floated through my consciousness, it was joined by my mother’s well-intentioned advice to me: “My, you must devote yourself fully to CaoDai, to our religion, if you hope to live apart from loneliness. It is to be your only companion, my child, for you will never marry in life.”

Will I ever make peace with my wounds?

As the festival came to a close, the organizer informed me that I had been officially invited to remain in Moscow for four weeks longer—“a vacation, of sorts,” I was told. That monthlong extension gave way to another, and then another after that. During those months, I was carted all over the country, stopping in no fewer than fifteen states—Vladimir and Ryazan, Tula and Bryansk, Orel and Lipetsk and Kursk—in order to sit for television and radio interviews with Russian broadcasters, journalists, and photographers, all of whom were greatly intrigued with my tale.

To this day, I have no idea what I actually said in those sessions. I did not understand a single syllable of Russian, my translator was stone-faced at best, and although the entire experience was cloaked in hugs and smiles, pats on the back and post-interview feasts, the one and only reason I was there was for the sake of propaganda. These people were cut from the very same cloth as the leaders back in my homeland. I knew better than to believe their motives were pure.

This went on for seven full months, with one lengthy interruption. As winter came to Moscow, my scars began to wail, a setback that caused my Russian minders to take action. “We shall temporarily move you to Sochi for rehabilitation.”

The following day, I boarded a flight bound for Sochi, one thousand miles from Moscow, where I would remain for the next eight weeks.

The accommodations at the rehabilitation center were even more elaborate than those in Bonn. This was no medical facility; it was a hotel, a spa, a resort. Flanked on the east by the Black Sea and on the west by the Caucasus Mountains, Sochi was part of the Caucasian Riviera, one of the few places in Russia with a subtropical climate. I was sure I had found utopia.

My days in Sochi ran like clockwork, a rhythm I came to adore. Each morning, I would be treated to a breakfast of pastries and a bottomless pot of tea. A driver would arrive and take me up the mountain to the hospital for my daily sulfur bath. The sulfur smelled awful, but it was effective. I would emerge from those baths, and attendants would slather medicated cream all over my wounds. Then I would be driven to a restaurant for an indulgent afternoon meal before returning to my hotel room for a two-hour nap. Dinner was another elaborate affair before I retired for the night.

Two things happened during those two months in Sochi: My scars temporarily stopped aching, and my body got fat. Eventually, the only thing that fit me was the hotel-issued robe! Thankfully, the Russian government generously offered to buy whatever I needed, and I added to my wardrobe from the nearby shops.

Today, being sequestered for seven months in a foreign country for politically self-serving purposes would be considered by many as outright abduction, but for me, back then, nobody seemed to mind. Who was going to stand up to the whims of the communist government? Who would risk their own livelihood to intervene? I figured that upon my eventual return to Vietnam, I would just pick up my schooling where I had left off. For now, I had to admit: This treatment was pretty nice.

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When I finally returned to Saigon, I had missed four months of school; my classmates were preparing to enter the second semester of our sophomore year. I knew it would take a lot of hard work on my part to catch up with them, but I was up to the task. My professors were not convinced, threatening to kick me out of school.

“You have missed too much, Kim Phuc,” they said to me. “It is hopeless for you. You may not come back.”

Holding back the tears that were rising up from deep within, I said, “But I must come back. How else am I to survive?”

It was true. I relied on my student status. Everyone enrolled in university in Vietnam received weekly coupons for rice, and without that aid, I would have nothing to eat. Although student housing was available, I made arrangements to stay with my “adopted” aunt, Sau Huong, who had been taken in by our family during the war so many years ago.

“We will see what is possible,” my professors said, securing a special dispensation for me to re-enroll in school. “But you will have to begin again as a freshman,” they clarified. I was not pleased with that change, but at least I was still a student. I would befriend this inferior plan. And it did work, for two undeterred months. But then Tay Ninh came calling again, this time with unbelievable news. “You are going to go to the United States, Kim Phuc. We have work for you to do there.”

Fear and frustration tangled themselves into a knot in my stomach. “The United States!” I shouted at him, without thinking how this powerful man could easily ruin my life at that moment. “I do not know what this ‘work’ is that you speak of, but I will not be going on this trip.” I was so angry that I spat my words.

It seemed my Russian publicity tour had been so successful that Vietnam wanted to raise the stakes. If my story generated such high interest in Europe, they reasoned, just imagine the response in the United States! The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in America’s capital had been dedicated less than three years prior, and it was as if the nearly sixty thousand names etched into its granite wall beckoned another entire generation toward confusion and embitterment over their country’s seemingly senseless involvement in our civil war. By trotting me out as a childhood victim of war, communist leaders in Vietnam could leverage those feelings of discontent and garner greater support for their way of life. The Communist Youth League did not need to be relegated to eastern countries; why not recruit members in the West? I was the best magnet to draw others to their cause. They knew this, and so did I.

My mind raced. I am so weary of being manipulated. But I did enjoy being treated as a celebrity in Russia. I was a bundle of contradictions indeed.

In the end, I knew what I needed to do. With fresh resolve, I looked at the Tay Ninh official and said, “Sir, please understand what I am saying to you. I cannot fulfill this request to visit America because I need to finish my school. I am already far behind, and each week that I am away from Saigon sets me back even more.”

The official looked at me with a weary expression. “Kim Phuc,” he said, “you are different. Do you not understand this by now? Your scars make you different. You are the only one who can do this work. You must obey your government at once.”

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My “work order” had originated in Hanoi, and as soon as Tay Ninh’s provincial officials completed and submitted my paperwork to the capital, I would be on my way. I did not know how long I had—perhaps a few weeks at most. It was the only time I can remember wishing for my country’s bureaucratic red tape to be multiplied instead of reduced.

“More days, Lord,” I prayed during the next three sleepless nights. “Give me more time. And please, show me the path to take.”

I stewed for those three days before the thought hit me: I had an ally on the inside—Bac Dong. Although he and I had never discussed politics during our many lengthy and deep conversations, the time had come for me to beg his assistance in escaping the clutches of his minions’ tight grip. I reached for pen and paper and began crafting my heartfelt plea.

“I have only one wish,” I told him, “which is to study and thus create a future for myself, so that I can succeed, so that I can live free.” And in order to do that, I explained, I needed space. I needed a quiet space without distractions.

I decided to deliver the letter myself, to make sure my request reached him.

The following morning, an acquaintance told me that a low-level official from Hanoi had flown into town to pick up a ministry vehicle and drive it back to the capital.

I got in touch with the official and boldly asked if I could ride along with him. “I have no money,” I explained, “but I do have important business in Hanoi.” Would he have mercy on me? In the end, he took not just me, but two other passengers as well, neither of whom I knew.

The trip took a full week. We only traveled during the day, when the driver could see and navigate the rutted, war-torn roads. The car had no air conditioning, so when temperatures soared above ninety degrees, we stopped to sit in the shade, dip our feet in a nearby stream, and catch our breath.

During those roadside conversations, I was cordial but did not give my companions any details about why I was going to the capital. The less they know, the better. I wanted neither to put their lives in jeopardy nor sabotage my own mission. I never knew the reasons those fellow sojourners were making the trip either.

I do remember those long hours staring out the backseat window of the car, watching Vietnam’s beautiful countryside pass by. Under any other circumstances, I would have lost myself in those purple-flowered hills.

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Within an hour of our arrival in Hanoi, I contacted one of Bac Dong’s aides, handed over the letter, and expressed its urgency. “Please,” I said to the aide, “please make this task a priority.”

By midafternoon, I received an invitation to the prime minister’s residence for dinner. My request had reached his ears.

I greeted Bac Dong with a warm embrace and asked after his family and himself. He invited me to sit down. “Kim Phuc,” he said, “who helped you to write the missive I received?”

“Nobody helped me!” I answered him truthfully. “I prayed about what to say and then labored over every word myself!”

He eyed me with fatherly pride. “Well, it was very well done, my child. Every one of my staff members who read your letter cried. I cried as well. I wish to help you, Phuc. We will find a way.”

For ten days, I waited in Hanoi for an answer from Bac Dong. What “way” would he be able to find for me? How would he help me fulfill my dream?

Evidently, word of my upcoming trip to the United States had reached administrators at several universities in New York, each of whom stated via the press that if I would like to attend their schools, they would welcome me, free of charge. Oh, how my heart soared over this news! If I could attend school—at no cost to me—I would happily travel to the States.

When Bac Dong finally called me in to reveal his plan for my immediate future, I was still elated. “Three universities!” I beamed. “Might I give one of them a try?”

Bac Dong still oversaw a communist operation, and to release me to a free land would be something he would never live down. “Kim Phuc,” he said, dismissing my idea with a wave of his hand through the air, “I have already determined a way for you both to leave Vietnam and to continue your studies.”

I perked up. I was leaving—leaving Vietnam for good? I could become a full-time student again? My dream . . . it was coming true?

“Your plane will leave in the morning. You will resume your schooling in Cuba, my child.”

I had no idea where Cuba was, but based on Bac Dong’s information, it was located outside of Vietnam. Truly, that was all I needed to know.