Katherine Kersten: What happens when America leaves? Just ask S. Vietnamese

By Katherine Kersten, Star Tribune

Last update: October 10, 2007 – 7:39 PM


The day Saigon fell -- April 30, 1975 -- Lt. Col. Lam Tran gathered his stunned and despondent soldiers and distributed his little money among them.

"My heart broke down," says Tran, who now lives in the Twin Cities. "I told them, 'Go home to your families. Now we must all fend for ourselves.'"

Minutes later, a bone-shattering explosion shook a nearby house. Twenty of his men had detonated their grenades inside and blown themselves to oblivion. "They were so ashamed," recalls Tran. "They knew it didn't have to be this way."

Tran, who led airborne assaults in jungle fighting, had worked closely with U.S. soldiers since the mid-1960s. (Tran asked that his real name be withheld to prevent reprisals against family members still in Vietnam).

But in 1973, the United States withdrew nearly all of its troops from Vietnam, and in December 1974 Congress cut off vital military aid. Five months later, Communist forces overran the country.

Today, Tran watches the U.S. debate over Iraq with an eerie sense of familiarity. Like many of his countrymen here, Tran says he fears for Iraqis if America abandons them -- as it did his nation -- before they are self-sufficient.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have tied their fate to us as soldiers, police officers, translators, security guards or government officials.

While North Vietnam's victory brought fear and privation across the country, South Vietnamese who had worked or cooperated with Americans suffered most. The Hanoi regime imprisoned 1 million people in "re-education camps," where about 165,000 died of malnutrition, abuse or execution.

Prisoners' families also endured severe retaliation. The regime refused to give them ration cards. Many peddled cigarettes or combed through dumps to survive. Their children's education was restricted, and wives were often compelled to marry Communists or become their mistresses. To escape, more than 500,000 desperate "boat people" risked pirate attacks and a watery grave.

Tran lost his freedom, his family and almost his sanity. Initially, authorities told him that he would be in prison for 10 days. He emerged 13 years later, a gray shadow, hollowed out by starvation rations and backbreaking labor.

One experience illustrates his ordeal. During his fourth year in prison, Tran and four fellow inmates bribed a prison guard to get a radio to listen to the Voice of America. After an informer betrayed them, they were sentenced to six months in a "disciplinary lock-up."

Tran's isolation cell was barely big enough to lie down in, and had one tiny window. He was shackled. He subsisted on a daily cup of water and ball of boiled flour that guards pushed through the window. His days were spent largely in darkness. "In the morning, you can see your legs like balloons -- if you stand up, you see the fluid trickling down to your feet," he recalled.

After two months, Tran began to go blind. Carried out for his monthly shower, he whispered to friends to ask a doctor, a fellow prisoner, what to do. A note came back: "Eat whatever you can find."

Tran had one choice -- cockroaches. "Every day after that, I enjoy myself," he said. "I look into the latrine and see what's crawling up." Each time he ate a cockroach, he made a mark on the wall with its fluid. At his release, he counted more than 1,600 strokes.

When he finally emerged from his cell, Tran learned that he was the only one of the five who had not gone blind. The cockroaches had saved his eyes, he says, and perhaps his life.

Tran was released from prison in 1988, only to discover that his wife had remarried and fled the country with their two young daughters. In 1994, he made his way to America as a refugee.

Today, "Americans are saying 'enough bloodshed in Iraq,'" says Tran. But few can imagine the nightmare that will follow if we abandon those who have trusted us, he warns.

Are Iraq's jihadists as brutal as South Vietnam's Communist conquerors? They may be worse. When Iraqis hear American politicians threaten to pull the plug, they must shudder at the prospect of rule by men who send suicide bombers to primary schools and video themselves beheading opponents.

Katherine Kersten • kkersten@startribune.com Join the conversation at my blog, Think Again, which can be found at www.startribune.com/thinkagain.