Nationalist in the Viet Nam Wars: Memoirs of a Victim Turned Soldier

Preface

xiii Pr eface In my early childhood, “war” was one among the first abstract words I learned before I could have the least perception of its meaning. It was when World War II began. When I was a little older, I saw how war brought death and destruction when AmericanbombersattackedsomeJapaneseinstallationsnearmyhometown .Butitwasthe wars in my country after 1945 that resulted in the greatest disasters to my people. Particularly, the 1955–75 Việt Nam War has been the most destructive in Việt Nam history and the most controversial in the United States as well as in many countries in the world. The debate seems endless, the arguments contradicting. Before and since April 1975, there have been conferences, teach-ins, books, reports , and movies about the Việt Nam Wars after 1945. I realized that many of them contained incorrect and insufficient information, one-sided and superficial arguments , and erroneous figures. There have been conferences held outside Việt Nam aboutthewar,butamongmanyhundredsofparticipants,therewasnotasingleVietnamese from either side. Besides, most books in English about the Việt Nam War were written by presidents , ministers, congressmen, generals, scholars, journalists, or U.S. fighting men, not by common Vietnamese who were victims and participants of the wars, who saw the wars from the bottom, not the top, and from inside, not outside. Most of these individuals can’t write well even in Vietnamese, let alone in English. Many who are fluent in English would prefer to do something else rather than write about wars. Only a few works by pro-South Việt Nam writers can be found in bookstores and libraries in the world, whereas the communist regime in the North spent great effort and a hundred times more money than South Việt Nam to inundate foreign libraries with its propaganda publications. The voice of the nationalist Vietnamese was rarely heard by the world outside, and they were slandered and humiliated without the fair opportunity to defend and tell the truth. The nationalists in South Việt Nam did not spend much of their taxpayers’ money for the costly propaganda operation, as the communist North Việt Nam did. AsamemberoftheSouthVietnameseRepublicArmedForces,Ihaveanobligationtocontributemylittleparttotheprotectionofthehonorofourmilitaryservice men and my fellow nationalists. The Vietnamese nationalists, the Republic of Việt Nam (South Việt Nam) and its armed forces were the undeniable entities representingalargesegmentoftheVietnamesepeopleandtheirwishes .Theydeserverecognition in world history, however good or bad they were. I was just a nobody in Việt Nam, only a common person of my generation in the two wars. I was serving the South Việt Nam Army with all my heart, but I have not contributedanythinggreattomypeoplenortomyarmy.Ihaveneverstrivedtomake myselfouttobeahero,andIhaveneverbeenone.I’vedonenothingimportant,either good enough to boast about or bad enough to write a book to justify. This is not an academic study, so there are no lengthy references. I only compiled my experiences from my memory concerning the conflict between the procommunists and the anticommunists to write these memoirs with my best effort at honesty and impartiality. It is my great hope that these stories might give a little more insight into the very complicated ideological conflicts in my country, into how the many millions of Vietnamese noncommunist patriots like me were fighting in the wars, and why we believed we were on the right side. Truthful and sufficient perception of events in history can be attained from common people’s personal experiences and stories, not only from what the big wheels of the time were doing or saying. These memoirs were written not to nourish wartime animosity but to help the coming generations, particularly those of Vietnamese origin, have a clear look into what life was like during the wars that killed millions of my dear compatriots and left the country with the scars that deeply divide the Vietnamese people. I also would like to touch upon the roots of the war begotten from social traditions , nature, and conception, without which a deep understanding could hardly be achieved.Therefore,Igointodetailsatsomepointstohelpclarifytherelatedaspects orcircumstancesinquestionandconstructtheoverallviewofthewarsasIsawthem. So please read them with patience. These memoirs are based mostly on facts and events I experienced as a child and as a young man that are imprinted on my memory, although I did not try to remember. I could not understand many of them during the early years of my life. But as I was growing older and my general knowledge developed, I recollected each of them and found the explanations by people around me and even by myself. Other experiences came later in my life. During my time serving...