Children of Hope: The Story of Le Minh Dao

Children of Hope: The Story of Le Minh Dao PDF

Author: Michelle Le Chen

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Published: 2022-03-30

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1665555033

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Major General Le Minh Dao was the Commander of the 18th Infantry Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). At Xuan Loc, he became the ground commander during the final Battle for Saigon. A highly respected officer, known for his dogged determination, he held off the North Vietnamese for three weeks in April of 1975, before the ultimate fall of Saigon on April 30th. Dao was captured and spent 17 years in so-called “re-education” camps, before being released in 1992 and then given political asylum in the United States in 1993. In Children of Hope, The Story of Le Minh Dao, Michelle Chen, one of Major General Dao’s nine children, tells her father’s tale, through audio tapes recorded with him in his later years. In addition, the story of the rest of her family’s escape to freedom, through her own recollections and those of her mother and her oldest sister, is relived. The thoughts of two American military colleagues of her father conclude a moving firsthand account of life in Vietnam before, during and after the Fall of Saigon, a world event that touched so many lives.

Children of Hope the Story of Le Minh Dao

Children of Hope the Story of Le Minh Dao PDF

Author: Michelle Chen

Publisher:

Published: 2022-06-05

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Michelle Le Chen was 7 years old when my father was incarcerated in 1975 after the fall of Saigon on April 30. My mother spent the next 17 years working for my father's release. The rest of my family escaped from Vietnam in 1979 - 80, with most of us settling in Virginia after six trials.

Hope for the Children of War

Hope for the Children of War PDF

Author: Bach-Thuy Le-Thi

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2014-08-06

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 9781500323363

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As the war in Viet Nam neared its end, thousands of children were left in the orphanages around the country. Many were of mixed race, which was considered a disgraceful heritage; they faced lives of abuse and servitude if the communists succeeded. In addition, children around the country were suffering from heart conditions that required medical treatment only available in other countries. Le-Thi Bach-Thuy grew up in Viet Nam during World War II and the years and wars that followed. She became a social worker with Partners Aiding Children Today, helping pediatric heart patients obtain care in the United States. She also worked with Friends of Children of Viet Nam (FCVN), helping with the documentation and placement of orphans with new families abroad. She adopted two children of her own while helping raise her sisters' families and care for her mother. Her second adopted child, a son, joined her family in March 1975; just weeks later she put him on the historic World Airways flight that brought 57 orphans to the United States and inspired the creation of Operation Babylift. That program went on to rescue another 3,300 orphans within just a few short weeks. With no foreseeable means of escape herself, Bach-Thuy stayed in Saigon helping care for the orphans streaming into FCVN Center and finding ways to get her daughter, nieces, and nephews to safety in the United States. As more and more cities surrendered to the communists, she feared being left behind when her American colleagues were evacuated. She would be viewed as an enemy by the North Vietnamese and likely imprisoned or killed for her work sending children out of the country. Thanks to the help of her friends, she was able to escape just days before Saigon fell. Yet her story does not end there. Her life and work in America continued to focus on assisting and supporting Vietnamese refugees as they adjusted to their new lives, helping them learn new trades and get their papers in order. The 40th anniversary of Operation Babylift in April 2015 has brought new attention to this forgotten piece of Vietnamese and American history, and Le-Thi Bach-Thuy's story is an amazing, emotional, personal account of life in Viet Nam in those years. Her life, work, and spirit are indomitable.

An Unknown Journey

An Unknown Journey PDF

Author: Dao Huynh

Publisher:

Published: 2008-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9781432730833

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Growing up in a family of ten children during the Vietnam War despite the economic disadvantage, Dao wants to go abroad to study a new culture, and new advance industrial technology in the hope of changing the family hardship, and to show her rebellion against her mother's unspoken rigid rule. Dao believes that if she does well academically she'll have a scholarship for an education abroad to fulfill her dream. She surrounds herself with a group of selected friends, Thuy, Ha, and Linh, who have the same goal in life, mentally supporting her to reach to her goal. She dreams of going to a country that will provide her a better life of freedom that she can make her own choice in any circumstance without the guilt of disappointing her parents, or the people that she lives among. But her plan is dramatically changed right after the Saigon Fall, her Father was sent to the re-education camp a hundred miles away from home in the mountain area away from his family, and his comfortable, familiar life.Dao gets accepted into the college of her choice in spite of her father's background with the own regime, condemned by the current communist government. Is there a light at the end of this tunnel? She is young and naive about the outcome of war, she's optimistic about her future with the new regime. What is it that she is so bound to the call of a better life ignoring the possibility of dying at sea, and throwing away her very first accomplishment with the new government system in her home land? Is it her adventure-mind or the wish of her father that she takes an Unknown Journey to America to conquer again all the odds to live the life she wants to live. But then, the most important reason of the journey-the freedom to live as she wishes-hasn't turned out the way she wants. She's still bound by the duty and the responsibility to her family. Especially, she's still bound by her old rigid moral code instilled in her, so which choice does she have? But, an unknown journey never ends.

Vietnamerica

Vietnamerica PDF

Author: GB Tran

Publisher: Ballantine Group

Published: 2013-05-01

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 0345544498

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A superb new graphic memoir in which an inspired artist/storyteller reveals the road that brought his family to where they are today: Vietnamerica GB Tran is a young Vietnamese American artist who grew up distant from (and largely indifferent to) his family’s history. Born and raised in South Carolina as a son of immigrants, he knew that his parents had fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon. But even as they struggled to adapt to life in America, they preferred to forget the past—and to focus on their children’s future. It was only in his late twenties that GB began to learn their extraordinary story. When his last surviving grandparents die within months of each other, GB visits Vietnam for the first time and begins to learn the tragic history of his family, and of the homeland they left behind. In this family saga played out in the shadow of history, GB uncovers the root of his father’s remoteness and why his mother had remained in an often fractious marriage; why his grandfather had abandoned his own family to fight for the Viet Cong; why his grandmother had had an affair with a French soldier. GB learns that his parents had taken harrowing flight from Saigon during the final hours of the war not because they thought America was better but because they were afraid of what would happen if they stayed. They entered America—a foreign land they couldn’t even imagine—where family connections dissolved and shared history was lost within a span of a single generation. In telling his family’s story, GB finds his own place in this saga of hardship and heroism. Vietnamerica is a visually stunning portrait of survival, escape, and reinvention—and of the gift of the American immigrants’ dream, passed on to their children. Vietnamerica is an unforgettable story of family revelation and reconnection—and a new graphic-memoir classic.

Grass Roof, Tin Roof

Grass Roof, Tin Roof PDF

Author: Dao Strom

Publisher: HMH

Published: 2003-01-07

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0547972830

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A Vietnamese family flees its war-torn home and resettles in California, in a novel that offers a “brilliant exploration of exile, loss, and identity” (Robert Olen Butler). Told from multiple perspectives and spanning several decades, Grass Roof, Tin Roof begins with the story of Tran, a Vietnamese writer facing government persecution, who flees her homeland during the exodus of 1975 and brings her two children to the West. Here, she marries a Danish American man who has survived a different war. He promises understanding and guidance—but the psychic consequences of his past soon hinder his relationships with the family, as the children, for whom the war is now a distant shadow, struggle to understand the world around them on their own terms. In delicate, innovative prose, Strom’s characters experience the collision of cultures and the spiritual aftermath of war on the most visceral level. Grass Roof, Tin Roof is “an affecting study on the slippery nature of home” (Los Angeles Times). “[Strom] explores the mysteries of loss, culture and identity, with skill, poignancy and imagination.” —Detroit Free Press

Making Two Vietnams

Making Two Vietnams PDF

Author: Olga Dror

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-11-29

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 1108470122

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Educational systems of the DRV and the RVN -- Social organizations in the DRV and the RVN -- Publication venues and policies in the DRV and the RVN and prevalent currents in publications -- Educational and social narratives through texts in the DRV

The Final Collapse [Illustrated Edition]

The Final Collapse [Illustrated Edition] PDF

Author: General Cao Van Vien

Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing

Published: 2016-03-28

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1786258692

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General Cao Van Vien describes the final collapse of the South Vietnamese forces in 1975 following the military U.S. withdrawl. “General Cao Van Vien was the last chairman of the South Vietnamese Joint General Staff. For almost ten years he worked closely with other senior Vietnamese officers and civilian leaders and dealt with U.S. military and civilian representatives in Saigon. General Vien is therefore particularly well qualified to give an account of the final years from a South Vietnamese standpoint. “This is one of a series of monographs written by officers who held responsible positions in the Cambodian, Laotian, and South Vietnamese armed forces.” Includes over 20 maps, tables and illustrations.

South Vietnamese Soldiers

South Vietnamese Soldiers PDF

Author: Nathalie Huynh Chau Nguyen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2016-03-21

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13:

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Published on the 40th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, this book brings to life the experiences and memories of South Vietnamese soldiers-the forgotten combatants of this controversial conflict. South Vietnam lost more than a quarter of a million soldiers in the Vietnam War, yet the histories of these men-and women-are largely absent from the vast historiography of the conflict. By focusing on oral histories related by 40 veterans from the former Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, this book breaks new ground, shedding light on an essentially unexplored aspect of the war and giving voice to those who have been voiceless. The experiences of these former soldiers are examined through detailed firsthand accounts that feature two generations and all branches of the service, including the Women's Armed Forces Corps. Readers will gain insight into the soldiers' early lives, their military service, combat experiences, and friendships forged in wartime. They will also see how life became worse for most in the aftermath of the war as they experienced internment in communist prison camps, discrimination against their families on political grounds, and the dangers inherent in escaping Vietnam, whether by sea or land. Finally, readers will learn how veterans who saw no choice but to leave their homeland succeeded in rebuilding their lives in new countries and cultures.