Like so many, Quan Van Nguyen's parents fled with their two sons and daughter from Hai Phong in 1954. He was 4, the youngest, and enjoyed the adventure like children do. But the trip wasn't for his parents; having to leave everything they had built behind. Running for their lives. 

Taking the long train ride with few possessions to Saigon as Ho Chi Minh began punishing or driving out all of the Vietnamese people who sided with the French rather than his communist agenda. A young couple with nothing but their youth and their willingness to work, to fish, to make their way in life, prosper. 

By working hard doing menial work for rich Saigon patrons, they saved enough to buy their own fishing boat again that they lived on and made a living on while their last child, a girl, was born. Working as a family, they soon were able to buy a small house by the fish market so that Quan, 7, could go to school. 

Quan's older brother and sister stayed on the boat, not wanting to go back to school while making money. Fishing was good in the warm south waters and they prospered.

Quan excelled in school. He not only loved mathematics, outshining his fellow students, he was interested in language, learning both English and French as well as how to read and write Vietnamese well. When the Americans came, he took every opportunity to talk to soldiers who would put up with his questions. Learning about them and their way of speaking English. He admired their bravado and wanted to be like them, a soldier, too.

From what Quan had learned from his parents, his peers and the news, the Vietcong and the Communists in the north under Ho Chi Minh, needed to be forced back north or they would overtake the whole country. And that would be very bad, very bad, indeed.

At 17, Quan graduated from high school with honors in 1968. At war since 1963, all able men were required to join the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the ARVN. He took a test that the military provided to see whether he was qualified to go to college. The test proved that he was and that he scored the highest in mathematics. Eager to become an officer, Quan was allowed to take the officer training test that earned him a military education at the famed Dalat Officers School, the equivalent of West Point in the United States. 

After the Tet Offensive, the war was really ramping up and the Americans were deep in the fight. From the 22nd class of Dalat in 1965 on, the ARVN were so in need of trained officers, they had two classes, an A class of two years and a B class of four years. The thought among the students and their instructors was, the more training, the less bloodshed. Quan was eager to go to battle with the Americans so he chose class 25A. making First Lieutenant when he was only 19. He chose to go with the Infantry and was put in charge of a platoon of 20 men

Quan's older brother had served his time in the ARVN, reaching the rank of corporal and, along with his older sister, returned to the boat and became partners with his parents. His younger sister went to nursing school. Nurses were in high demand with so many war casualties. Fish were needed to feed the Army and his family on the boat profited, both with fishing and side businesses like ferrying goods and people.

Quan was immediately placed in charge of a platoon engaged in the day-to-day skirmishes in villages north of Saigon where they were routinely helicoptered in and out. Finding very few Vietcong in those villages when they arrived. Quan was particularly adept at learning from the tight-mouthed villagers who were often too afraid to help very much. It was hard work, and sometimes, very dangerous.

There were booby-traps and Vietcong disguised as villagers. Worse, children and women indoctrinated to carry a grenade or a larger bomb into a group of soldiers. Quan escaped that kind of surprise more than once by spotting it before it happened. He and his platoon were safe and he was promoted to more responsibility, at least up until March, 1975, when the People's Army of Vietnam, the PAVN, launched an all-out offensive that couldn't be stopped. By that time, rapid promotions had made Quan Captain in charge of a company.

Quan's company retreated to the city to regroup. But they didn't. Command was in disarray. Troops in his charge deserted. They all went to find their families. He found his family ferrying people out to US ships waiting offshore for big money. Saigon was rapidly falling apart during April and finally fell to the Vietcong and PAVN on the 29th. Quan had just left his family's boat to get back to his company reforming to make one last stand. He removed all of his captain identification on his uniform that he could and put it in his pockets. Unfortunately, he was still wearing his uniform and was easily spotted by the Vietcong in the street who weren't wearing any uniform.

Quan was carrying his US issued .32 caliber pistol, but they were carrying the preferred AK-47. The three were even barefoot and amazed at what Saigon was compared to what they had been told. Saigon was a primitive village of animal-like people in the mud. Instead, they found a beautiful city with paved boulevards lined with majestic buildings and residences. Markets with more food than they had ever seen in their lives. Seeing their prize hurrying through the street, they grabbed Quan from behind before he could pull his pistol and took him to the PAVN headquarters set up in a confiscated mansion where he was detained with others.

Quan was immediately interrogated. And when he couldn't provide them with any information, they thought useful, they tried some beating and a bit of torture. But they soon gave up when they found out that he was just a leader of soldiers and not a general. Kwan apparently didn't know anything of any value.

The Commandant in charge of prisoners like him declared that they needed to send soldiers like Quan to the North to get "reeducated." The prisoners were told that it would not take very long and if they were well behaved and learned quickly how to become good communists devoted to Ho Chi Minh, they would be back home, here in the South, within a "week or two." Quan didn't believe it.

But, when Quan learned that it would be easy for him to become "part of the victors," he volunteered to go. It seemed better than other options. While secretly knowing that he would never bow down to Ho Chi Minh or insert after motivation prostitutes the dogma of the communists. It would just be an easier way for him to avoid being a prisoner for a long time, at least he thought.

Quan was wrong. He was packed with many others on a train headed for Hanoi at a snails' pace, the track was so bad from war damage. He and the prisoners were not given any water or food for a trip that took nearly a week as the cars swayed and bounced along.

Some prisoners died from thirst, starvation, beatings or the heat. Unlike their captors, some of these officers at office jobs and had not been hardened by the war to accept being deprived and to survive such conditions.

Quan was well hardened by his daily work in the field, but even he thought he wasn't going to make it to that wondrous reeducation camp that the Commandant had told him about. He feared he would never be able to return to Saigon and his family again. His mouth was parched and dry. The heat was stifling. But, the psychological strain was worse than the physical pain. Quan endured.

When the train finally arrived in Saigon, the Hanoi Hilton was already full of US aviators and so were the other nearby ramshackle prisons and education camps where the Americans held were separated from the Vietnamese. Quan was given some food and water, mostly just rice with worms in it, and ordered to walk while tied to others by rope far from Hanoi into the mountains where the Vietcong had holed up, fighting the Hmong earlier.

Quan had heard of the minority group, Hmong, but had never seen them. As they passed villages he saw them with their strange decorative clothing. They looked different, too, more like Chinese. When he was in command he had learned from the Americans that these people were fierce fighters. Guerrilla fighters in the mountains and deep forests. Helping the Americans put pressure on the Vietcong there.

He was also finding out how different the terrain was, getting higher all the time. With narrow trails and no place to grow food, just vast vistas of other mountains sometimes in clouds. He began to wonder if he would have anything to eat there at all. He ached from hunger and the long walk, but fortunately, there were many streams where they could get cold crystal clear water.

Sleeping was hard because the jungle around them was filled with wild animal sounds and very frightening in the night. But he knew it was mostly birds from his experience in the jungle in the low lands. But not as many bugs as there, something he appreciated. But it could get cold some nights. It was hard to stay warm.

When they got to the camp, not far from a monastery, they were put in bamboo cages. The regimen was simple. In the morning they were rousted out at dawn, forced to sit in the dirt, or mud when it rained, and lectured on the principles of communism and following Ho Chi Minh who they would have to declare allegiance to before ever being declared, "Reeducated."

The hope of one or two weeks that the Commandant had promised turned into months and years. Those in charge of the camp were starving and had to rely on the monastery and the nearby people for food. Sometimes, there was plenty with fresh fruit, rice and vegetables, even spices. But mostly, there was just rotting vegetables and rice to be had from the poor people that lived nearby. Mostly, Vietnamese that were forced out of Hanoi in 1954, eking out a meager living. Only able to live in the area because the monastery helped them learn how to farm, forage, and hunt so they could sustain themselves. Secretly dreaming of leaving the country, but there was no feasible way out for them.

The Vietcong Captain in charge of the camp was just as eager to get back to Hanoi as his jailers and prisoners. As time moved on, after about two years with no help from Hanoi, he let the prisoners, after morning indoctrination, go out into the surrounding forest and forage for firewood, fruit, flowers, roots, mushrooms, tubers and other forest food that the local villagers also sought. Quan found that he had to go deeper into the forest every day to find anything that others had not already found.

But one day as he followed the others leaving the camp, he saw a young woman above the trail smile and wave at him in a motion that told him, "Come here." Since he was free to roam, he scrambled up the bank to where the woman was. The others did not see him.

Linh Chi Le's parents, like most of the others, had been forced out of Hanoi like Quan's parents in 1954. But instead of going south, they had to retreat to the mountains where they found the monastery. The monks saved them from starvation and they gathered in villages around the monastery for mutual support.

But they could not hold back the fierce Vietcong. Some even collaborated and they had to tolerate Vietcong activity like the reeducation camp in their midst. Her parents were teenagers when they came. They married and had four children, two boys and two girls. Linh Chi was the youngest.

Mountain living was very hard. Linh Chi's parents died at a young age leaving her siblings and her to fend for themselves when she was only 15. The people of the village were a close group. Marrying any of them would cause problems. The few their age were just inadequate. did not want to marry any of the Vietcong or the Hmong either. Who they thought were inferior because of their sometimes violent, wild ways.

Linh Chi and her sister still dreamed of marrying and having children to help support them one day. Even though some of the monks wanted to have sex, they resisted them. They were not monk chasing prostitutes like some of the girls.

Finally, Linh Chi hatched a plan that she didn't even tell her sister about. She had observed the prisoners going by every morning. One was tall and very educated looking. She fell in love with him just by seeing him walk by every day. Finally, she got up enough courage to wave and summon him. To her surprise, he came, climbing up through the brush, to greet her. She felt her heart beating in her chest in anticipation. She blushed.

Quan saw the love in her eyes and rose in her cheeks as Linh Chi, without saying a word, held out her hand to take his. She led him along the trail to where she had made a bed of grasses for them. She was wearing a rough woven cloth shirt and pants, but nothing underneath. Quan could not believe how beautiful she was with a little mole on the right side of her cheek that was a beauty mark. Her eyes were blazing as she let him remove her top and began touching her all over.

Quan could not even believe what he was doing. He never dreamed of a woman like this. Thoughts of the camp disappeared from his mind. She shuddered under his touch and he was gentle as he could be, while at the same time, eager. He had a bit of experience with prostitutes in Saigon, but had never been in love. This was so different, so pure, he succumbed to his urges.

Linh Chi cried out and bled when he entered her. And it didn't take long for him to release his tension. Afterward, he held and kissed her gently while she cried she was so happy. But he knew he had to come back to the camp with something every day or he would be punished.

So, Quan left her that day while thinking of her all day long, all the way back to camp and all through the night as he tossed and turned until daybreak and he knew he would see her again.

For about a month, every day, Quan would make sure that he was the last one in the line of those going out into the forest. Each prisoner wanting to be first in line on the trail to find something by being first to find it. Then, he would fall back when he came close to where Linh Chi was. He would climb up to the higher trail and go to her lair that had become theirs.

And then one morning, the captain of the camp announced that everyone was returning to Hanoi. All of the prisoners were declared, "reeducated," and they would be going back with them. They packed up and left. Quan did not even have time to tell Linh Chi what happened.

Linh Chi waited that morning and Quan did not come. She was heartbroken. Hoping against hope, she came again the next morning and found that he didn't come that day either. But when she returned to the village she found out that the camp had been evacuated and all of the prisoners had left. She cried for many days after that and told her sister, the only one that knew of her tryst.

Fortunately, part of the reason the camp was evacuated was a Chinese initiative against Ho Chi Minh and he needed all of his troops to fight them off from Hanoi. When the Chinese came to the village, they gave the villagers food and allowed them, even helped them, escape north to China with food and passage. Linh Chi, her sister and her brothers, along with others, walked many days for two months, helped by many Chinese families along the way. Finally, they reached the coast where they were able to get boat passage to Hong Kong. They arrived at a refugee camp set up by the British there.

Along the way, morning sickness and the older women told Linh Chi that she was pregnant. She was very happy that she was having Quan's boy. She knew it was a boy in her heart. Before long, the family learned where they would be able to immigrate to--Germany. It wasn't long after that they were sent to Germany on a plane.

When they got to their assigned city, Berlin, Linh Chi and her family worked menial jobs until they got tired of the German food. There were few Vietnamese there and no Vietnamese restaurants. Three years after they arrived, they pooled their savings and opened a Pho restaurant.

In the meantime, little Van Quoc Le was born and spoiled by the others who had no children. Linh Chi's family had all of the Vietnamese in Berlin coming to the restaurant and were surprised how many Germans loved the traditional noodle soup, too.

They prospered and the others got married: Linh Chi's sister, to a German businessman and her brothers to Vietnamese women who also joined them working at the restaurant.

They soon were able to buy a larger building and the family lived upstairs in a very large two-story apartment. Little Van Quoc went to school at an early age and learned German, English and Vietnamese. Easily conversing with customers in their languages by the time he was four. Customers enjoyed his friendly antics. Providing them with eating entertainment. He picked up all the latest hit songs and danced while he sang.

Linh Chi marveled at her son's intelligence and she knew one day he would grow to be like his father. She longed to see Quan again, but knew it would never be. It was a difficult birth and the doctor told her that she wouldn't be able to have any more children. By having a child and running a restaurant, there was little hope that she would ever marry. But she was content with her son and her business. That was enough.

After reaching Hanoi, Quan, once again, had to take that train to get to home. They were starving and at war in the North, and wanted all of the prisoners to go south. This time, the trip was a bit easier. The tracks had been repaired more and the train ran faster. There was more food and water.

Quan arrived at a Saigon much different from the one he knew. It looked poorer and ragged around the edges. The once crowded streets of commerce were more barren than before. People stayed indoors and minded their business rather than get caught by the police who are everywhere making sure that people were behaving in the right communist way. After all, they were given free medical care and rice when they needed it, wasn't that enough for them?

When Quan got to his parents' home, squatters occupied it. But when he arrived at the fish market, people who he knew there told him that his parents had been fishing for the communists, while secretly taking people, a few at a time, out of the country as far as the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.

All he had to do, was help out in the fish market for food and wait until his parents' boat arrived. It was a month before they arrived and he found out that his father had died. Pulled overboard by a huge shark that took his hook and they couldn't save him because the line got wrapped around his wrist and the shark pulled him under and away from the boat where they never saw him again.

Quan cried for the first time in his life. But his brother told him that they had waited for him to come back, having pretended to be friends with the communists, providing them fish, while plotting to leave the country as soon as Quan returned.

They left the next morning. Throughout the boat that was very seaworthy, the gold that they had received from those they took to safety was hidden carefully in many places inside. Enough gold to make them wealthy.

Quan's father had already paved the way, by befriending, and bribing, Thai officials, so that they would have proper credentials to go to the United States. When they arrived in Thailand they didn't go to the refugee camp there. Instead, they went where their father had made the deal and received proper passage, along with Thai passports.

Selling the boat, they gathered up all the gold with each one carrying some so that they wouldn't be noticed, went to the Chase Manhattan Bank in Bangkok where they were able to sell the gold and set up an account for all the money in US currency, a substantial sum of $1,286,000. They made arrangements for the funds to be transferred to the US once they arrived there. The bank was most happy to accommodate them for a substantial fee. United States citizenship would be waiting for them when they arrived.

With first class tickets, Quan's family flew to Los Angeles. They thought that bustling Bangkok was a marvel, but upon arriving at Los Angeles they were stunned. The freeways made them dizzy as they took their first cab to a hotel in downtown LA.

From there, they toured the Vietnamese community and determined they didn't want to live there. All that Quan's older brother and sister wanted to do was continue a fishing business. So they continued on to a place where there was fishing--Kemah, outside of the city of Houston. Arriving there, they found what they were looking for. And were easily able to buy a home in Friendswood, very near the remarkable NASA Manned Spacecraft Center.

Quan enrolled in the University of Houston and with the transfer of this record from Dalat Officers School, was able to finish a mechanical engineering degree in two years. He was hired by Shell and began his career in the oil business. His younger sister, by the same token, continued her schooling in nursing, and became an RN after two yours. She began working in MD Anderson Cancer Center. She married an American, Ralph Wilson, one of Quan's coworkers at Shell.

During the oil industry downturn in 1983, Quan, with his brother-in-law, were laid off with little promise of being rehired. Ralph was a licensed professional engineer, so they established their own mechanical engineering firm and were soon, successful in bidding jobs around Houston.

Growing richer along with their family's fishing enterprise out of Kemah. In season, they were after redfish in the Gulf, shrimp and oysters. Before long, during off periods, they had enough money to travel.

First, they went back to Vietnam to check on old friends. Some, they sponsored to come to the United States. Some, they gave money to so they could start businesses. The communist regime had learned, though full of bribery and corruption, that letting free enterprise run was a good thing for the Vietnamese economy. Even tourism from those who had left and American soldiers coming back helped Saigon start to prosper again.

The family was also growing. Quan's brothers and sisters had children, but Quan had none. He was just too busy, first going to school, and then, running his engineering business to marry. When they went to Vietnam, he saw a lot of young women. But none of them seemed to measure up to what he remembered of Linh Chi. He watched for her everywhere he went, but never saw anyone as beautiful as he remembered her to be.

In April of 1990, the family planned a trip to Europe, taking a month to do it. First, they flew to London and after touring London, went to some of the historic places in the British Isles. And then, they flew to Paris, touring all the historic places there. They were surprised to find so many Vietnamese there and even found Vietnamese food if they wanted while sampling some of the French food as well.

The Berlin Wall had fallen a few months before, and Quan was intrigued with what was happening to the Soviet Union and Vietnam with communism failing to live up to its promises and the people eager to get back to business.

When they arrived, the family was glad that most Germans spoke English, unlike the French in Paris. Making it slow getting around the city and finding sites. The friendly Germans made it easy to get around in Mercedes taxicabs. While touring one day near the Brandenburg Gate, they were surprised, while walking down a busy street, to see a familiar sign in Vietnamese for Pho, in big letters above the large, three-story restaurant.

Curious, they decided to go there for lunch. As they approached the door the familiar aroma of the noodle soup reached their noses and they knew they were in the right place. Opening the door, they found it full of noisy Germans enjoying what they knew was a real treat and a substantial food source as well. They couldn't wait to try it out.

A Vietnamese girl led them to a large table and took their orders, some preferring beef, others chicken. Quan looked around the room and saw a woman at the cash register that seemed to be in charge of the place and was a bit familiar for some reason. 

While the family was in the midst of eating and slurping, the woman made a round of the tables to greet the customers both in German and in English. There were American tourists there as well. Her voice sounded familiar, too. It was a bit confusing until she came to their table to greet them knowing that they were Vietnamese tourists from America by their clothing and the children talking in English.

For some reason, she looked down to where Quan was sitting first, with her usual welcome, this time in Vietnamese. She was about to ask them if they were enjoying themselves when Quan saw that familiar face and the mole on her lower left cheek. He couldn't believe what he was seeing!

"Excuse me, could you be Linh Chi?" He stood up as he asked it looking more intently into the woman's eyes.

Linh Chi returned his gaze and a look of great surprise came over her face. "Quan! is that you! I can't believe it!"

She started crying and fell into his arms. Both of them shaking as they both began sobbing together. Not of sorrow, but of great joy. Everyone at the restaurant turned to see the commotion and some of the Germans started cheering. Even though they didn't know what the couple was saying, from their own experience greeting their relatives from the East the year before, they knew that great joy and joined in the couple's happy experience.

At first, Quan's family around the table was rather shocked at what was happening. But then, his brother and sister with them remembered him telling about the girl and looking for her when they were visiting Vietnam. They joined in the celebration and crowded around the couple asking questions.

Linh Chi told Quan, "Excuse me, but I have to show you someone. Can you wait for a minute while I go and get him?"

"Of course. I'd love to meet him. Is he your husband?"

"No." And she scurried off leaving everyone there, including the Germans, wondering why she left the party that was forming as some of the staff were bringing cake for everyone to share, free of charge.

In the back of the restaurant was the stairs leading upstairs to the residence they had above. It wasn't long before she came from the back of the restaurant to the crowd gathered around leading a boy by the hand.

When Linh Chi arrived back at the table, she announced, "Quan." She pushed her boy closer to him. "This is our son, Van, Quoc. Van, this is your father, Quan."

Quan bent down with his hand out as if to shake his surprised son by the hand, while Van looked up at him shyly, not really knowing what to do until he just reached up and hugged his father, the one his mother had been telling him about. All the other boys he knew had fathers around or had lost them during the wars. Now, he had a real father to tell them about. He couldn't stop hugging him.

Soon, Linh Chi put her arms around both of them and everyone cheered again.

The family stayed in Germany longer than they had planned and plans were made for Linh Chi and Van to be sponsored to come to the United States, while her brother and sister would stay behind in Berlin with their families because they had established themselves there and didn't want to come to the United States, although they could, and did, to visit.

Within a year, Linh Chi and Van arrived in Houston at the Bush airport where they were met with a huge crowd of Vietnamese who had heard the story. The local media was there and stories were broadcast on television that evening.

Mother and son soon received their citizenship. There was a big wedding that the family from Berlin was able to attend. Van went on to follow in his father's footsteps, taking ROTC at Texas A&M and becoming a Marine pilot after.

To say that they lived happily ever after would be an understatement. Coincidences like this, half a world away, don't happen very often. But the story ends here. No one knows how the family fared after that. Many immigrant Vietnamese, although they and their children did very well, longed for home, and eventually returned.

Copyright 2023 © Ronald W. Hull

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