[Memoir] THE FINAL DAY OF MY HUSBAND'S LIFE

[Michael Lee]

http://www.mpce.mq.edu.au/~tran/viet/vnwar/le_van_hung

THE FINAL DAY OF MY HUSBAND'S LIFE

April 30, 1975

By Pham Thi Kim Hoang (General Le Van Hung's wife)
Translation by Tran Thi My Ngoc and Larry Engelmann

*

My husband was stationed in the Delta in Can Tho in the spring of 1975
where he was vice commander for Military Region IV (MR IV) under General
Nguyen Khoa Nam.

In March, when the North Vietnamese Army attacked Ban Me Thuot, I was in
Bien Hoa. My husband contacted me during the battle and he told me to
move to MR IV. He said the Communists would march on to MR III[Which
included Saigon] from Ban Me Thuot and he did not think that MR III would
be able to resist them. It was because of that I moved to MR IV with my
husband.

My husband knew all along that the American government would abandon us.
He knew it. He had no faith in them.

I had our two small children with me at Bien Hoa at that time. And my
husband told me that I had to hurry and move to MR IV because the National
Road 4 linking Saigon with the Delta would be cut soon because Saigon and
Bien Hoa would be lost to the communists for sure.

So on the 2nd of April 1975, I left for Can Tho by car. I stayed in a
house near the corps commanders headquarters in MR IV.

After the fall of Ban Me Thuot, General Pham Van Phu (Commander of MR II
where Ban Me Thout was located) was isolated and he couldn't accomplish
anything. And the same is true for General Ngo Quang Truong in MR I(the
area including the northernmost provinces of South Vietnam and the cities
of Danang and Hue). He could not do anything at all. As for General
Nguyen Van Toan in MR III (the area around Saigon) and Cao Van Vien, the
chairman of the Joint General Staff, my husband had no faith in them and
he did not trust them. One need only to look at Toan's character and his
military life experience and one just can't have any faith in a man like
that or have any hope in that person.

My husband knew that Saigon would fall because after the loss of the other
two regions, MR I and MR II, because there was no able leadership left in
the military. Seeing who was in charge in Saigon, he concluded that
Saigon could not hold out. So, military and political survival meant
retreating to the MR IV region and establishing an enclave there, but
even that could not hold out for long all alone.

To tell you the truth and be fair, in 1975, the number of people in the
South who were really honest and who were ready to fight against the
North Vietnamese was negligible and very few of the country's leaders
could be trusted. There were some members of the Hoa Hao, for example,
who came to my husband and expressed their willingness to fight against
the communists. They asked my husband to provide them with arms and
ammunition. My husband, however, was unsure of their reliability and he
suspected there might be treachery by this group once he gave them
supplies.

Then, on April 21, 1975, President Nguyen Van Thieu resigned and handed
over the government to Mr. Tran Van Huong. I remember still the worlds
of Mr. Thieu. "Losing a President Thieu, the military still has a
three-star General Thieu. The people still have a soldier, Nguyen Van
Thieu. I pledge to fight side by side with my brothers, the soldiers."

Thieu's announcement moved me very much. But then his words became
meaningless when the high-ranking commanders, who directly ran the working
machinery of the government and the military, ran away to seek safety for
themselves and their families and friends and at the same time abandoned
their own countrymen just as we were being caught up the final bloody
hurricane of the war.

News of the loss of MR I, II and III arrived in Can Tho. We learned that
there were places where no fight took place, important places abandoned to
the enemy. Yet there were also a few places where intense and determined
fights were waged to the last man. But too often the losing troops ran for
their lives like a colony of ducks being hunted. The army became confused
and demoralized. President Thieu, Prime Minister Tran Thien Khiem, General
Cao Van Vien, ran like scared rabbits and left the country to others.
So,
who was left to fight? The soldiers who remained watched their
commanders flee. Who was left to lead them? The soldiers began to
whisper among themselves, "For all of these years we have been fighting
for our country or have we been fighting for a horde of corrupt
individuals?."

Without the commanding generals, the troops were like a snake without a
head, all broken up and in disarray. And there was this question: "If the
soldiers have no commanders, then what will happen?" The soldiers
started asking, "What do the generals know about fighting in battles? It
is the soldiers who fight and the generals who reap the benefits." Those
comments came from unhappy and dissatisfied elements and they were from
the point of view of observers who were like frogs sitting in the bottom
of a well --
they could see only a very small part of the developing situation.

When my husband heard that President Thieu had resigned and said he would
stay in the country, he knew right away that Thieu would flee from the
country, no matter what he said. And Thieu did. My husband also knew
that the whole Thieu administration would flee from the country and they
did. But my husband made the decision to remain in his country. And he
did.

How did my husband know these things? How could he predict? He could do
so by looking at the past activities of these people and looking at their
record. Everything was there -- the answers were all there already. They
lacked character.

When President Tran Van Huong resigned and as General Duong Van Minh took
control of the government, my husband knew that there would be no peace
settlement and that there would not be any last- minute agreement between
the North and the South. There were rumors of what General Minh might do
to stop the advance of the North Vietnamese Army. There were rumors that
he would arrest all of the generals in the army. But my husband was not
afraid of General Minh or the rumors like this.

Despite the chaotic situation in Saigon and in the nearby regions, MR IV
was relatively calm. And the reason for its calmness was because of the
calmness generated by the leaders of the region --leaders like General
Nguyen Khoa Nam and my husband.

As the leaders of the region, they decided not to flee, not to run away.
And therefore, the personnel under their command did not want to flee
either. There was, of course, a small number who did try to escape and
ran away. This is always true.

You need to know also that as soon as the central highlands were lost to
the communists, I myself made the decision that I would not leave the
country. My husband never asked me to leave and never told me to leave.
And I decided for myself even before then, that I would not leave because
I knew that my husband would never leave the country. And I made up my
mind to stay and die, if that should be our fate, together.

On the 29th of April on the radio Prime Minister Vu Van Mau and President
Duong Van Minh broadcast on the Voice of Saigon ordering all Americans to
leave Vietnam within 24 hours. It was at that time that the secret plan
for military operations by Generals Nam and my husband were finalized.

In those last hours of the Saigon regime, General Nguyen Huu Hanh, the
replacement for General Vinh Loc (Chairman of the Joint General Staff)
during the last day, made countless phone calls to Can Tho. He tried to
persuade my husband to cooperate with General Minh and to surrender. He
stressed the concepts of military brotherhood and comradeship.

But my husband suspected that he was merely examining the attitudes of the
two commanders of MR IV. Many times during his telephone conversations
with General Hanh, my husband was decisive and said that he would not
cooperate with Minh and he would not surrender to the communists and he
would fight to the death.

On April 30th, General Duong Van Minh surrendered the country to the
Communists unconditionally. Remember that General Duong Van Minh twice
destroyed (Minh headed the coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963
and ordered the murder of Diem and his brother) the country and had
stained its history and lowered himself down to sign his name to a
treacherous document that offered his country to the enemy. I heard Duong
Van Minh's unconditional surrender speech to the North over the radio.
When Duong Van Minh declared his surrender of South Vietnam to the
Communists a number of soldiers just left the military and went home.

But I remember now still the large number of officers and soldiers who
broke into tears when they heard the surrender announcement from General
Minh. They embraced the flag and they kept their weapons and they cried.

Prior to the surrender my husband and General Nam, made contigency plans.
They decided to stay in MR IV and fight. And even should Saigon fall,
they and their troops would withdraw into the secret hidden areas in the
jungles of the Delta region.

The plan to withdraw into the jungle areas was made before General Minh
surrendered. However, they were kept secret and only a very few people
knew about it. My husband and General Nam still carried out their duties
and continued to make plans for regular military exercises and
operations. The plan to retreat into the hidden areas was made and ready
to be executed at the proper moment. My husband and General Nam never
thought they would receive any military aid from the US Government. And
so in order to carry out their plans they never planned on it and they never
even considered it.

General Nam and General Hung were three times offered a chance to evacuate
by their American advisor. And they refused each of the three times.
They decided not to abandon their men and their country but to stay and
defend it to the death. Their American advisor continued to prod them,
but finally he left in desperation and in sadness.

The plan for a secret operation in the Delta was now ready. Weapons,
ammunition and food were prepared. All was readied for the troops to be
directed and redeployed in new zones. The plan of moving the troops was
code named Operation LINKING HANDS.

Military Region IV had good strategic points and an army there could
continue the fight alone for a long time. By the 29th of April there was
not a single stronghold in any remote part of that countryside or any town
that had yet fallen into the hands of the NVA or the VC.

But in Can Tho, in the early morning of April 30, 1975, people were in a
confused and frightened state. What led to the collapse of morale in Can
Tho was that there was an infiltrator from the Communists in the radio
station and instead of broadcasting the order of General Nam, that
everybody was supposed to stay put and fight, they broadcast the message
from General Minh telling everyone to surrender and to lay down their
arms. So people became disoriented and didn't know what to do and many
became pessimistic. Some of the military people deserted. Right in the
town the saddest scene of chaos took place. Some criminal elements seized
the uncertain occasion to loot the properties of the American offices and
buildings and disregarded the warnings shots of the police who tried to
maintain order and safety. The civilians fled. Some people were
paralyzed by fear and they sobbed and screamed and other people looted and
destroyed like a bunch of madmen.

There must have been a number of fifth column people in the crowd who
tried to create disorder and to terrorize the people and to destroy the
morale of the soldiers.

The plans for Operation LINKING HANDS were kept secret and only a few
close staff members of my husband and General Nam were aware of them. The
other people under their command were not told of the plan because there
existed at that time an atmosphere of mistrust among the officers and
others in the military.

The withdrawal was planned to begin at noon on April 30th, 1975. The
troops would be withdrawn into the secret hidden areas of the jungle at
that time. However, before that time, my husband gave the orders to begin
the troop redeployment to the colonel who was chief of the security
office. The colonel was supposed to relay the orders to the troops but
this colonel delegated this direct responsibility to his captain and then
took off with his family and fled the country. And so what happened to
that captain? Nobody knows? He just disappeared too. He left. His
commander fled the place so naturally he did too. But we did not know that
yet.

The order to begin Operation LINKING HANDS was issued. But then when
contacting the commanders of the units in the area, we found out that they
did not know anything about the plan. They had not readied their troops as
they should have done in the morning. When we tried to locate the colonel
who was in charge of distributing maps and orders for the secret
redeployment of the troops, we realized that this officer had taken his
family and ran away after passing the duty to his captain and the captain
had disappeared right on the heels of his commander. And all of the
maps and the orders for the Operation LINKING HANDS had disappeared with them.

General Nam and Hung were filled with anger, frustration and
disappointment. Their feelings cannot be described adequately with my
words. As for myself, I cannot help but cry today when I remember the
torn expression and the pain and the disappointment that showed on my
husband's face at the moment when he realized that the plan to fight was
hopeless. The lines of veins appeared in his forehead and his teeth were
clenched. He expressed his deepest and utmost inner pain upon hearing the
news of the treachery.

He pounded on his desk. The careful and well-arranged plan was now
suddenly foiled because of an act of betrayal and cowardice.

My husband lifted his eyes to look at me and he said, "Victory is what we
have always aimed for. But what if we fail? Then what do you want to do?"

I responded, "Then we will all die. Our children do not want us to be in
the hands of the communists either. I will stay with you. I will not
abandon you in this moment of disappointment."

And to deflect the possibility of being captured and falling into the
hands of the enemy, I methodically and calmly planned for the death of my
children -- the final rescue of all of us.

A small number of pessimistic people who who only thought of themselves,
and who did not want to fight, were there. But the others, who were close
to my husband and to General Nam, those who were trustworthy, stuck close
by and said they would follow the generals' orders.

Let me tell you about this thing first. My husband and General Nam
planned all their military operations from their headquarters building.
My husband divided this place into two sections. One was where General
Nam planned the military events. And the other section my husband
designated as the secondary headquarters. It was to this place that my
husband called me to tell me of the betrayal by his colonel. And as soon
as he heard of the betrayal he developed new plans and discussed them with
General Nam.

At 4:45 PM that day my husband left his office at the corps headquarters
to return to the headquarters office where we lived temporarily. The
reason he returned home on that day was because there was a rumor that the
representatives of the communists would come in and sit down with General
Nam to demand his surrender and to ask him to sign over the troops and the
region. My husband did not agree to this. And he did not want to witness
this event and so he returned home. He did not wish to witness the
shameful transfer between 2 star General Nam and the Major Hoang Van Thach
of the Viet Cong.

At 5:30 PM my husband radioed to General Mach Van Truong to order him to
deploy two units of tanks to protect the Command Office of the 21st
Division. After that he contacted other troops that were still fighting
in various other nearby areas. At that time, alongside national road
number 4 from Cai Lay and My Tho to Long An, there was heavy fighting
going on. Along this route, fighting continued until May 2nd, 1975. Very
heavy fighting.

My husband called a meeting of his officers for 6:30 that evening. But at
6:30 when all these officers had arrived at the gate there were also ten
townspeople already standing there waiting.

They asked to meet with General Hung in the name of representatives of the
people of Can Tho. They then made their request. "We know that General
Hung will never agree to surrender. But we beg of you not to
counterattack. With only your order of counterattacking, the Viet Cong
will shell the town. Can Tho then will be destroyed completely, just like
the ruins of An Loc [which General Hung had successfully defended in
1972]. Please, for whatever the fate of our country is as such, please
General, for the sake of the people and their lives, please put away your
daring and proud spirit." They said that it would be better to accept shame
and to bear shame than to go on fighting, killing and dying.

Listening to them, I felt both pain and discomfort. I was not surprised
at their request because just one week earlier, the Viet Cong had shelled
heavily in the area of Can Doi, creating a great loss of life and
property. The people of Can Tho were still horrified that the same thing
would happen to them.

My husband was expressionless as he listened to their request. It took a
long time and he forced a smile and replied, "Please be at ease. I will
try my very best to minimize the loss and damage for our people."

When this group left, my husband turned to me and said, "Do you remember
the story of Mr. Phan Thanh Giang? When three eastern provinces were
lost, he had to bend himself to let go of three more western provinces to
the French because of his care for the people. He could not bring
himself to make the people suffer and he could not let himself lose his
proud spirit or his hands in surrender, for this act would bring shame to
his country and his soldiers. He then went on a fast and took poison to
end his life.

"I would rather die than to have my hands tied and watch the invasion of
the Vietcong."

Because the people came forward to make that request and said they were
the representatives of the local population of Can Tho, my husband could
not refuse them. They made the request on behalf of the people themselves
and not on behalf of the communists. They made the request as the people,
so my husband did not want to hurt them and so he decided to honor their
request.

At 6:45 PM General Nam called my husband to check the situation in various
places. My husband told Nam of what the representatives of the people of
Can Tho had requested. Hung also let Nam know that the newest secret
order would be given to a trusted person to be distributed.

General Nam said to Hung that he had recorded a message to the people of
Can Tho and the message would be broadcast by the radio channel in Can
Tho. One more time there was a failure. The channel of Can Tho was taken
over one hour before by the infiltrators. The director was threatened
into broadcasting the message to the people of the Vietcong Major Hoang Co
Thach instead of General Nam's message. They broadcast Thach's message
first and ten minutes later they broadcast Nam's. But it was too late.
It was impossible to regain the trust of the civilians and the soldiers
then. More men deserted.

My husband had one major worry. He worried about the safety of me and of
our children. And he asked me what I wanted to do about all of this.
Deep in my heart I had made the decision that if my husband and his troops
were to withdraw into the secret hidden places in the jungle, then my
children and I would not go with him.

I had made a decision also I would kill myself and my children so that my
husband would not carry this burden, this worry, that would divide his
attention away from fighting. The reason I wanted to do that was because
I knew that during the time the troops were moving to the jungles, no
doubt, fighting with the communist forces would take place, therefore as
soon as the troops were to be deployed to the places that were set up and
began the march and the withdrawal, then at that time I would take my life
and my
children's lives, and this way my husband would not be distracted from his
responsibility and his duty to defend the country.

I did not want us to be an added burden on him and on his.

I am a Catholic. And I know that Catholicism forbids taking one's life,
but you must know, that there are exceptions to the rule. For example, to
kill oneself for one's country, and for one's military forces, that is
acceptable. I did not change my mind. I did not change the decision of
killing myself and my children, but what happened was at that time, when
the plans for the withdrawal into the jungle collapsed, my husband thought
of killing himself. I wanted to die with him. The children and I
wanted to die together with him. At the beginning I did not tell him of
my plan of killing myself and the children, but at that time, when the
plans for withdrawal collapsed and my husband talked of killing himself,
we discussed a plan of dying together as a family. But my husband
disagreed with my decision. He did not want me to do that. To tell the
truth, in the beginning, my husband agreed with my plan that the whole
family would die together. I would inject the children with sleep
medication and then I would inject myself with the same medication, and my
husband would then shoot himself. But when the time came, my husband
changed his mind and he did not want me to die nor the children. But he
wanted to go ahead with his own plan to die.

At 7:00 PM my husband called me up to his office. We were alone. He
recounted for me all the failures since the afternoon and up to that
minute. Then, looking at me with his fiery eyes he told me slowly and
gravely that he was going to kill himself. And he said, "You have to live
to raise our children." I panicked. "Oh, my husband! Why did you change
your mind?"

He said, "Our children are innocent. I could never bring myself to kill them."

"But we could not let them live with the communists. I will do it for
you. All I need to do is to give them a very strong dose of sleeping
drugs. Wait for me. We will all die at the same moment," I begged him.

"Impossible! Parents cannot kill their children. I beg you, Hoang,
please try to bear this shame. Try to live and replace me to raise our
children into good people. Try hard to live, even if you have to bow and
to bear a heavy burden of shame."

"If this is for the children, for your love of the children, then why
can't we leave for a foreign country like the others?" I asked him.

He narrowed his eyes and with a severe look at me said, "You are my
wife. How could you utter those words?"

Knowing that I was clumsy with my words and had said the wrong things that
disturbed him, I hastily repressed my excuses. "Please forgive me, my
husband. It's only because I love you so much that I said these words."

His voice was so calm and so serious. "Listen to me. People can run away
but I will never run way. There are thousands of soldiers under my
command and we have lived and died together. How can I at this minute
abandon them and seek life for myself? And I will not surrender. At this
moment, it is too late to withdraw into the secret places because we do
not have the supply of weapons, ammunition and food, therefore, we will
not be able to
withstand the enemy for long. It is too late. The Vietcong are coming.
Don't let me lose my determination. Continuing to fight now will only
bring trouble and loss not only to our family but to soldiers and
civilians also. But I don't want to see the sight of any communists."

I shakily asked. "But what about me? What should I do?"

Holding tightly to my hands he said, "Our marriage has been full of love
and respect and that makes us understand each other. Please try to
tolerate this, even though you will have to bear many shameful and
disheartening things. Go in disguise, change yourself so you can stay
alive. I trust you. For myself, for our children, for the love of the
country, you must bear it. Listen to me. I beg you. I beg you!"

I could say nothing before his gaze and his bittersweet words.

"Yes, my husband, I will listen to you," I promised him.

But he was afraid that I would change my mind, so he continued to press
on. "Promise me! Promise me that you'll do it!"

"I will, I promise. I promise to you, my love. But please let me have
two conditions. If the communists make me live away from the children and
if they rape me. Then do I have the right to take my own life?"

My husband thought for a moment and then nodded his head in agreement.

He stood and embraced me and wept. Finally he said, "Hurry up and ask
your mother and the children to come into see me."

When my mother and the children came into his office, he said goodbye to
them and kissed the children. He explained to my mother why he had to die
and why I had to live. Then obeying his command, I invited all of the
officers and soldiers who were still present for their meeting to go into
his office. Everyone lined up and waited for the new orders.

The atmosphere was so solemn and yet so moving. This was the moment of
saying farewell between the living and the dying of people who had fought
closely together for so many years. My husband said that there were no
new orders to go to the hidden places to fight back. The fighting was
finished for now. He said, instead, "I do not abandon all of you to take
my wife and children to run away overseas. As you all know, the operation
failed
midway, and I did not counterattack because of the people. Now I cannot
bear the shame of surrender. You all have cooperated with me and when you
did something wrong I told you. But when I scolded you, it is not because
I hated you. I scolded you because I wanted us to come and to help one
another.

"Even though our country is being sold out, being offered to the
communists today, you are not to be blamed. It is those who directly
held the fate of the country in their hands who are to bear the blame.
Please forgive me my mistakes if I have made any.

"I accept death. A commander who cannot protect his country, his
position, then should die at his position for his country. He cannot
abandon the people and the country and seek safety for himself. When I
die, go back to your families, your wives and your children.

"And remember clearly this, my final warning: You must not let the
communists put you in a concentration camp under some deceptive pretense.

"Goodbye, my brothers."

General Hung saluted and shook hands with his men one by one. When he came
near Major Phuong and Captain Nghia, he said, "Please help my wife and
children. Goodbye."

Everyone stood still. Nobody was able to say a word.

My mother rushed over to him and asked to die with him. My husband
comforted her and asked her to look after her grandchildren. He then
ordered everyone to leave. No one wanted to move. He had to push them
out one by one.

I then pleaded with him, "My love, please let me stay to witness your
death." But he refused. Captain Nghia ran away. My husband returned to
his office and locked the door.

I heard a loud shot from the other side of the door. A terribly loud
shot. It startled me.

It was 8:45 pm, April 30, 1975. It was the final day of Vietnam. The
final day of my husband's life. Someone said, "General Le Van Hung was
dead!" I thought, "Oh, my husband, you are no more!"

When I entered the room my husband lay across the bed. His warms were
open wide and he was still trembling hard, his whole body shook in waves
and convulsions. His eyes were wide open and filled with anger. His
mouth was open and his lips were moving. I threw myself at him and
embraced him. I knelt beside the bed and put my ear to his mouth while
asking, "My love, my love. Do you have anything else to say to me."

But he could no longer answer me. I held him in my arms and he died there.

General Nam was unaware of my husband's suicide. When I tried to call him
on the radio I could not get hold of him because the frequencies were
jammed by the communists who were broadcasting.

I don't know exactly where General Nam was at that time. I just did not
know. But I tried to call him on the radio and I tried to locate a
frequency where I could connect with him. He was probably a mile or so
away from where I was at that time. And my husband did not tell me or did
not leave a message for me to contact General Nam and to tell him of his
death. But I just wanted to tell General Nam, I just wanted him to know.

My husband did not talk to General Nam about killing himself because at
that time, on the 30th, during the day, there were some contacts between
them but later in the day they lost contact with each other and he
couldn't communicate with General Nam. And besides, my husband did not
commit suicide until the Communists invaded the town of Can Tho.

At about 1:00 AM the phone rang again. This time it was General Nam.

"Hello, sister Hung?" he said.

I cried when I heard his voice.

"General Nam!"

Nam's voice was filled with sorrow. "I heard the news of what happened,"
he said. "I share with you the sorrow. My condolences, sister Hung."

I continued to sob.

I asked General Nam what he planned to do.

I heard him sigh on the telephone. And then he said to me words that I
will never forget until the day I die.

"The fate of this war is so miserable. Sister Hung, your husband and I
planned everything so well, even to the most minute details, and in the
last moment we were betrayed.

"That's it, Sister Hung."

Then his voice went down and was again full of sorrow.

"Hung is dead. I guess I will die, too. We are commanders and if we
cannot protect our country, then we have to die with it."

Then his voice came back to its former calmness and strength.

"Try to be brave, sister Hung. You have to live because of your kids. If
there is anything urgent or dangerous then call me."

"Thank you, General," I said.

After my talk with General Nam, I stepped out onto the balcony and looked
to the courtyard below. The officers and soldiers were all gone. The
gate was open. The wind moved the doors making a noise that was sad and
tragic. I just stood there and cried for a long time.

The next morning at 7:00 I had just finished my prayer for my husband's
soul when I heard a sob behind me. Turning around, I saw Lt. Col. Tung,
the chief of staff of the military hospital in Can Tho. He had come to
visit my husband one last time. He told me that he had to return to the
hospital right away because General Nam had just committed suicide. His
body was still in the hospital. General Nam ended his life by shooting
himself in the temple at 6:00 AM, May 1st, 1975.

After our phone conversation, I had a premonition that it would happen,
that he would kill himself. However, when Tung gave the news, I was
still shocked. I knelt down facing the military hospital where he lay and
I prayed for his soul.

The people of Can Tho knew me and would have pointed me out to the
communists so I had to leave Can Tho on May 2nd for Saigon in order to
protect myself and my children. I stayed at one major's home, he knew my
husband, but I stayed there for only one night and then I had to go find
another place to live, because nobody was willing to house me because they
were afraid, and I also was afraid for them if they housed me and
something happened.

During the next years in Saigon I had to change my residence countless
times, I had to change my residence up to the time I left the country,
which was in September of 1981. Why were few people willing to help me
even though my husband a hero? You have to live in a communist society to
know. How could they help me? After all, if they helped me they would be
dead. They would be blacklisted by the government, they would be
punished. Therefore I had to be on the move all the time.

The children stayed with me most of the time, but whenever the search by
the Communists got too close, I would give them to my mother to care for
and until things calmed down and then they would live with me again.

I got little help also because not many people in Saigon knew that I was
the wife of General Hung. I hid that fact from everyone. During the
period of 1975 to 1981 I had no idea of committing suicide, but if I was
captured by the Communists, then I would have to die, I was willing to die
in a brave manner and not be tortured nor would I lose face nor would I
hurt my husband's honor.

During that time period who could be happy? I could not be happy. Who
could ever be happy living under Communist rule? In the aftermath of the
war, in the first few years, my hopes were still high and I was hoping
that there would be a coming back, a return, because there was news and
rumors of the resistance forces fighting, and I never thought of leaving
the country. I was still thinking and hoping that the communist would be
booted out of the South. However, as time went on and I recognized that I
knew that the situation was not as rosy and advantageous to us, to the
South Vietnamese people, I decided that the only way to be able to do
something for the country was to leave the country and then go overseas
and maybe from the overseas base I would be able to affect the situation.
There was no way I could become an activist in Vietnam because they were
always following me, like a shadow. They followed me that close. They
followed me day and night.

When my husband was alive he never told me to leave the country nor did he
have the idea of leaving the country. But at night, in my dreams, when my
husband came back and he told me the communists were near and that I
should flee again and so he saved my life so many times.

I left Vietnam finally by boat. I was in a refugee camp with children for
11 months in the Philippines. Then I came to the United States.

Besides freedom, I wanted to make a life for my children, to raise them
and to continue to follow the path of my husband. I tried to do as I
promised my husband before he died.

I dream about Vietnam all of the time. For sure. It is in my mind and it
is always with me. Yes, I do. I always dream about being back in Vietnam
and being chased and being hunted down by the communists. And my children
can still remember their father.

General Le Van Hung and General Nguyen Khoa Nam are dead. But their
spirits, their heroic spirits, will not die. I will always remember and
honor them.