by C. L. Hoang
The low-key wedding was prelude to a simple life we both had always set our hearts on. Not only did we recover from the war’s disruption, which had come dangerously close to derailing everything for us, but in time, with hard work and a lot of luck, we were able to realize many of our modest dreams. I opened a private practice in Lone Pine, where we worked side by side day in and day out, and we lived in our quaint little place not far from Moon Meadows and Debbie’s parents. Ours was an uncomplicated lifestyle in the shadow of our beloved mountains, surrounded by nature and wilderness as we’d always dreamed about. Thus tucked away in what Debbie called “our little corner of paradise,” we watched those early years of marriage roll by uneventfully, a sweet summer dream—if one were to ignore the clamor of war.
Which, at the time, was darned near impossible to do.
Television had introduced the war into America’s living rooms, and there it stayed, night after night, an unwelcome guest who refused to leave. No matter what the top news du jour—be it the first moon landing, the Yom Kippur War and the oil embargo, or even Watergate—the Việt-Nam Conflict remained in the headlines, solidly entrenched in our national consciousness, like a wound that could not heal. Seeing how confrontational and divisive the issue had become, I learned to shirk all contact and situations that might bring up uncomfortable exchanges about my service overseas. And Debbie, in her sweet, understanding way, would simply chuckle over accusatory grumbling within some circles that I had all but turned into a social recluse.
Meanwhile, the country was again plunged into disarray as events escalated out of control. News of the secret bombings of Cambodia sparked widespread antiwar protests that culminated with the tragic Kent State shootings and a massive student strike nationwide. Soon after, North Việt-Nam launched its 1972 Easter Offensive in blatant mockery of the ongoing peace talks, wreaking even more bloodshed and devastation than during Tết 1968.
On the heels of all this turmoil, the Paris Peace Accords were signed to great fanfare in January 1973. The treaty allowed invading armies of the North to retain their gained positions in the South, and dictated that the elected government in Sài-Gòn recognize and share power with the Việt-Cộng guerillas in the jungle.
It all became clear when in June 1973, only three months after our last troops had withdrawn safely from Việt-Nam, Congress voted to forbid further US military activity in Southeast Asia. For all practical purposes, we had reached the end of our collective rope and were simply giving up. With this peace agreement, we had bought ourselves enough time to pull our service men and women out of harm’s way before we completely washed our hands of South Việt-Nam. Without the warranty of US retaliation against future violations, the so-called peace treaty was not even worth the paper it was printed on, let alone the Nobel Peace Prize awarded that year to the architects of the deal.
It was embarrassing how little time it took for the inevitable to play out. In December 1974, fully re-armed and modernized with the latest weaponry from the Soviet Union and Red China, North Việt-Nam renewed its aggression against the South, in effect tearing up the Paris Accords in bold defiance. Still reeling in the Watergate aftermath, the US merely registered a diplomatic protest while President Ford assured the weary public we would under no circumstances reenter the war. Congress took it one step further, refusing to appropriate emergency funds to assist and resupply South Việt-Nam in its self-defense.
Thus given free rein, North Việt-Nam made its move in early spring 1975. Twenty divisions with tanks and heavy artillery crossed the seventeenth parallel and joined the 150,000 troops already in place in an all-out invasion of our former ally in the South.
The end came fast and furious. Shocked and demoralized by its abrupt abandonment by America and the free world, quickly running out of supplies without further military aid, South Việt-Nam lost hope as well as its will to fight, and just plain quit. An astounded world stood by and watched as the fledgling democracy collapsed like a house of cards in a matter of short months. Once again, the airwaves flooded our living rooms with vivid images of war, this time of the panicked retreat of the South Vietnamese army and civilian population from up country and the Central Highlands ahead of the communist advance. Despite myself, I remained glued to the TV screen night after night watching the horrific scenes unfold before my incredulous eyes: desperate soldiers hanging over the railings of evacuation ships off the central coast; throngs of terrified refugees fleeing their ancestral homes and flocking south to safety by any means; miles and miles of roadsides littered with abandoned military stockpile, dropped belongings, and the many injured and disabled left behind. It was mass hysteria and chaos on an apocalyptic scale, like nothing I’d ever seen.
The imperial city of Huế fell to the communists in the final days of March 1975. The news stirred up a swell of emotions in me, as I remembered our “little princess” Elise and her family and the tragedy they had suffered during Tết 1968. Every time the TV camera panned over the sea of haggard escapees scampering south from the ancient capital, I leaned forward in my seat and strained my eyes at the small screen, scouring the distraught-looking rabble in the improbable case I might spot her. And every time my heart sank with disappointment.
By late April 1975, the northern half of South Việt-Nam had fallen under communist control and the advancing Red Army began to close in on Sài-Gòn. As if to underscore the hopelessness of this final episode, a C-5A Galaxy aircraft used in Operation Babylift to evacuate war orphans out of the country crashed at Tân-Sơn-Nhất Airport, killing 138 passengers, most of them children. Here at home, the news reached fever pitch even as President Ford reaffirmed that the war in Việt-Nam “is finished as far as America is concerned.”
With the end looming closer and my frazzled nerves about to overload, I felt the urgency to get away from all the madness and withdraw to my nature sanctuary in the Sierra.
Before the walls caved in on me—again.
“Isn’t it a bit early for backpacking?” Debbie reminded me with a gentle smile when I told her my plans. But she immediately added, with typical thoughtfulness, “But if you want to go, I’ll stick around here and keep the office open for emergencies. That way you can stay out as long as you like.”
So off I wandered, in search of peace and quiet away from the crazy world. But my hopes were soon dashed as the trail solitude only amplified the rumble in my head and the rage in my belly. From dark recesses of my mind where they’d been locked away these past years, memories gushed forth amid the majestic wilderness and swept me back to those early days at Biên-Hoà AFB. It had barely been eight years, yet it seemed forever ago. How could we, as a nation, have done an about-face in that short a span and gone from championing freedom and democracy to deserting an ally in time of danger? How was it that a cause previously deemed noble and worthy of our staunchest support had somehow become a burden we couldn’t wait to unload? Had we been fighting for the wrong reasons all along, or had we simply lost heart and quit in the end?
My thoughts drifted to my comrades in Việt-Nam, who had given their youths, if not their limbs and lives, in answer to the call of duty, and to their supportive families who had shared in those tremendous sacrifices. What must they be feeling now, in view of all that was happening? Were their hearts raging, like mine was, against the utter senselessness of it all? Or the unfairness of having been sent to fight a war that, in hindsight, we’d never seemed prepared to win? How could one justify the steep price we had all paid—for naught, when all was said and done? We now must live with the fact that this well-intentioned enterprise had ended up a colossal waste of lives and resources, a costly experiment gone deadly awry. The heartbreaking part of it was: the outcome could have turned out much differently. And bad luck, for once, wasn’t to blame.
Gazing at the magnificent scenery around me, I remembered my old hooch mate Bob Olsen and the promise I’d made to take him camping on Mount Whitney. Just one
of many memories we had shared in the six months bunking together. But on this lonely hike in April 1975, what stood out most in my mind were our late-night chats when Bob had told me of his hopes and dreams for his wife and newborn son. My heart filled with sorrow, I allowed myself for the first time to wonder how mother and child had been doing without him. The extraordinary circumstances surrounding his death had made the memory unbearable to me, but out here on this snowy trail atop the mountains, under a big open sky with nary a soul around, there was no hiding from the past. Seven years after my hooch mate had departed, old and new realities converged and caught up with me. My unwitting role in his demise—and the ultimate waste of his sacrifice. As I pushed on across the white desolation with no destination in mind, I caught myself humming that old tune Bob used to love, “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” the same one he’d often imagined himself singing Ricky to sleep with. The sky blurred with nostalgia.
It turned out one week was enough to convince me I wasn’t going to outrun events simply by staying out on the trail this early in the season. So I cut the trip short and headed home.
Debbie welcomed me back with open arms and some staggering news.
“Sài-Gòn fell while you were gone,” she dropped the bombshell after helping me unload my backpack, her voice tinged with despair. “Oh Roger, what a horrible mess that was. Our embassy was evacuated in the nick of time, just before the communist tanks rolled in. But those poor local folks. They were beside themselves with panic. Many tried to scale the embassy’s walls to reach the last helicopters out. There was great fear of a bloodbath once the communists took over, so people scrambled like mad to get out while they still could . . .”
I leaned against the counter in our cozy, sun-filled kitchen. So the end had come, hard and swift. Like sudden death from a rocket shelling. All those years, nearly fifty-six thousand lives, and unlimited resources. All down the drain. And a season in hell had begun for a small nation that had placed its faith in us, its superpower ally. It wasn’t exactly a surprise ending, with all indications pointing in this direction for some time already. But to me, it still felt like a sucker punch in the stomach.
Debbie saw the look on my face and hurried to my side. “Oh, honey,” she whispered.
I sought refuge in her arms, my body wracked with emotions as we held each other tight in tearful silence. The occasion was beyond words. For better or for worse, an era had now ended, and with it, a familiar way of life. The old world we’d grown up in, with its ideals and principles, its bright promise and noble intentions, had made way for the new age of pragmatism.
Hugging me close to her, Debbie must have sensed it, too.
A part of me died that day when Sài-Gòn fell, the latest casualty in a doomed war.
By the time the repercussions of the events of Black April caught up with the world in the late 1970s, most Americans had more or less put Việt-Nam behind them and moved on. It was thus a jolt when suddenly we found ourselves forced to confront, belatedly and without the consuming passions of the war years, the consequences of our past actions—and the latest crises engulfing Southeast Asia.
After the communist takeover in 1975, an estimated one million South Vietnamese with ties to the previous regime were imprisoned without charges or trials. Banished to “re-education camps” or “new economic zones” in remote locations all across the country, they were abused, tortured, and executed, away from the world’s watchful eye.
Facing this political persecution on one hand, and abject poverty or even starvation on the other, countless Vietnamese made the agonizing choice to flee their homeland. On makeshift rafts, fishing junks, trawlers, and other such floating devices unsuited for navigating open waters, they escaped from the mainland and headed out to the international shipping lanes 160 miles offshore. The lucky ones were rescued by passing freighters while the rest went adrift on the open sea, eventually falling prey to pirates or monsoon typhoons, if not to thirst, hunger, and diseases first. Of the two million “boat people” seeking escape from communist Việt-Nam, one fourth perished on the South China Sea during their perilous journey to freedom. When the story of their desperate quest surfaced around 1978 and continued unabated through the next decade, it stunned the free world and rocked our conscience.
Meanwhile, in Cambodia, the communist Khmer Rouge also conducted their own political purge. Employees of the former regime, professionals and intellectuals, members of religious orders and foreign ethnic groups—all were identified, arrested, and summarily executed without due process. Virtually overnight, the entire country was turned into a sprawling mass grave, the infamous “killing fields” of Cambodia. From 1975 to 1979, in what was condemned the world over as one of the most heinous genocides in modern history, the Khmer Rouge carried out the systematic extermination of 1.7 million of their own people, out of a population of eight million.
Yet sadly, despite the professed outrage, there were no widespread demonstrations around the globe to demand action against such egregious violations of human rights. The silence from former activists and war protesters was conspicuous and deeply unsettling.
Like all who were appalled by these new tragedies, Debbie and I donated to organizations that handled the relief effort for the refugees. But on a personal level, even ten years removed from the war, I remained wary of the emotional hazard involved and didn’t allow myself to dwell on the matter. Still, that failed to keep the nightmares from haunting my early-morning hours, when I sometimes dreamed of Lee Anne or Elise adrift in a dinghy on the stormy ocean, or of Dick languishing in a lonely, torturous death on a killing field inside Cambodia. From this period of great despair, I retained a lifelong dependency on sleeping aids, which worked to knock me out for the entire night without a dream.
Around that same time, Debbie and I were experiencing our own share of challenges and disappointments. After years of unsuccessful attempts to start a family, we finally accepted that parenthood wasn’t in the cards for us. The revelation prompted a sudden desire for change that compelled us to cast our sights, for the first time, outside of Lone Pine for a new place we could call home. On the threshold of midlife, with children no longer figured in our future, we felt the need for a fresh beginning.
Having done my internship in San Diego years ago, I was familiar with the area and liked it. I persuaded Debbie we should give it a look. In 1980, soon after our marriage entered its second decade, we packed up and moved to the balmy climate of San Diego, exchanging the Snowy Range for the beautiful city by the ocean—and we never left.
While totally embracing the new life in our adopted hometown, we still answered the call of the mountains and returned every year for summer vacation and to spend the holidays with our families. Then in winter 1983, tragedy blindsided us. My brother Jerry was killed in a car accident on a mountain road. The trips back to Lone Pine were never joyful occasions again, though by necessity they became even more frequent than before. My own grief notwithstanding, I wanted to be there as often as I could for my parents, who struggled to cope with the loss. Older now, and heartbroken by this “unnatural order of things”—their words—they nevertheless resisted my suggestion that they dispose of Moon Meadows and relocate closer to us.
“This is our home, honey,” my mom would insist every time, a patient but resolute smile on her face. “We’ve lived here most of our lives, and many of our friends are still here. Truth be told, we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves in the city, much as we’d love to be close to you kids and get to see you often.”
So I let them be, not wanting to rob what little peace of mind they had left. Debbie and I just redoubled our effort to visit them and Debbie’s parents every chance we got, making the most of our time left with them.
It was time well spent, for which we were thankful. Our parents passed away over the next ten years, one by one like autumn leaves following each other to the ground, but fortunately all in relative pea
ce, without much suffering. The few living relatives we had were scattered across the country, but most of them had long since dropped out of touch. Thus in early 1994, a few months away from our silver anniversary, Debbie and I woke up one morning with the startling realization that we were practically alone in the world, just the two of us.
For the first time in our lives we were completely on our own, with no family support to fall back on, but without responsibilities either. This new circumstance, so foreign and somewhat confounding to us, made us pause and ponder the future.
“You know, we could set sail around the globe and nobody would even miss us,” I remarked one weekend to Debbie at the breakfast table. “Maybe it’s a good time to do some travel planning, you suppose? If memory serves, someone I know has always dreamed of an extended honeymoon trip around the world.”
Years earlier, in the spirit of keeping things simple, we’d been content with a camping trip in the John Muir Wilderness after our small wedding, thinking there’d be plenty of time later for the “real” honeymoon. But that time, of course, had never come. Over the years, the elusive trip had evolved into something of an inside joke for us, if not a lifelong fantasy.
“Seems to me someone else has conveniently forgotten about work,” Debbie replied with a soft laugh. “It’s not like we’re retired, free to come and go as we please . . .” She caught herself, and her jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh. You don’t really mean it.”
I winked at her, nodding with a conspiratorial smile.
Following our impulsive decision, we both turned in notices at the hospital where we worked, on the very day of our anniversary. Two months later we were officially retired, in time to celebrate my fifty-fifth birthday. Having worked hard and lived modestly all our lives, with no children to support or worry about, we had concluded we’d earned the privilege to start living from now on for ourselves.