APRIL 30th, 1975 - THE FALL OF SAIGON (EXCERPT FROM RAIN ON THE RED FLAG MEMOIR)

(see picture notes below)

We camped out in that second-floor stairwell all night, making little nests for ourselves. The youngest children curled into their mothers, occasionally drinking water and eating dry instant noodles. I closed my eyes, and their voices weaved in and out of my dreams.

I woke up, choking on stuffy air. The guard was no longer there. A small window cast eerie smoked silver light on some of the children’s faces. Uncle Hieu stood near the cracked ventilation shaft, watching the airport. The pop-pop-popping sound of the shelling continued low staccato hum.

“Come see,” my uncle whispered, waving toward me.

I stood up, dizzy and dehydrated. My chest ached from the way I’d been curled all night. When I reached the shaft, I stood up on the balls of my feet on the stairs and squinted to look through the arm-sized crack in the shaft.

I gasped. The sky was a greenish gray color that didn’t seem like day or night. Long columns of smoke billowed everywhere.

“The American Marine Corps launched an evacuation,” Uncle Hieu explained. “There are convoys of helicopters, huge ones.”

“I think those are the Sea Stallion carriers that come from the US fleets,” said Thinh, who came to join us.

The sky flashed with light from one of the helicopters. It swooped down near the airport and then kept going.

“That one didn’t land at the airport,” I said.

“No, there are meeting points, secret ones. They are getting orders from the CIA, the American government, far away.”

“So they are here to help?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” my uncle said, a despondent tone in his voice.

“Depends on strategy. They could be here to get their own people, maybe rescue some of our high-ranking officials.”

Helicopters emerged from the murky gray soup. They lit the undercarriage of clouds, a shiny alien light. I turned back toward the stairwell.

It was strange to see my whole family sprawled out so informally like that, their normally delicate clothing rumpled on their bodies. The belongings were packed in between everyone or being used as backrests or pillows, and there seemed to be more of them than people. It reminded me of nights when we used to have parties, gathering with the help in the kitchen, women talking about housework and men sipping coffee. There was something about the familiarity that made the night feel safer somehow.

The stairwell had become a trap. Hours stretched. We were no longer trying to sleep, our family squished together. Women listlessly combed the hair of small children held between their legs. We had become attuned to the rhythm of bombs exploding in the distance. People tried to adjust their conversations to the explosions, but there was no way to anticipate the interruptions. We reasoned that the bombing and shelling could only go for so long before people had to stop, before the street had to rest. My legs twitched with restlessness. Hunger gnawed at my belly. I was tired of sitting in that stairwell. If I didn’t get up soon, I would scream.

I tapped Thinh on the arm and indicated I wanted to go over to the shaft. He was quiet, his expression unreadable. Then he looked at his watch and slowly nodded.

The city already resembled a nightmare, a place I did not recognize. People no longer existed. The navy blue sky was smudged with a gray film. The mortar had been dropped to explode, one after the other, until they reached the central capital and Presidential Palace.

An explosion occurred, and I stood there, holding the ledge with my fingers. I no longer flinched. It now fascinated me. I had always been good at math. I counted the amount of time it took between each explosion. Nobody bothered me. I watched for so long that I was able to predict where and when the next one would occur. Each time I guessed, I was right.

Eventually, I looked back at my family crouched in the stairwell, their faces undefinable in the shadows. I quietly slipped up the stairs and stopped at the top, my heart beating so hard I could feel it in my hips and my knees. The door opened easily, and I slipped out to the roof.

I stood there, breathless and smiling. It was a brisk April morning. The streets were filled with clouds of soft mist. I’d never really stayed up all night and hadn’t seen the world at that hour. It was magical. I crab-walked toward the edge of the rooftop. I examined the street that led to the Presidential Palace. It was quiet. Nobody was awake.

The left side of the street was like a large village, tiny one- or two-story houses knitted side by side. The mist had pooled there and was lifting in the small patches of lawn, ordinary rectangular shapes. They seemed miniature, so strange.

It was only then that I noticed the red flags stuck on the front door of each house.

Those were the Communist flags. Each of those houses with tiny lawns had been claimed. Our city was no longer ours.

Dizziness hit me, and I sat down, pushing my forehead against the cool stone wall.

Slowly, I stood up again. Down below, a gnarled tank which had been blasted was burning. What I thought had been mist was smoke.

Further down the street, I saw soldiers in green clothing carrying guns. There were more fires on the street, made from piles of rubber truck tires.

I sat back down. It was too unbelievable to take in.

I’d never thought the Communists would take over.

I ran back downstairs to tell my family.

Excerpted from Rain on the Red Flag, copyright © 2023 by Frank Thanh Nguyen. Book is available online at Rain On The Red Flag 

Notes

On the fall of Saigon, April 30th 1975, my sister was with my uncle's family who was an a pilot. The next morning, on the front page of the New York Times, a very well-known newspaper, ran a headline “Communists Take Over Saigon. US Rescue Fleet is picking up Vietnamese who fled in boats",  below it,  a photograph of a half-landed helicopter on an aircraft carrier with Vietnamese refugees, staggering out on the flight deck. There was my sister!