(EFE) the American side and could not flee the country after the defeat.
One of them is Mr. Dien, a 79-year-old man who, dressed in his US Army vest and South Vietnamese tank driver’s beret, tries to convince tourists to photograph them with his camera in front of them. Ho Chi Minh Post Office (formerly Saigon).
“An American colonel gave it to me and I’ve kept it ever since,” he says proudly of his vest, which he has only dared to wear for about 20 years, after reunified Vietnam under communist rule opened up to the world and apparently left behind the feuds of the civil war.
After the communist victory, his 14 years of service to the South Vietnamese Army closed his job doors, meant two years in a re-education camp, the confiscation of his house and a precarious life that he believes will be with him until the end of his life. his days.
“When the Americans left, I knew that we could not win the war. I knew the military commanders and I knew that the South could not resist. It was a disappointment”
Dien does not remember the exact moment when he was told of the US withdrawal, but he did understand very soon that this would mean the defeat of the side he had volunteered to join since he was 17 years old, convinced that if he did not enlist himself, they would force him to do it anyway.
“When the Americans left, I knew that we could not win the war. I knew the military commanders and I knew that the South could not resist. It was a disappointment,” he admits, without devoting, half a century later, any reproach to the Americans for the abandonment.
Final defeat did not come until April 30, 1975, when the communist forces from the north concluded their unstoppable advance with the fall of Saigon, but Dien had already conceded defeat two years earlier and was taking steps to protect himself.
During the conversation, he shows the stump of the index finger of his right hand, which he cut himself with a knife to simulate punishment for deserting the Southern Army and thus obtain the mercy of the victors.
“Everyone believed that the Viet Cong were going to kill us. I was afraid of torture,” he says.
He believes that all these precautions served to free him from torture, but he could not avoid spending two years locked up in a re-education camp or recover his home
By the time Saigon fell, Dien had already burned all his legal documents, disposed of almost all his possessions, and kept barely half a dozen photos from his youth, from when he was still called Phong and had not yet adopted his current name to avoid reprisals. .
He believes that all these precautions helped him to escape torture, but he could not avoid spending two years locked up in a re-education camp or recovering his home, requisitioned by the winning side.
In the extremely poor post-war Vietnam, Dien, separated from the family he had formed in the 1960s, worked for a time in the fields and later dedicated himself to driving buses, until, with the opening of the country in 1992, he began to engage in photography for tourists.
During the conversation he sometimes talks about the already fading hopes of fleeing to the United States, as some of his comrades did in the frantic last days before the fall of Saigon or even years after.
“I saw the helicopters and the people leaving, but I didn’t dare to try it, I didn’t know where they were going to take them. I didn’t think it was possible for me. Now I regret it,” he confesses.
Having already discarded the American dream that he nurtured for decades, Dien’s desires are much more modest today: to earn enough to be able to eat daily and find a roof, because in a month he has to leave the house where they have let him stay. for free.
“I have had a very hard life since 1975. These are the last years of my life, maybe I will die in a year or two. I have already prepared the altar photo for when I die because I feel weaker than before. I hope someone can help me help in the last years of my life,” he says.
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