At the bottom of our dirt driveway, a mimosa tree stood on one side of the driveway. At night, LED light fixtures, installed on top of the poles standing by the tree, illuminated the whole area of our house.
This night, I flicked my eyes wide open, startled and listening. I realized I had been awakened by the sound of footsteps outside. I glanced at my alarm clock standing on my nightstand, reading 3:43 A.M.
I groaned as I sat up on my bed directly under the wrought-iron window with no curtain that dominated the front wall.
I slowly got up, slid off my bed, and slunk toward the window, letting go of the breath I'd been holding. I put my face to a lower corner and looked out the window, seeing faces peering in through the window, alarmed at seeing the Vagabond Characters (VC) pacing around all over the front yard.
Bang! Crack, crack! The front door was kicked in open, swigging as it kept banging against the wall. the VCs rushed into my house. I turned on the light.
A VC grabbed me by the hand and yanked me off the bed, saying, "Where's the suitcase containing the classified documents relative to U.S. Prisoners of War and Missing in Action?"
My dad was an American Officer in the U. S. Army. He had been a Prisoner of War (POW) or Missing in Action (MIA). But why did the VCs ask for the POW/MIA classified documents in my house. I wondered if this had anything to do with my dad.
It sounded strange but I didn't know my dad's real name, due to my mom withholding his real name from me, probably to protect me somehow.
Mom appeared at my bedroom door. "You VC, please leave my daughter alone. She knows nothing of this. The suitcase is there on top of the kitchen cabinet."
I looked downward while panicking and glancing over in Mom's direction. I recalled clearly that I'd never seen the suitcase on top of the cabinet before.
The VC Lieutenant Commander straightened his posture, his arms outstretched to the sides, a look of triumph in his face, and he slowly turned to face Mom. He barked, "Stand back, everyone. Comrade Marine Gunner, take the suitcase down."
The VC Gunner slowly took the suitcase off the cabinet. He slightly tilted the suitcase in different angles, a weird thumping sound of something rolling around inside it.
The VC Gunner Lowered the suitcase and rested it on the floor. "VC Comrade Lieutenant Commander, There's a stick bomb inside."
The Lieutenant Commander gestured toward a woman comrade crouching by the suitcase. "Comrade Weapons Detection Specialist, are you able to open it?"
The specialist picked the suitcase lock with a paper clip and opened the suitcase lid. She smirked, staring up at the VC Lieutenant Commander, motioning with her hands to what was lying inside the suitcase. "What is this supposed to mean? All we had wanted to do was to find the POW/MIA documents, but instead we ended up with a bamboo flute."
I had bought the bamboo flute as a souvenir of my school trip to the Great Wall of China. I racked my brain trying to remember whether I had put the flute in the suitcase, but to no avail.
The triumph in the face of the VC Lieutenant Commander turned into infuriation. "We've got intelligence all wrong. Useless VC Informer. After all, someone selected by me should have what it takes to fulfill the VC Party's expectations. I'll let the useless informer know what stuff I'm made of." He waved his hand at his comrades and stormed out of our house, followed by his comrades.
As soon as they were out of the house, I dashed back to the window to watch where they were going. The VCs walked away and come up to the jeeps parked haphazardly by the mimosa tree. A man hoped out of the nearest jeep and walked over to the VC Lieutenant Commander.
Drawing the consternation of our neighbors gathering near the bottom of our driveway, the VC Lieutenant Commander grabbed the man's shirt by the collar, jabbed his finger at the man's face while saying, "Useless informer, I'll put you to work in detonating explosives and detecting mines by walking barefooted across suspected minefields in the ground of the Assassin Jungle."
I saw American Military Police jeeps coming from the direction of the National Military Cemetery. The VCs all jumped into their jeeps, and pulled them out of the parking space, the engines surging in a wild high speed and the tires scraping against gravel as they drove away.
I heard our wall crackle and saw the tiled wall behind the kitchen cabinet split open along a perpendicular caulk line. In the opening, Mom stood holding a stack of what looked like document papers.
"Mom, did you...And the wall?" I mumbled but shut up when I saw Mom gesturing for me to keep quiet.
Mom whispered, "It would be better not to talk about this. Now go back to sleep, Mai."
The light went dark behind the wall.
I kept lying awake in bed, thinking about what the POW/MIA documents. Having decided I would try to find out more about my dad, I dozed off to sleep.
The Vietnam War intensified as the VCs had strengthened their grip on Vietnam. They spread propaganda that they were taking over the Vietnamese government, causing the Vietnamese people to try to flee the country.
As the VC tanks rolling and the VC soldiers marching toward the American Embassy in Saigon Capital, Vietnam, the United States Marines evacuated refugees from the American embassy's rooftop and flew them to the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid moored in the South China Sea.
At the American Army Base lying next to the civilian My Lai airport, fighter airplanes and helicopters were gathered on the grass field in front of the building where the airport check-in counters were located. It looked like the American and Vietnamese Allied Marines were preparing for combat.
Going home from school, my friends, Lisa and Tom, and I took the shortcut through the National Military Cemetery. We came up to a tomb carved with oriental-inspired designs.
"Let's move on," Lisa said. "It's too eerily quiet around here."
"But first," Tom said, "let's stay here for a moment to look at this impressive tomb."
There was an engraved image of a girl on the headstone. There were picture frames on the tomb's walls, each frame containing a picture of the girl, along with a eulogy poem from her grieving parents.
I bent over to look at a small hole at the base of the headstone. The sounds of talking and bumping of bodies against wood sifted from inside the grave, up through the hole, and come out audibly at the headstone. I whispered, "Corpses coming back to life."
Tom stiffened up. "The VCs must be staying inside the coffins. They do this when they are preparing for their attacks on the American and Vietnamese Allied Armies."
We walked by the American Embassy in Saigon. An announcement came from a nearby radio tower: "The temperature in Saigon is 105 degrees and rising. Snow is melting at the American Embassy. Mother wants American Marines to call home. Over."
I looked around, perplexed. "Snow is melting? But it's June and it has never snowed in Saigon."
A Vietnamese soldier said, "It's a coded message to command the American Marines to come to the American embassy, to evacuate the American Embassy's personnel including American and Vietnamese staffs out of Vietnam.
A VC walked by, smelling like a dead body. A woman ran up to us and stared at the VC, saying, "I live near the National Military Cemetery. Lately there are a lot of noises coming from the graves. Our Meals have been disappeared after they were set up on the dining table, while the doors and windows were locked. I think the VCs stole my food."
A man said, "For over a month, radio and TV networks have been covering the VCs' heightening activities, in preparation for their upcoming attacks on the Allied armies, to wrest power from the Vietnamese government. I suspect that the VCs have removed bodies from the coffins and put ammunition in the coffins. The VC even stayed in the coffins."
The woman yelled at the bad-smell VC, "And you're one of them."
The VC winced and ran away.
On the streets, there were refugees carrying their belongings, and armed soldiers standing guard along the streets.
The American Embassy provided bus service to the refugees so they could get to the embassy. A double-length bus stopped in front of the Majestic Plaza hotel, and the special status refugees got on the bus. I followed them onto the bus, expecting my friends Lisa and Tom to follow me. But when I looked around for them, they were not with me.
Two more buses carrying refugees came out of an alley to join my bus. A shiny black car with an official-looking sign on the license plate came out of the American embassy and got in front of the convoy of buses.
Someone yelled, "That's the car carrying the American Ambassador and his entourage to the airport. Follow it and the buses will be allowed to enter the airport."
Suddenly the lead bus swerved and came to a stop. Its windshield had a hole with spider-web type cracks around it.
A Military Police woman said from the street, "The driver of the lead bus has been hit by a sniper's bullet. The driver is found slumped over the steering wheel."
The people in the lead bus got off and scattered on the street. The trailing buses swerved around the lead bus and followed the Ambassador's car.
At the My Lai airport's security checkpoint at the main front gate, the American Military Police Guards stood in ceremony salute in front of the American Ambassador Martine Bailey's car.
The Marines did a military salute to the car carrying Ambassador Martine Bailey as it moves into the airport. But they stopped the refugee buses.
"They come along with us," a voice yelled out from the car.
The Military Police guards waved the busses through the gate.
As the buses followed the car into the airfield runway, the bombing came on. The car turned into a narrow alley heading away from the airport. The buses turned around, got out of the airport, and headed toward the Saigon Harbor.
At the harbor, people got off the buses and got on the boats, to be taken to the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier. I got off the bus and walked to the American Embassy.
The American Marine Security Guards stood inside the embassy's front gate. A guard said, "The Embassy's Regional Security Office (RSO) has instructed us to allow the refugees with official documents to enter the embassy. Acceptable documents can be a visa, or a Refugee Travel Document. People without proper documents must stay outside the gate."
A woman carrying a baby showed her travel document to a Marine Corps Military Police Officer at the gate, and he let her in.
The woman moved aside to behind a nearby tree. she handed the baby and travel document and money to another woman. The first woman inadvertently lifted her skirt, showing the hairy legs under the boxer shorts for men.
The same Marine Officer grabbed the first woman by the arm, growling, "You are a man. You managed to bribe your way into the embassy." The officer pulled the man in skirt to the gate and pushed him out.
Outside the gate, people climbed up an electric tower, and got onto the top of the embassy's fence wall, where the barbed wire was cut, ripped off and thrown into a pile on the ground. from atop the wall, they jumped down onto the embassy's lawn inside the gate.
The Military Police shot their guns up into the air. "Get down. Get down."
I stood among the people outside the gate, my hand clutching its iron bars. Something jangled under my blouse and I pulled it out. It was a dog tag on a bead chain that Lisa had found and given to me.
The same Marine Officer reached his hand out through the gate and took hold of the dog tag. "POW/MIA dog tag. I recognize the Officer's name. You're the daughter of the missing officer? Go to the back gate and I'll let you in."
He ran into the embassy office and came out, handing me a folded paper, saying, "I wrote this permission letter for you to board the helicopter on the embassy's rooftop."
People who were to board the rooftop helicopters must wear a nametag. I went into the embassy's same office, rummaged in a desk drawer for a blank nametag, but I found none. I ripped out a blank sheet of white paper from a pad, folded the paper into a rectangle the size of a nametag, and wrote MAI DOE on it with a black marker. I put adhesive tape on the back of my makeshift nametag, poked a safety pin through the tape, and pinned the nametag on my shirt.
Small helicopters that could carry 20 refugees must land on the embassy's lawn, but bigger helicopters for 50 refugees must land in the embassy's parking lot. American Marines were lying on their stomach around the perimeter of the evacuating area where helicopters landed and took off, with the Marines' machine guns pointing outward and their fingers on the triggers, at the ready to shoot at attacking VCs.
Special status refugees were to be evacuated on the embassy's rooftop. They must take the stairs to walk up to the rooftop, and from there, they must climb the two staircases standing side by side, to get onto the helipad, a landing and takeoff pad for helicopters.
With too many people using the staircases, they were ruined. Two metal ladders were set in place of the staircases.
To prevent the unqualified people from getting onto the rooftop, the American Marines bolted and locked all the unguarded doors to the rooftop.
Rumors were flying that the VCs were riding into the embassy on tanks and would run over the people standing in their way. The panicky people outside the main gate rammed a fire truck through the gate, surged into the embassy, broke all barriers, and swarmed into the staircases leading to the rooftop.
Rooftop evacuation was finally reserved for the embassy's VIPs. Major Steve Long radioed to ask for the American 101st Airborne Division troops to come and boost security at the helipad while evacuating the VIPs.
The CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter landed on the helipad. The American Marines jumped out of the helicopter, moved down through the embassy building, and surged out to the American Ambassador Martine Bailey hugging the tamarind tree on the embassy's lawn.
The Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) raised his hand to his face in a salute. "Sir Ambassador Martine Bailey, U.S. President Elon Trump has given us the order to carry you up the ladders to the helipad and put you in the VIP helicopter, if you refuse to go on your own two feet."
The Ambassador clung to the tamarind tree with his arms around the trunk. "Oh, no. I won't walk up the wobbly tall ladder to get to the high helipad. It's okay for me to stay here. I'm a diplomat. I want to stay here so when the VCs come in the embassy on tanks, I'll use my tact to talk them into moving back into the coffins."
"Not likely, Sir," The Commandant of the Marine Corps said.
Four American Marines tackled him to the ground. They stretched out his arms and legs, each Marine taking hold of a limb.
Together, the Marines carried him up to the rooftop, climbed in a concerted effort up the two parallel ladders, got onto the helipad, and swung the ambassador into the landed VIP helicopter.
"Hurry up, people," a Security guard yelled, "Climb up the ladder and get on the helipad on the rooftop. This is the last flight out of Vietnam."
I looked up the 955 feet high ladder, squirming in deadly fear of heights. I was not going to climb the ladder.
People outside the embassy's gate shouted, "VCs are coming through the gate on tanks! Get out of their way if you don't want to be crushed under the chains!"
I shot up the ladder without thinking. Fast ropes were thrown down to the Marines on the ground. They fast-roped up to the helipad, and then jumped into the helicopter.
The last Marine jumped into the helicopter, carrying the American flag that had flown over the American Embassy, the flag being folded and put inside a grocery brown paper bag.
The Commandant of the Marine Corps announced on loudspeaker, "Panther is on his way to the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier."
"Panther is my codename," the ambassador said.
The gangplank at the back of the helicopter was drawn up to close. The plane lifted off, slanting up high in the air and straightening into horizontal position, and flew to the aircraft carrier.
The last flight of CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter landed on the aircraft carrier's flight deck. The Governor of Guam Island and the Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier came into the helicopter.
The Marine put down the bag containing the American flag, leaped to his feet and stood, raising his hand to his face in a salute, saying, "The American Ambassador's onboard, too."
The Governor looked around. "Where is he?"
The American Ambassador raised his hand.
The Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier and the American Ambassador were standing on the flight deck. The Commanding Officer handed a mobile phone to the Ambassador, saying, "50 American Marines were left behind on the American embassy's roof by mistake."
The ambassador said, "Give me the loudspeaker."
The ambassador put the mobile phone against the loudspeaker and spoke into the phone. "American Marines, I salute your courage in tackling me to the ground, carrying me through the American Embassy building and up to the rooftop, and then from there, deftly climbing up the wobbling ladders to the helipad, and lastly, throwing me into the helicopter. I've sent back the same helicopter to fly you out."
A Navy mechanic sprayed fresh water onto the aircraft carrier's top deck with a large hose, for the people who wanted to take a shower with their clothes on. the children played under the water spray, laughing and shouting with joy.
A sea dragon closed its snout around the hose's opening and drank the spraying water, its protruding eyes flicking.
The dragon soared into the sky and moved up and down in a show. It flung itself flat on the deck, curved up into a circle with its head and tail touching, alternately blowing out tongues of fire and spitting water to extinguish the fire. It sailed through the air, bellowing, grunting, roaring, and at times neighing like a horse and hissing like a snake.
The dragon swished by my face, splashing its stinky nose mucus on my hair. It jabbed at my face with its split tongue. It dipped its snout into the ocean and swung the snout up and spitted out the salty water onto the bathers on the deck.
The dragon coiled its tail around me, lifted me up high, and flung me into the air, sending me flying and dropping onto a fishing boat, causing the boat to get pushed around in the ocean.
Two women and two men were on the boat, siting with their backs toward me. They quickly grabbed the oars to keep the boat stable. They looked over their shoulders to glance at me.
"Girl are you alright?" a woman said. "Where did you come from?"
"I came from the American Aircraft Carrier," I said. "I was lucky that you sailed out to this deep part of the ocean. Just in time to save me. But what are you doing out here?"
The people on the boat glanced at each other, as if to send signal. I got suspicious of them and became worried. I was afraid that they were conspiring to harm me, so I looked around and spotted a sandbar at a considerable distance. The wind rose and the strong waves pushed the boat to near the sandbar. I griped the boat's plank and was about to jump into the water to swim to the sandbar.
"Please don't jump," a man said. "We won't hurt you. It's just that we're debating whether to tell you the reason of us being out here."
7 long blasts of a ship's horn sounded, indicating emergency alarm.
The people on the boat sailed me back to the aircraft carrier. A team of American Navy SEALs with diving tanks on their backs stood ready to jump into the ocean, to search and rescue me. They called off the operation when they saw me on the boat.
A man on the boat said, "We are Cambodians. We survived the Killing Fields. We don't want to go back to Cambodia. Can we get on the aircraft carrier and go to America?"
"This ship is for the Vietnamese refugees," someone said from the aircraft carrier.
"But we saved the girl refugee," a man on the boat said.
The American ambassador talked with the Commanding Officer, then they called down to the boat. "You are allowed to get on the aircraft carrier."
The Cambodians left their empty boat bobbing on the ocean.
The refugees arrived at Guam Island. They were housed in tent cities while awaiting to be processed for resettlement by the Refugee Processing Center (RPC).
At the Refugee Processing Center (RPC) on Guam Island, most of the refugees were processed to be resettled in the United States, but some chose to return to Vietnam on a Vietnamese commercial ship named Thong Long.
A social worker at the Refugee Resettlement center said, "We arranged for you to be sponsored by the convent named Mount Carmel Sisters of Baltimore, Maryland. But you must live in the convent."
Feeling confused and conflicting emotions, I looked at the Social Worker and say, "Do I have to wear a nun habit?"
The social worker said into the phone, "Please verify that the girl being sponsored by the convent must wear a nun habit."
The social worker looked back at me with a resigned nod, saying, "The nuns said it isn't fair for them that you live in the convent and not wear a nun habit."
"I want to return to Vietnam," I said.