(EFE) on the American side and was unable to flee the country after the defeat.
One of them is Mr. Dien, a 79-year-old man dressed in his US Army vest and South Vietnamese tank driver’s beret, trying to convince tourists to use his camera to take pictures of them in front of him (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 around 20 years, after reunited Vietnam apparently opened up to the world under communist rule and left the Feuds of the Civil War.
After the communist victory, his 14-year service in the South Vietnamese army locked his job doors, meant two years in a re-education camp, the confiscation of his home, and a precarious life that he believes will see him through to the end of his life, his days.
“When the Americans left, I knew we couldn’t win the war. I knew the military commanders and I knew the South couldn’t resist. It was a disappointment.”
Dien does not remember the exact moment when he was informed of the US withdrawal, but he understood very soon that it would mean the defeat of the team he had voluntarily joined since he was 17, convinced that he wouldn’t report himself, they would make him do it anyway.
“When the Americans left, I knew we couldn’t win the war. I knew the military commanders and I knew the South couldn’t resist. It was a disappointment,” he admits, without blaming the Americans for the task half a century later.
Final defeat did not come until April 30, 1975, when the communist forces from the north ended their inexorable advance with the fall of Saigon, but Dien had already conceded defeat two years earlier and taken steps to protect himself.
During the conversation, he shows the stump of the index finger of his right hand, which he cut with a knife to simulate punishment for leaving the Southern Army and thus gaining the mercy of the victors.
“Everyone believed that the Viet Cong would kill us. I was afraid of torture,” he says.
He believes that all these precautions were to free him from the torture, but he could not avoid spending two years incarcerated in a re-education camp or regaining his home
By the time Saigon fell, Dien had already burned all his legal documents, disposed of almost all his belongings, and kept barely half a dozen photos from his youth, when his name was Phong and had not yet adopted his current name, to avoid reprisals. .
He believes that all these precautions helped him escape torture, but he could not avoid spending two years locked up in a re-education camp or recovering his home confiscated from the winning side.
In extremely poor post-war Vietnam, Dien worked in the fields for a while, separated from his family, which he founded in the 1960s.
During the conversation, he sometimes discusses the already dwindling hopes of fleeing to the United States, as some of his colleagues did in the frantic last few days before Saigon’s fall, or even years afterward.
“I saw the helicopters and people flying away, but I didn’t dare try, I didn’t know where they were going to take them. I didn’t think it would be possible for me. Now I regret it.” he confesses.
Having already given up the American dream he had for decades, Dien’s desires are now much more modest: to earn enough to eat every day and find a roof, because in a month he will have to leave the house where he lives let be . for free.
“I have had a very hard life since 1975. These are the last years of my life, maybe in a year or two I will die. I have already prepared the altar photo in case of my death because I feel weaker than before. I hope Someone can help me in the last years of my life,” he says.
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