Another time, another view ...

Tuesday, April 6th 2010 - 09:27:57 PM

//hong thanh nhan I am a vietnamese citizen. I joined the ARVN Signal Corps, I was 18 years old then in 1969, innocent of politics. Giving that I was born in South Vietnam, either I had to join the ARVN or to defect to Vietcong. I chose the former because I lived in the area controlled by the South Vietnam Government. All during my hitch in Arvn, I was always wondering why American troops must be present in Vietnam and Vietnamese had to fight each other and Americans protested the war. The rationale that the United States fought the war to protect freedom and demmocracy in South Vietnam did not make sense and viewed with suspicion by many Vietnamese. The South Vietnamese Government and its Military forces were not good guys to many Vietnamese people, with corruption and brutality. Then Americans left. The Vietnamese settled their own war with the defeat of the South. Then I went to prison _ so-called reeducation camp. People were forced to dislocation to new economic zones. Properties seized or confiscated,so-called anti-bourgeois campaign. Rice farmers were robbed of land to join collective production communities. THEN, the dim view of a society with freedom and democracy began to take shape in many Vietnamese' thought, even in some communist fighters. More people started to flee by boats, and America gave them asylum... These events were long ago but the memory is still fresh in many Vietnamese' mind. The withdrawal of American troops and the fall of South Vietnam served as an eye-opener to many Vietnamese from both sides of the frontier, eventually. We knew what were precious after having lost them. You guys Americans came to Vietnam with the ideas in your mind to protect the freedom of South Vietnam. These ideas always hold true with time, no matter what the politicians now and then want to distort them for their own benefit. You came to Vietnam to protect freedom and democracy. BE PROUD of that. Soctrang, Mekong Delta, Vietnam.