e village and lived peacefully. After the fall of the French, the Viet Cong occupied the village and rounded up all the people they thought were dangerous to their movement. Among these was Khiem’s father. The Viet Cong charged him with treason against the welfare of the people and an advocator of imperialism. He was executed by decapitation. Khiem remembers, “They came in and took my father and they said that he was a traitor. I remember that day clear as anything. I was 12 when it happened. He was one of many. They rounded up lawyers, doctors, merchants, French translators and teachers, and anyone wearing the colors white, red ,or green. These were the colors of the French. Many people didn’t even know that. It is just clothing, but they were all caught. The Viet Cong buried them all alive or beheaded them. Others they drowned. I remember walking out of the village and seeing hundreds of mounds.” Khiem would grow up to know the communist and fear them. In 1955 he and his family took advantage of the Cathlolic migration from north to south. They fled to avoid communist persecution and settled in Saigon. Khiem remembers life to be relaxing and prosperous in the city. However, he was Buddhist and would soon protest alongside monks to rebel against Diem. As the war in Vietnam escalated, Khiem is drafted to join the army and would later be assigned to rank of lieutenant of a naval ship. As Americans pulled out in 1963, Khiem was captured by Vietcong troops and sent to a concentration camp where he spent 3 years. After he is released, he and his family fled Vietnam as one of the many “boat people,” and were picked up by an American cruiser. He would soon find himself in the United States where he has lived for over 15 years. Today, Khiem still reveres Ngo Dinh Diem despite his knowledge of Diem’s actions and policies in Vietnam. Khiem argues that one must see Diem in the light of Vietnam and its in...
