Tet 75

As in Final Destination the series, I had similar premonition; that Tet 75 would be my last (I have tried without success to come back: same time of the year, same place, but as Thomas Wolfe put it, “You can’t go home again”.)

Enrolling in pre-med, I only had one mission: to pass the entrance exam that summer. Yet Tet got in the way not to mention the collapse of the country. Instead of cramming and burning the midnight oil, I found myself slumbered away half-way in the Pacific for a different test: immigration vetting summer. The locale and luxury (of idle time) was more Purgatory (temporal) than Paradise (permanent) albeit Pentagon-paid.

School was out during Tet 75. Society was broiled in anticipation and apprehension. After all, we had learned a lesson from Tet 68 i.e. things might not be as they seemed, sacred or not.

But being native and naive, I was torn: an uncertain future (Vietnamizing of the Vietnam War) in front and a fleeting present (Vietnamizing of Woodstock), pro vs anti-war (burning monk near me, and burning Quaker afar at the steps of the Pentagon).

Since I did not have the luxury of an elite overseas slot (Colombo program to Australia or Exchange student program to the US) naturally it’s do or die (literally in most case as the draft and death-by-attrition process played itself out). Those two push/pull forces were at work full time on my hormonal bursting body.

To ace the exam (which we all knew, was not pure meritocracy, but evidently reserved for children of the upper-crust), or to act on my premonition – that it would be the last Tet, a Tet I wished just like I had experienced in years past: extended families, deceased and alive, who surrounded and shelled me from outside upheaval (GI’s deaths, VC’s deaths, neighbor’s death, classmate back with body part behind per Vietnamization of the Vietnam War) (see Memory of Tet).

In short, it’s our turn to die for the ideal set out by predecessors (who themselves would cut and run as seen a few months later.)

So much pressure that I decided to shave my head – an attempt at total dedication and determination while at the same time deterring my young self from going out. Then friends knocked. Then dances awaited. Pre-Tet, during Tet and Post- Tet celebration. Tango and Cha cha cha. So much for calling it a day.

My friends and I, did not want to admit, but we all had a sense of foreboding; might as well – self-mutilated (hair shred) and self- indulgent (nicotine inhaled) – our version of existential burn-out (I have seen a lot of tattoo and nose rings of late; modern youth reaction and rebellion). Rumba on the floor, rumbles on the street. “Would you care to dance”!. With each evening out, my dream further slipped away.

Outside, hustling and bustling. Inside, dizzying disco light (be sure to wear white for better purple haze reflection): hair-down-to-the-knees, hence, sexes indistinguishable in a Copernican merry-go-round (see also Vietnamizing Woodstock). How could I remember after all these years? I was resting between set, since Blue Danube, a Waltz number, was more suitable for the pros (a friend’s Dad, Ballroom Dance instructor, showcasing his students’ advanced lessons).

In looking back, it’s our last Waltz, like the Band’s (RIP Garth Hudson).

Any jam session has its end.

President fled, Palace abandoned, Embassy looted and houses vacated. Even my Dad was left behind, just to pass a whole decade like a ghost in an empty house.

We could not by any means put on our blinders. Well, one instant was still fresh on my mind the week after Tet 75; in Science, Physics, Chemistry and Natural Sciences (SPCN) class. Our lecture was interrupted by a classmate who collected donation. She was with sincere heart, but lacking in public speaking skills. Even with shaved head and determination to tune out, I felt moved, before asking for the mike. We had a bucket full of cash donation that day for those less-fortunate seen outside on campus.

Refugees were pouring in, occupying our school yards. Makeshift tents and blankets for homeless. Children were out of school, much like Gaza today. Eventually, we , givers joined in the same fate (stateless). I later ran into that same classmate in Indian town Gap camp as we once again waited for outplacement, as in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

Seeing my party all night, study all day, my brother, a medic Captain pharmacist, injected Vitamin B12 then slapped me like a vet would when sending off a “Texan horse” to the wild. If it were to be our last, might as well make it count.

We were so ignorant of the Cold War, Hot war or lukewarm ones. Per LBJ: ” Asian boys ought to do it for themselves…” modern world took side, then – over 6:00 o clock Evening News dinner, and now e.g. N Korean soldiers in Ukraine. Their predecessors even joined in on one side, South Korean the other – ignoring signed Armistice a decade earlier ( Vietnam War? American War? Korean War? with close to 3 million US servicemen/women on rotational basis, with close to that many in human sacrifice from all races – Blacks slightly and unfairly disproportionate.)

Hence, I felt that constant chill in the back of my neck. I worried my family, friends and world wouldn’t stay the same. Not the medical-school dream I feared shattered, but the dread of imminent collapse, crack and crumble of reality itself. Back then, faced with shell-shock and culture – shock ; we got no choice but to pack it and press reset . hit the ground running: stateless, semi-orphan, without roots and a place called home, a “complete unknown … like a rolling stone” (all those years previous, I grew up in one place knowing the same people ) to borrow from Dylan.

I took on an American persona (We Are – in jeans and T’s) to blend in (even printed my own “card visit” – as icebreaker, to bait reciprocity (date over coffee) the way Hare Krishna offered their free roses. Not much one can do to launch life 2.0 : two set of clothes and copies of birth certificate, high-school diploma and an ID card – draft-deferred card, which certified my being actively enrolled in Pre-med program (so warring society at best could replenish its medic reserve to resupply the front).

All was not quiet on our front however. A month before our own evacuation, in sheer panic and hysteria, the Highland retreated (Convoy of Tears) triggered mob madness with people turned guns on each other, pushed and punched, shoved and kicked. So much shooting and looting that my classmate, in the Air Force, already secured a slot a month later, jumped off his overloaded plane at the last minute.

Chaos. Carnage. Collapse.

Those sweat-soaked shirts outside the US Embassy tell all. Those inside, entertained their restless children with paper airplanes made out of soon-defunct currency. Those same people couldn’t wait for their turn to be on a real plane – squatting in batches to be ferried out by helicopters for the first leg of a thousand-mile journey. A thousand-yard stare without selfies as often seen at airport.

We were utterly betrayed and abandoned. No “just one more chance, another dance”: boulevard empty, bunker erected. All eerily silent in a slowly dying city.

No oxygen, no ventilation, no aspiration, no destination. No time. After a fateful hop on the barge, we rolled over and played dead – radio silent – like human cargo who conserve batteries. Freight unpaid, recipient address (RFID) unknown, future and welfare both unknown. We were afraid the tow-head conductor would change his mind, or worse , we ours ( at times, left to float, we thought that was what had happened; turned out, he went for fuel).

Years after, as soon as I obtained my US passport, I flew back to join and assist those same folks (Boat People) whose feelings and circumstances we ourselves had known all too well: as latest addition to the American story, you would have to swallow your pride and forget your past : social status and standing, credentials and currency, calling card and country of origin. Put on a new identity (individualistic vs clannish), apply deodorant and Just Do It i.e. wear Nike to blend in, since branding and manufacturing were all done for (ironically, now its origin is Vietnam itself).

Unlike subsequent camps in the Philippines and Malaysia, we were pampered on Wake Island in our time, with US surplus like Benson &Hedges Menthol, Fruit-of-the-loom men underwear and fish sticks at the mess hall (Wake-Island barracks). Some folks in D.C. just wanted to spend up that year pre-appropriated defense dollars on PX surplus.

“Do you know, where you going to…Do you like the things that life is showing you”….Diana Ross heard over Armed Force Radio.

Then Paul McCartney “Band on the run” by DJ later D.J.ed by real-life character similar Robin Williams’ GOOOOOOOD Morning Vietnam. See, I had that premonition that if I didn’t go to the dance (live for the moment), my last, I would regret for the rest of my days. Back then, seventeen, Dancing Queens were all out and eager. They too sensed something. Perhaps with more premonition than mine.

American band, American bomb and American PX merchandise all showed up in black market via way of dog soldiers. We wouldn’t say we never had some fun. But boy oh boy, what a stiff price and opportunity cost. When in war, party as if there were no tomorrow. Another serving, please. Like in the opening chapter of All Quiet on the Western Front (cigarettes as currency).

For tomorrow we will die. If not tomorrow, than the day after tomorrow. I last until this day, largely thanks to my Mom, her guardrails, her prayer for peace, for us the living and for our deceased ancestors and her respect for Nature with quick concluding bows to the four corners of Earth.

As I remember and reflect on that last Tet I want to step up to be keeper of the flame. To pray that Peace might come, that many would have something to eat (fish sticks are OK). That all be well with our souls. The body wastes away, animal instinct/premonition ( to fight or to flight) exists, but our spirits God knows will remain – like He who always does.

Like A Quiet American, who I now am, ” How I wished there had been someone to whom I could say I was sorry”. Last Monday saw the anniversary of my Dad’s passing. He somehow survived that dark decade, home alone. All those years, I was longing and looking for home, unable to return; BTW, that’s the legal definition of a refugee.

On my day off from relief work, I sat on the Hong Kong Victoria Peak in the summer of 81, looking in the direction of home. Similar time zone, but miles apart. As if, had I stared hard enough, even without Google Earth, I could somehow drone-view past our District 3 , back then covered in tin roofs, underneath sat my Dad, in pajamas smoking half-cigarette.

From Tet 75 to Tet 25. For my siblings, dead or alive, my nieces and nephews, cousins and friends. I brought document for the Red Cross to translate but in a hurry and panic, I almost forgot you. If there were “just one more chance, another dance”…but we all know the race against time is one-way. Boy oh boy; I can use another Vitamin B12 my brother once boosted this Icarus in his flight to the warmer Sun (on wings of wax) on the day leading up to Tet of yesterday.

In hindsight and my opinion, it’s my Mom’s sincerest prayers that stirred us away from and out of harms way, her protective instinct averted my perceived Final Destination. As she joined the very band of ancestors to whom she had often prayed, I, her reservist, hate to break our prayer chain and ritual = keeping it in the front burner as long as it takes – at least for one more Lunar spin much like yesterday’s Copernican Waltz under that glitzy disco ball.

Seventeen, Dancing Queen.

As in Final Destination the series, I had similar premonition; that Tet 75 would be my last (I have tried without success to come back: same time of the year, same place, but as Thomas Wolfe put it, “You can’t go home again”.)

Enrolling in pre-med, I only had one mission: to pass the entrance exam that summer. Yet Tet got in the way not to mention the collapse of the country. Instead of cramming and burning the midnight oil, I found myself slumbered away half-way in the Pacific for a different test: immigration vetting summer. The locale and luxury (of idle time) was more Purgatory (temporal) than Paradise (permanent) albeit Pentagon-paid.

School was out during Tet 75. Society was boiled in anticipation and apprehension. After all, we had learned a lesson from Tet 68 i.e. things might not be as they seemed, sacred or not.

But being native and naive, I was torn between an uncertain future (Vietnamizing of the Vietnam War) and then fleeting present (Vietnamizing of Woodstock), pro vs anti-war.

Since I did not have the luxury of an elite overseas slot (Colombo program to Australia or Exchange student program to the US) naturally it’s do or die (literally in most case as the draft and death-by-attrition process played itself out). Those two push/pull forces were at work full time on my hormonal bursting body.

To ace the exam (which we all knew, was not pure meritocracy, but evidently reserved for children of the upper-crust), or to act on my premonition – that it would be the last Tet, a Tet I wished just like I had experienced in years past: extended families, deceased and alive, who surrounded and shielded me from outside upheaval (GI’s deaths, VC’s deaths, neighbor’s death, classmate back with body part behind per Vietnamization of the Vietnam War) (see Memory of Tet).

In short, it’s our turn to die for the ideal set out by predecessors (who themselves would cut and run as seen a few months later.)

So much pressure that I decided to shave my head – an attempt at total dedication and determination while at the same time deterring my young self from going out. Then friends knocked. Then dances awaited. Pre-Tet, during Tet and Post- Tet celebration. Tango and Cha cha cha. So much for calling it a day.

My friends and I, did not want to admit, but we all had a sense of foreboding; might as well – self-mutilation (hair gone) and self- indulgence (lungs gone); exercises in existential reflex and autonomy of last resort (I have seen a lot of tattoo and nose rings of late; modern version of youth reaction and rebellion). Rumba on the floor, rumbles on the street. “Would you care to dance”!. With each evening out, my dream further slipped away.

Outside, hustling and bustling. Inside, dizzying disco light (be sure to wear white for better purple haze reflection): hair-down-to-the-knees, hence, sexes indistinguishable in a Copernican merry-go-round (see also Vietnamizing Woodstock). How could I remember after all these years? I was resting between set, since Blue Danube, a Waltz number, was more suitable for the pros (a friend’s Dad, Ballroom Dance instructor, showcasing his students’ advanced lessons).

In looking back, it’s our last Waltz, like the Band’s (RIP Garth Hudson).

Any jam session has its end.

President fled, Palace abandoned, Embassy looted and houses vacated. Even my Dad was left behind, just to pass a whole decade like a ghost in an empty house.

We could not by any means put on our blinders. Well, one instant was still fresh on my mind the week after Tet 75; in Science, Physics, Chemistry and Natural Sciences (SPCN) class. Our lecture was interrupted by a classmate who collected donation. She was with sincere heart, but lacking in public speaking skills. Again, even with shaved head and determination to tune out, I felt touched, then asked for the mike. We had a bucket full of cash donation that day for those less-fortunate folks seen outside on campus.

Refugees were pouring in, occupying our school yards. Makeshift tents and blankets for homeless. Children were out of school, much like Gaza today. Eventually, we , givers joined in the same fate (stateless). I later ran into that same classmate in Indian town Gap camp as we once again waited for outplacement, as in Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.

Seeing my party all night, study all day, my brother, a medic Captain pharmacist, injected B12 then slapped me like a vet who sends off a “Texan horse” to the wild. If it were to be our last, might as well make it count.

We were so ignorant of the Cold War, Hot war or lukewarm ones. Per LBJ: ” Asian boys ought to do it for themselves…” modern world took side, then – over 6:00 o clock Evening News dinner, and now e.g. N Korean soldiers in Ukraine. Their predecessors even joined in on one side, South Korean the other – ignoring signed Armistice a decade earlier ( Vietnam War? American War? Korean War? with close to 3 million US servicemen/women on rotational basis, with close to that many in human sacrifice from all races – Blacks slightly and unfairly disproportionate.)

Hence, I felt that constant chill in the back of my neck. I worried my family, friends and world wouldn’t stay the same. Not the medical-school dream I feared shattered, but the dread of imminent collapse, crack and crumble of reality itself. Back then, faced with shell-shock and culture – shock ; we got no choice but to pack it and press reset . hit the ground running: stateless, semi-orphan, without roots and a place called home, a “complete unknown … like a rolling stone” (all those years previous, I grew up in one place knowing the same people ) to borrow from Dylan.

I took on an American persona (We Are – in jeans and T’s) to blend in (even printed my own “card visit” – as icebreaker, to obligate reciprocity (date over coffee) the way Hare Krishna offered free roses. Not much one can do to launch life 2.0 : two set of clothes and copies of birth certificate, high-school diploma and an ID card – draft-deferred card, which certified my being actively enrolled in Pre-med program (so warring society at best could replenish its medic reserve to resupply the front).

All was not quiet on our front however. A month before our own evacuation, in sheer panic and hysteria, the Highland retreated (Convoy of Tears) triggered mob madness with people turned guns on each other, pushed and punched, shoved and kicked. So much shooting and looting that my classmate, in the Air Force, already secured a slot a month later, jumped off his overloaded plane at the last minute.

Chaos. Carnage. Collapse.

Those sweat-soaked shirts outside the US Embassy tell all. Those inside, entertained their restless children with paper airplanes made out of soon-defunct currency. Those same people couldn’t wait for their turn to be on a real plane – squatting in batches to be ferried out by helicopters for the first leg of a thousand-mile journey. A thousand-yard stare without selfies as often seen at airport.

We were utterly betrayed and abandoned. No “just one more chance, another dance”. Boulevard empty, bunker erected. Eerily silent in a slowly dying city.