The Legacy of the Vietnamese Boat People

Book excerpt: "After 70 years of Communism in the north Việt Nam (and the 47 years they rules the south), they brainwashed three generations. We, the 'Boat People', could not wait for anyone to claim our freedom for us. We fled, not as cowards, but as loving people who wished only a decent world for our children to grow up in. With all due respect, please read this book, then read it again. Then teach your children, and grandchildren, about what we lost. Lê Quang Vinh (Vinh Lê) is a Vietnamese refugee who arrived in Perth WA in 1978. A young English teacher (Karen) once told the author how her brother (Ross) died fighting as part of the Australian forces during the latter part of the 1954-1975 Việt Nam War. In 1966, when Lê Quang Vinh was just 12 years old, a communist Division (which included two local regiments) ambushed Ross's D company (6 Battalion of the Roayl Australian Regiment) in the rubber plantations of Nui Dat under very heavy rainfall. The battle lasted for three days and resulted in the deaths of 18 Australian soldiers with 24 wounded. On the other side, 1500 Việt Cộng were killed and 350 were wounded. After the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, the War ended. Unfortunately, the winners were the communists and the mission of the South-aligned international forces (to free locals from the tyranny of Communism) as never accomplished. Not only that, but what really happened before, during and after the War was not taught in schools in Việt Nam. Any anti-Communist debate was (and still is) brutally stifled and history is whitewashed for the Party's benefit as a matter of course. These outcomes convinced Lê Quang Vinh that the South Vietnamese people owed their international friends (in particular, Australians) two great debts. The first one can never be fully re-paid: the deaths of the 521 Australian soldiers who died in the battlefields of Việt Nam. The second, however, is the acceptance of the thousands of refugees who settled down in Australia during and after the war. This book was written to pay tribute to the over 58,000 Americans and 521 Australians who sacrificed their lives in the great, if ultimately Quixotic, battle for Freedom and Democracy in Việt Nam. It was also written to set the record straight. It may not always be written in perfect English (which is, after all, the author's most recently acquired tongue) but it is very much from the heart." -- back and dust covers.