Refugee. A word that we all know in humanities core due to our topic on war. However, most of us do not exactly know it’s meaning since we have not experienced it ourselves, but we do have relatives or a friend’s relative that may have gone through a surviving and strenuous experience to live a peaceful life away from war and chaos. This is where Mr. Thanh Mai, my friend’s dad, comes in. He was one of the forty-nine people in a small wooden river boat that fled the “terrors of communist Vietnam” to Hong Kong. He is one of many hundreds of thousands of “boat people” since they crossed the South China Sea in overcrowded and inadequate boats to reach countries, such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries (Remembering
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Mai if he had any relatives that served in the military and he mentioned his brother, Phu Mai that went MIA (Missing in Action) during the war in 1975. “I didn’t believe that it was true during that time. I still thought that he was alive, he may have been hiding in the forest since a lot of soldiers went to go to the forest to hide, and even five to ten years after he was reported MIA I still believed that he was alive, but now I accepted the he is dead and gone.” His face expressed defeat and sorrow for his lost brother. Losing a loved one is hard, but not knowing the fate of how that loved one passed away is much harder. He went on again of how communism is evil for not only tearing families apart, but also due to tearing the country apart and its people into two. He really supported the South Vietnam Republic and especially, the United States of America. “America is great since they were helping us fight off communism and for helping us gain our freedom. That’s why my life here has been great since I’ve never been so free and well off anywhere else other than America.” This is where I’d like to say that Mr. Mai was and still is one of the people that America won over. He is one of the products of the Hearts and Minds Operation. The Hearts and Minds Operation was a strategy used by the United States government and South Vietnam to win the support of the rural population and establish control over the area (The Forgotten Front: Winning Hearts and Minds in Southeast Asia). His patriotism and undying support for America is a great reason as to why Americans won the ideology factor of the war. I believe that Mr. Mai is at peace with his family and has even reunited with his family members back in Vietnam. Mr. Thanh Mai has come a long way, but he told me that he will not be fully satisfied until his two daughters’ finally graduate college and live a better life than he has. In the end, he is still proud of his experiences
Mai if he had any relatives that served in the military and he mentioned his brother, Phu Mai that went MIA (Missing in Action) during the war in 1975. “I didn’t believe that it was true during that time. I still thought that he was alive, he may have been hiding in the forest since a lot of soldiers went to go to the forest to hide, and even five to ten years after he was reported MIA I still believed that he was alive, but now I accepted the he is dead and gone.” His face expressed defeat and sorrow for his lost brother. Losing a loved one is hard, but not knowing the fate of how that loved one passed away is much harder. He went on again of how communism is evil for not only tearing families apart, but also due to tearing the country apart and its people into two. He really supported the South Vietnam Republic and especially, the United States of America. “America is great since they were helping us fight off communism and for helping us gain our freedom. That’s why my life here has been great since I’ve never been so free and well off anywhere else other than America.” This is where I’d like to say that Mr. Mai was and still is one of the people that America won over. He is one of the products of the Hearts and Minds Operation. The Hearts and Minds Operation was a strategy used by the United States government and South Vietnam to win the support of the rural population and establish control over the area (The Forgotten Front: Winning Hearts and Minds in Southeast Asia). His patriotism and undying support for America is a great reason as to why Americans won the ideology factor of the war. I believe that Mr. Mai is at peace with his family and has even reunited with his family members back in Vietnam. Mr. Thanh Mai has come a long way, but he told me that he will not be fully satisfied until his two daughters’ finally graduate college and live a better life than he has. In the end, he is still proud of his experiences