An All-American Story From Vietnam, the Hard Way

Today is the day we celebrate what is good about America. Patriotism stirs within us, especially among some of our newest citizens. Like Robert Nghiem Nguyen of Orange. When you look at this country’s history, the events of his life seem very much an American story.

As Nguyen took the oath of citizenship a few months ago, friends marveled that he had even made it. His wife and their eight children couldn’t help but think of those 16 years without him. . . .

Nghiem Nguyen, now 67, was born in what later became North Vietnam. His father ran a lumber business and the family lived well. Nguyen studied engineering in Hanoi, but left school to join the French-controlled Vietnamese forces trying to ward off Communist aggressors.

In 1954, Vietnam was officially divided, North and South. The war didn’t just split the country, it divided families, like the Nguyens. “It was a very sad time,” he recalls. While his loyalty was with the South, a sister and other relatives remained in the North.

Nguyen, who rose to the rank of major, adapted well to military life. He specialized in helping ethnic minorities, such as the Montagnard mountain villagers. Nguyen and his wife, Nga (now Victoria), and their many children had a good home and money in the bank. In 1967 Nguyen was sent to America for two months, asked to share with diplomatic officials here some of the work he’d been doing with minorities in Vietnam. When he returned to Vietnam, he was made chief military officer of the Phu Bon province.

He was a most handsome leader, Victoria Nga Nguyen says today. Pictures from that time show him as a man in control of his life.

But in 1975 the Saigon government fell. The Communist victors ordered all military officers of the South to register at a central location. Nguyen suspected a trick, which it was. It was May 16, 1975. “I told my wife, ‘Remember this day. Because we may never see each other again.’ ”

Nguyen was arrested as he arrived for the fake registration. He was sent to a prison camp in the far north. Hard labor, seven days a week, carrying rocks from the mountains to be turned into bricks. Food was a little rice and a little corn each day.

“One day I counted the kernels of corn. There were 89. Just a couple of mouthfuls.”

He shared a cell the size of one’s living room jammed with 70 men. Sleep was on a mat, with barely room to keep from touching the prisoner lying next to you. It was a living hell that many did not survive. The dying were placed in a corner, so that if they died by morning, they could be wrapped up and hauled off, as if they were dead dogs.

There was tremendous despair within the prison camp. But Nguyen says he kept urging the other men to learn from their history.

“At some point, the Communists will have to negotiate terms with the Americans,” he told them. “And when they do, the Americans will insist we be freed. We must hang on until that day comes.”

At night, Nguyen would write ideas to himself, to help stretch his mind and fight against his own despair. Before morning, he would burn his work, for fear of being caught.

Something memorable happened halfway through his years in prison: Nguyen learned his family had made it to America. His wife lost her house, her money and her jewelry to the Communist government. But she and all the children had made it out of the country.

“After that,” Nguyen says, “it didn’t matter what the Communists did to me; no amount of torture could break my spirit. Because I knew that my children would at least have opportunity.”

That’s the word Nguyen kept emphasizing when we talked. America to him didn’t mean fast food and good times. It meant opportunity.

Another day in prison stands out to him, this one a bad one. Nguyen, his health pounded by the constant work and so little food, suffered a stroke. Naively, I asked if they took him to a hospital. He looked at me with surprise.

“A hospital? There were no hospitals for us.” But they did move him--to the cell corner, where all the others had been placed who would be dead by morning.

Somehow Nguyen managed to get better. He was put back to work. His message about U.S. negotiations proved correct, and in 1984, he was among some of the prisoners who were released.

Major Nguyen had been in prison nine years.

Nguyen went to live with his wife’s family in Saigon. He learned the tailoring business. One day they came to arrest him again. But the stress of returning to that Godforsaken prison was too much for Nguyen; he suffered a second stroke. The government decided he wasn’t worth bothering with.

It took another seven years after Nguyen was freed from prison before he and his family could arrange for him to join them in America. Like many in his family, he took an American name. Robert had been the name of a dear friend he’d met on his 1967 American trip.

Robert and Victoria Nguyen both beamed as they told me about the day of his arrival at Los Angeles International Airport.

“It was a big hug, all of us at once,” he says.

Victoria told me her first words to him were: “I never thought this day would come.” And his to her: “God has blessed me.”

This was in 1991, just five years ago. For Nguyen, it was time to be a father again.

“Some of my children had dropped out of college. I thought the best way to get them to go back would be to set an example for them.”

So Nguyen learned English, and, despite a third stroke and heart disease, enrolled at Fullerton College, where he got his associate degree last year. Nguyen is now a student in cultural anthropology at Cal State Fullerton; he gets his degree next year.

“I want to work with ethnic minorities,” he says. “There is so much to do.” A special bonus to him: The children who had dropped out all returned to college.

The Years Without Him: The first year her husband was gone, Victoria Nguyen says, she could not even learn whether he was still alive. “I cried and cried, I was like a crazy woman I cried so many days,” she says today. From the second year on, he was permitted to write her once a month, and to receive occasional letters from her.

She came to America with almost no money, eight children, unable to speak English and fearful she’d never see her husband again. It’s remarkable that Victoria Nguyen even kept the family together.

Diabetes and raising the family prevented her from getting full-time work herself. She bought an old, beat-up car with what little money she had, so she could taxi her many children to both work and school. She somehow saw to it that all eight got to attend college.

“I did it for him,” she says, meaning her husband. She wanted her husband in prison to be at peace that his family was well.

Citizenship: Robert Nguyen became a U.S. citizen almost immediately after finding out he was eligible. He had been most calm in telling me about calamitous events in his life. But it wasn’t until I asked why he was in a such a hurry for citizenship that he got emotional and began to cry.

“It is my responsibility to this country,” he told me. He pointed out that his wife required government assistance when she first came, and the children needed scholarships to make it to college. “How could my family have survived without me, if it hadn’t been for the American people?”

Wrap-Up: Nguyen was asked to address his fellow students at Fullerton College’s commencement last year. It was those remarks that made me think of him for my Fourth of July column. Here is part of what he had to say:

“My life experience shows that the United States is truly a promised land. It not only provides all the opportunities to me, a senior, disabled student and new refugee, but to its citizens and the American students. If we know how to efficiently utilize these opportunities and are willing to strive to achieve, we are destined to succeed not only in educational pursuits, but also in realizing our lives’ dreams.”

What better sentiments for Independence Day?

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax (714) 966-7711, or e-mail (Jerry.Hicks@latimes.com).