Word: pham
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Communist troops drew closer to the South Vietnamese capital through early April, the atmosphere in both Saigon and Washington further darkened. Schools in Saigon and its suburbs conducted lessons and assigned homework as usual, but Nam Pham, then 18, and Diem Do, who was 12, noticed their classes getting smaller day by day. Says Do: "One day a couple of guys would be gone, and then a couple more, and then the teacher wouldn't show up. Everybody was scared. They sensed that something tragic was about to happen," and some were already fleeing the country...
...South Vietnamese soldiers who had fled had abandoned their uniforms. Everywhere you looked on the road, they had left all their military clothing and supplies: canteens, caps, coats, pants, boots, belts--they must have ended up fleeing in their shorts!" Some, in fact, had done exactly that. Nam Pham, venturing into the streets of Saigon on April 29 before shoving aboard a barge at the river docks, noticed among the crowds a number of young men clad in nothing but boxer shorts...
Nguyen Huu An, then an NVA major general, tells a different story. He says he entered the Presidential Palace at 11:30, only to find that "the men who had taken the surrender, Lieut. Colonel Bui Van Thong and Deputy Commander Pham Xuan The, had taken Big Minh to the radio station to read it. Colonel The had drafted the surrender for Big Minh, but when Minh looked at it, he complained that The's handwriting was so bad he couldn't decipher the document. So he asked The to read it to him or write...
That push proceeded swiftly and smoothly. On some days, reports spoke hopefully of a near cessation of fighting. In fact, that was an ominous sign: it meant that the NVA was methodically encircling Saigon without encountering much resistance. There was enough fighting, however, to impress Nam Pham, then a college freshman. Every night during that last week of April, he would climb to the roof of his family's house in a Saigon suburb and watch the flashes of bombs and gunfire coming ever closer. Says Pham: "It gave me kind of a weird feeling, watching something you love...
...which housed the Defense Ministry's war artifacts. The Vietnamese agreed, permitting him to browse through displays of uniforms and equipment taken from members of the U.S. Air Force and even to photograph documents. During a return visit by Schweitzer six months later, the museum's director, Senior Colonel Pham Duc Dai, made a startling revelation: the museum was the repository for records on all the Americans, living or dead, who had fallen into North Vietnamese hands. ``All the records, Colonel?'' Schweitzer asked, flabbergasted. ``We have everything,'' the colonel replied and handed Schweitzer the Red Book. Later, Colonel Dai offered...