Reeducation in Postwar Vietnam: Personal Postscripts to Peace

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When helicopters plucked the last Americans off the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in 1975, countless Vietnamese who had worked for the Americans remained behind. Many were arrested and sent to "reeducation" camps, where they faced forced labor, indoctrination sessions, and severe privation.For a decade before the fall of Saigon, Edward P. Metzner served as an advisor among the people of the beautiful and hotly contested Mekong Delta. After the war, he diligently sought news of the close friends and comrades he had made among the Vietnamese military officers. Many had died, others could not be found. When Metzner eventually located a few, he believed their stories should be told. Three agreed to do so, and their accounts form the core of Reeducation in Postwar Vietnam.Huynh Van Chinh and Tran Van Phuc, who had been colonels in the Army of Vietnam, lived through the deprivation and torture of the camps and eventually found freedom in America. Le Nguyen Binh tells a different story: that of his dangerous escape from Vietnam, with some of his junior officers and enlisted men, in three overloaded fishing boats.The matter-of-fact, even stoic stories of these survivors stand as a testimony to their endurance and persistent desire to return to a life of freedom.