What people will do for freedom. Many did not make it.
I stumbled across this while trying to surf some old memories.This was not my ship or my story but I and many other sailors on many other ships had similar experiences.
""Desperation"
by: Mark Roberts
This essay was published in the Spring, 1988 Eastern Michigan University Honors Journal.
This essay is dedicated to the children of Southeast Asia.
On rare occasions we have the opportunity to take part in events that have historical as well as personal significance. This is such a story, a true story of desperation.
Infant: Refugees maneuver an infant to the waiting arms of HTFN Smith.
HTFN Smith has a solid grip on a child.
21 knots to Hong Kong: Photo by: Mark Roberts
Whipple crew member Ken Rushing recounts his experience of the rescue.
More photo's of the rescue
Vietnamese boat people were not part of my experience, but the culture was. Many a young vietnamese pleaded for a chance to go to the US. I suppose I will always remember, with a heavy heart, their desperation. To me it was and remains a far too painful reminder of my parent's struggle during WWII. Desperate refugees on the run with little more to loose, but left with a fight not to loose their lives. In the end, the physical and emotional exhaustion robbed them even of the will to live. Beaten into submission, it didn't matter anymore, all they wanted was to rest. Those words paraphrased from my mom's illegal crossings back and forth into Russian occupied E. Germany. Somehow that has stuck with me and today resonates powerful emotions as I gaze at the pictures you posted. For them it was by sea, for others, by foot or train, etc. It is a trail of wretched humanity cowering under the whip of war. Always the multitude pays most for the self righteous folly and power blinded perceptions of leadership. For them, these insignificant beings are mere pawns to be leveraged for mastery and domination. Most recently, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lybia stand in dismal testimony. May their souls rest and find the room to live in peace, for their care is not the same as that of the powers that be.
I work with a Vietnamese who lived this experience. When they got out on the South China Sea, their boat began taking water and was sinking when they were rescued by a German freighter. They eventually went to Germany but found out the father had made his way to the United States and the family eventually reunited with him in the states. She couldn't speak English when she got here as a small child but ended up graduating at the top of her class in college.
I remember the newscasts about the "boat people" and employed several of the boat people back in the early '80s. While they were adrift they suffered starvation and no drinking water. They drank their own urine. Food was withheld from the children by those strong enough to impose their will to survive. The mortality rate was very high while in the boats. It was not a pretty story.
Does anyone recall the tension, Vietnamese immigrants found with the Texas fishermen who got outcompeted shrimping? That too was a sad situation.
Or for that matter, has anyone on here had contact with some of the vietnamese friends you likely made while serving there? I've not, but wonder what ever became of them. Nip, our young kitchen helper, desperate for me to adopt him and take him home with me. I still see images of the desperation on his face and the tearful sorrow when I final left.
Rockdoc Franz wrote: Does anyone recall the tension, Vietnamese immigrants found with the Texas fishermen who got outcompeted shrimping? That too was a sad situation.
Or for that matter, has anyone on here had contact with some of the vietnamese friends you likely made while serving there? I've not, but wonder what ever became of them. Nip, our young kitchen helper, desperate for me to adopt him and take him home with me. I still see images of the desperation on his face and the tearful sorrow when I final left.
There are a lot SF's that mantain close bonds with the Montagnards.
"This past Saturday, I received one of the nicest E-mail's a person can get. Richard Chen was a 14 year old young man on August 22, 1978. He was also one of the 410 refugees rescued by the U.S.S. Whipple in a stormy South China Sea.
When I read the E-mail, no one was looking but I'm quite sure my jaw dropped. Then, a surge of wonderment swept through me.
Amazing!
After Whipple left Hong Kong, and in the subsequent 19 years, I wondered now-and-then what ever became of the people we left behind. Now I know of one. Since 1987, Richard is a citizen of the United States; Father Husband and the rest is for him to say...
http://www.destroyersonline.com/usndd/ff1062/rchen.htm
One of the boat people who worked for me was the son of a Vietnamese diplomat who participated in the Hawaii talks with President Johnson in 1968. He was privately educated. Spoke 5 languages. Was a military pilot. Spent three years in a concentration camp before escaping. His father died while in the camp. He spent many weeks floating on a boat with many others before being rescued.
He is one of the most intelligent men that I have ever met.
