My children I’m never going to see them again. I’m never going to see my family or my neighbors. I’d take it all back if I could, never join the vietcong, never leave my home to fight. I’m a taxi driver not a soldier I drove people around the city, I did not shoot guns. I want to run away, but they’d catch me. I want to fight back, but they’d win. There is nothing I can do but stand here and let him shoot me. I can almost feel the barrel touching my head. I wonder what it would feel like, would it be quick? I imagine I would be dead before I hit the ground. All I do know is that this is it, I am going to die.
I did not mean for all this to happen I’m a simple man I drove a taxi around Da Nang and lived in a small house outside the city. My wife Ba’nh sold fish in the market. We lived a quiet life and enjoyed ourselves. We were poor but it never bothered us we were happy. Everyday I would buy some gas from a friend of mine and would drive into Da Nang for the day and would take a small break to eat some rice noodles that I’d bring from home. After it started to get dark I’d drive home and pick up my wife and kids from the market and she would make some food she picked up at the market. We had a small kitchen but mywife was a good cook. She made very good Pho and Bun and we never went hungry. We had no television so we instead worked on the house or mended fishing nets till we were ready to sleep. We all slept in the same room of the floor with some old comforters. That was my life simple but satisfying.
Everything Changed when the war started, I was never affected by the communists I knew there was civil war but I never had anything to do with it. I’d hear stories from friends about the war and about the United States but I always brushed them off, I posed no threat to anyone therefore I had no reason to worry. The first time I ever saw United states soldiers was march of 1965. One day I drove into Da Nang and they were all over the place. They didn’t have any guns they were just walking around. No one wanted a taxi that day so I drove home early.
Weeks had passed and I started hearing gun shot late into the night. People in our village started leaving to find a safer places to live. We didn’t have enough money to leave so I started saving whatever money I could so we could escape if we had to. I hadn't seen any fighting yet I just heard it from far away. The soldiers were using my car a lot more though and always needed directions. They would always want to go to bars or clubs in Da Nang and I would always charge them more. I was making more money from them so I didn’t mind them being there I was always worried though about what they would bring.
The first time I ever saw fighting was in Da Nang. I was driving some soldiers to a club one day when I heard gunfire down the road. One of the men in the car said that the vietcong must’ve gotten into Da Nang. They were shooting at soldiers out the window of a store at some American soldiers. The soldiers in my cab jumped out of my cab and ran towards the fire. I of course started to drive away but before I turned my car around an explosion blew up the building down the road. I’d never seen anything like it before, there were people running into the streets on fire, the street was covered in parts of the building and of people. I sped off down the road and went straight home. When I got home my wife was waiting for me with my kids crying. There had been fighting in the market and many people were killed. I told her about the bomb that went off and the people shooting at the american soldiers. I decided it was time to go and find a safer place. So we packed our possessions and left.
It hadn’t been long driving till we came across a group of soldiers along the side of the road that stopped us. These soldiers had weapons and a different uniforms that the soldiers I saw in Da Nang. We stopped in the road and they came up to my car and asked me where I was going. I told them everything that happened and why we were leaving, because of the war. I did not speak english very well and they kept asking me to repeat myself. Finally after not understanding what I was saying one man lifted his gun and told us all to get out of the vehicle. I barely understood what he was saying, so I told my family to get out. They lined us up along the street while some men started climbing into our vehicle. My wife kept telling me that we needed to run and that they were going to kill us. A man came over and asked me what she was saying but couldn’t understand me when I told him. He started yelling at her telling her to shut up.
What happened next I remember very well, My wife scared by the man yelling started to run towards the jungle. I told her to stop but she did not listen, my children started to sun after her but I grabbed them both. A soldier then shot his gun at my wife, before I could turn around and stop him. I did not pause I attacked him I threw my hands at him face and hit him. I felt somebody grab me and throw me aside, it was another soldier. The soldiers in my car rush out and started yelling at the man who shot my wife. My kids were crying and I could not help them a soldier was holding me down. I promised myself that if I ever lived passed this day I would fight back.
They let us free once they saw we had no weapons. My kids cried until we arrived at a small village and ran out of gas. When we got to the small village I told them what happened and that I needed a place to stay for my kids. After an older man brought us to a small building a woman came up to me and said another man wanted to see me, just me. She laid me to a small store and into a back room. There were four men standing over a map of Da Nang talking in quiet voices, they stopped when they was me. The woman told them who I was and that they wanted to ask me bout the American. One of the men came to me and said his name was Commander Bao. He asked me if I could tell him about the Americans. I then knew that these men were fightings the americans, fighting the men that killed my wife. I told them everything I had heard from the guns to the stories I heard about the airbase, I even told them about my wife. When I was done they asked me if I wanted to fight, I told them yes.
I made a mistake, this was not the right life for me. I was a small man I was not good at shooting, nor learning. I proved to have little use to them other than driving, I was a very good driver. They had been watching the Americans and knew alot about them, things I never knew. They hired prostitutes to spoil the americans and ask them questions, little things about them like that they didn’t like their rifles because they would often jam up and not work. Commander Bao and his men were very good at planning as well and would go out late at night and attack the americans. I was never part of these attacks I instead sorted out the guns they would bring back and put them in boxes and bury them below different houses.
Life was like this for many weeks, my kids were taken care of by some women in the village and I helped fight the Americans. I learned that many of the other fighter had family members killed by the Americans we were fighting. I wanted to fight with them to do something and get rid of them. I approached Bao and some men when they returned from an attack if I could join them for the next attack.Their next planned attack was to join other fighters in Saigon and attack the americans there. I needed to drive them and to help them fight the americans. I had only been to Saigon a few time when I was much younger but I remembered how to get there. It took us many days to get to Saigon and join the other groups. There were many of us gathered in a small village in the jungle outside Saigon. The leaders of our groups made a plan that a few of us would drive into Saigon and prepare a way for the rest of the group to attack the american base near the city. I was chosen as one of the drivers and given a gun and some bullets. We waited a few days to plan and learn what the americans were doing and then one night we drove into Saigon.
We all met up and hid in what they called a safe house, there was a an and a woman living there and they gave our group of ten men a place to sleep and showed us a secret room filled with guns and bullets. They told us everything they knew about the american base outside the city and that they knew of a way to get in through the fence that went around the base. I was excited to attack the americans, we all were. I went with two of the soldiers I drove into Saigon to find another safe house and talk to some people there. They would not tell me where it was, but they said they wanted me to come. We got to the safe house but there was no one there. They lead me down some stairs to a basement where there was more guns and bullets, and under a small trap door there was a large bag. They told me that it was a bomb and that the next morning we were going to set this bomb off in a club that was going to be filled with american soldiers celebrating the 4th of july.
They told me that the owners of the small club knew of the attack and closed to everyone accept america and were going to leave before the bomb was set to explode. I remembered the bomb in Da Nang I remembered the americans running around on fire. I agreed only because of my wife, I finally had the chance to keep my promise. So, I said I would. We loaded the bomb into my car and some guns and drove back the the first safe house.
The next morning everyone in the safehouse was working hard getting everything ready for the attack. The two men who were with me the night before took me out to the car and we drove to the club. The owners of the club lead us to a back door where we took the bomb. The two men took the bomb out of the bag and set it on a table and told me to take the car out to the front of the club and wait. I did what they said and waited outside the car. As I was waiting an american man called for me to walk over to him. He was speaking english and I couldn’t understand him very well, but he asked me about what I was doing. Then the bomb went off, it wasn’t as big as the one I saw in Da Nang but it was very loud. It must’ve gone off before they two men gotten away. The american man the grabbed me and put some metal cuffs on my wrists then some vietnamese men ran over to where I was standing a man then pulled a small gun out of his pocket and put it to my head.
That’s where I am now. Standing on the street with a gun to my head, unable to fight unable to run. My children have no mother, and soon no father. Why am I here? I don’t want to be here I want to be at my home. I don’t like war, war is hell. I didn’t ask for this, no one did. BANG...
