I met Ly in 2004 while he was doing some work for my landlord who mentioned to Ly that I was a Vietnam Vet.   Learning this about me of course interested Ly since he was born in Vietnam.   He wrote the below story which chronicles his trials to get to America.  I believe it is worth the read.

My father was an American soldier. My mother was Vietnamese. They met during the Vietnam war and that resulted in me. Caught between the war, the world clearly wasn't ready for me yet, but I came into it. When it was time for my father to go back to his home in America, he asked my Vietnamese grandparents if he could take me with him. My grandfather said, "No." I was told that he begged and cried. My grandfather told him that he would allow my mother to go, but not me. My grandfather wanted to keep me with him for reasons I cannot clearly explain. So when my father left for the U.S. in 1974, I was just a baby, and that was the last time I saw him. He ended up dying shortly afterwards in a car accident.

My mother, who was allowed to go, never boarded the plane to America...too scared, perhaps. She ended up moving to another city without me. She couldn't take me. You see, it was bad enough that she had given birth to a half American baby.

So I stayed with my grandparents. We were living underground then, and had to burn every remnant of my father, otherwise, we would have gotten killed. We lived there for two and a half years because there was war above and my grandparents were afraid I would be killed for being half American.

After 1975 my grandparents and I moved to a different city. I wasn't liked there. It was hard for me to go to school; people gave me a hard time on the street. I couldn't understand why people treated me differently. My grandfather told me it was because I was different. So what could I do - I was different. I made the most out of my situation.

At the same time, my grandparents also had to raise their own children...and they had A LOT of children. For this reason, they couldn't really take good care of me. We were poor back then. I started working at the age of 7 to help out my family. My first job was with this family that lived nearby. To be rather blunt, I was like their slave. I lived in their home with them, and did various household chores. My main job, however, was to take care of their water buffalo - graze them, and I found this task the most agreeable. What I hated was that they used to whip me a lot when I did something wrong, which was usually letting the water buffalo get too far and graze in neighbor's fields. But hey, I was only 7 and those water buffalo were huge. I worked for that family for 5 years until one day I told my grandfather that I didn't want to work for them anymore. He asked me why and I replied that I didn't want to because they were whipping me. Grandpa said, "Then come home and live with us." Although I liked living at home, I didn't like that my grandparents were living such a hard life and I wasn't helping out anymore.

Not too long after I moved back home I began, once again, to contribute to the family income. Behind our house was an army base for American soldiers. Around that army base were layers upon layers of "American garbage" left behind. In fact, practically our whole town was built on top of this American garbage. We used to dig this American garbage day after day to sell for income. This was our job for a long while. At the same time, I also had the responsibility of taking care of my aunts' and uncles' water buffalo. I used to graze them around the army base. Sometimes my friends would come and help me out with the water buffalo, as well as come with me to play on the Army base. There were quite a few of us boys. Slowly, one would die here and there by getting blown up. You see, there were mines planted in spots around the army base. If you were unlucky, you stepped on one.

In 1985 I got sold to another family for $2,000.00 as their ticket to the U.S. However, that didn't work out because the government found out that they weren't really my family.

I still wanted to go to America, so in 1988 I started walking, with no clue that it was so far away. I walked for a whole day and reached a bridge - the border of Cambodia. (Needless to say, I didn't know where I was at the time.) There were soldiers guarding the other side of the bridge. To me, soldiers of any kind were bad news back then, and I just knew there was no way they'd let me pass, so I walked about 2 miles along the river. Then I just swam across, got to the other side and kept walking again. I walked for a little longer until I hit a highway. The sky was getting dark and I was tired. As I was walking, a semi driving towards me swerved, avoiding a huge pot hole. While swerving around the pot hole, it slowed down, so I jumped onto the back of it. Once I got onto the back, I saw there were already two kids and an adult sitting in there. I just kept to myself, not saying a word. I had no idea where this semi was going.

For about six hours I sat there, waiting. Finally the semi slowed and stopped. I jumped off and looked around. It looked like a city and the people were speaking a different language. It had started to rain so I got in the back of another semi to sleep. What I didn't know, however, was that there was another soldier sleeping inside of that semi. He spoke to me and I couldn't reply. He used hand motions to ask me if I was hungry. I nodded and said, "Yes." He took me somewhere to eat. After we ate, he took me to a Vietnamese family (living in Cambodia). That family asked me where I was going. Instinctively, I knew that I should not tell them that I wanted to go to America, so I said I was lost. They gave me a bowl of rice and told me that I would have to stay with them; the next morning they will take me to the nearby mountain to work with them. I ate the bowl of rice, then they told me to go to sleep; they would wake me up the next morning. The family went to sleep inside. I was left to sleep outside.

The next morning around, I'd say, 4a.m. I woke up and started running. I ran as fast and as far as I could. I probably ran until about 11a.m. By then I was tired, so I started walking slowly. As I was walking, I saw an older man riding a bicycle; he looked very tired. Using hand signals, I stopped the man and offered to ride the bicycle while he sat on the back. He agreed and I rode that bike, with him sitting on the back, until about 2p.m. when we came across a check point with soldiers and police. Apparently, you had to show some paper to them in order to cross the bridge. I had neither paper, nor money. That old man, the one who sat on the back of the bike, began asking me for money (again hand signals). Of course I got angry; I was the one pedalling for 3 hours while he sat on the back and now I have to pay? Well, he wanted me to pay and I couldn't, so he took me to the police. It just so happened that all of the police were foreign (Cambodian), so I had to wait for the translator. When the translator came, the first thing he said to me was, "You're trying to run away to another country, aren't you? You're ashamed of your country?" Then he hit me in the ribs with his AK-47. He told me that from then on I would have to live with the police in the police station (even though they were all Cambodian). My job was to feed the pigs, do the dishes and take care of their water buffalo. Every night I prayed, asking the 'Old Man.' "Where do I go from here?" I did that for 3 nights. One morning all the police had left and I saw my opportunity to get away. I ran.

Actually, I was running on the highway that I had been on before. For 6 hours I ran. Eventually, I came upon a bridge. It dawned on me that this was the same bridge I got caught on before. Trying not to be recognized and also very hot, I pulled my shirt over my head. Next thing I know, a man pulled the shirt off of my head and started kicking me. I was shocked; I had no idea that they would be looking for me. The man signaled that I would go back to the police station with him. He rode his bicycle and I had to run in front of him. After running all morning without food, I was very tired. Every time I slowed down, the policeman put his foot on my back to make me keep running.

After a long while, another policeman came along and saw us. He put me on the back of his bike and took me back to the police station. At the police station, the man who caught me pointed an AK-47 to my head and said that he would kill me if I ever ran away again. So I stayed for 4 more days. The whole time I was thinking, "What now..." I hadn't come this far to stop. Finally, I came up with a way to get away again. One day when no one was around, I snuck away. This time, I wouldn't go on the highway. Although I didn't know where I was going, it didn't seem like I would get caught if I wasn't near the highway. Eventually, I got lost and ended up in a swamp/forest. I had to swim all day. When I got tired, I climbed up a tree to rest and take off the leaches that had stuck to me. I kept doing this until evening hit and the water started to get shallow. From afar, I could see rice fields and lights.

I came up to the first house I saw and they gave me a bowl of rice. I couldn't speak to them, so I just went on my way; I kept walking. This time, I got back onto the highway again. It was late and dark, and I was so tired I could barely stand. Looking for a place to sleep, I spotted a store on the side of the street. I figured everyone was at home sleeping, so I went in and slept on the ground. It was probably around 2a.m. when I heard a familiar clicking noise. I opened my eyes and there were lights shining in my face and I couldn't see anything. As soon as my eyes adjusted, I saw a bunch of AK-47s pointing at me from my head down to my toes. Trying to calm myself down, I kept thinking, "Don't move, Ly. Just do what they want." They were all foreign (Cambodian) soldiers. Since I couldn't speak to them, they sat me down on the side of the highway and waited for the translator. We waited for a while and the translator came on a motorbike. He took me to his home. He told me to stay there and live with him and his wife. He said, "When you get older, you can be like me, get married, work and make a good living here." I couldn't tell him, "No," so I said, "Yes." I stayed there for a while. My job was to bring water from the well, fill all the of the water containers, sweep around their store and help his wife set up the store every morning. It was OK. One morning I woke up and finished my chores. Then I saw a semi slowly approaching. To me, that semi meant freedom. The road it was following lead West, and I knew that I wanted to go West. It stopped and parked nearby. This whole time I just watched, trying to figure out a way to sneak into the back of it. When I got my chance, I snuck into the back. The semi drove for about an hour. Suddenly, the semi slowed to a halt.

I stuck my head out. We had come to another bridge, another check point. I watched, careful not to be seen. It seemed as though the soldier was telling the driver to go back. Neither the driver nor the soldiers knew that I was in the back, so when the semi started backing up to turn around, I jumped out and into the rice field below. Holding my breath as long as I could, I swam down to the side of the river. I stood up in the water and pretended to be a fisherman. When I saw that the soldiers weren't paying attention, I swam to the other side of the river. Once I got to the other side, I pretended to fish again. Again, when the soldiers paid no mind to my presnece, I started walking. I probably walked about one mile before reaching another village. The village was celebrating for some reason I couldn't figure out. There was a lot of singing, dancing and a lot of people. I walked along, pretending to be one of them. There was a clearing down the middle of the road that I had to cross. I continued walking and began passing the crowd. As I was walking, I started to hear a great, loud, thundering noise. Before I could look around to wee what it was, a policeman came up behind me and hit me on the side of the head. He started talking, but when I couldn't reply, he tied me to a nearby tree.

While tied to the tree, I continued to observe some of the things going on and figured out why everyone was celebrating. The Vietnamese soldiers and artillery were being pulled out (and yes, it had also dawned on me that I was in Cambodia); they were leaving and the Cambodians were celebrating their departure. This was why the bridges were all being heavily guarded. So there I was - tied to a tree for about 3 hours. Some kids started to gather in front of me - standing around, watching me. I tried to get them to untie me so I could drink some water. They did. As soon as I got a drink of water, I started running again. I ran as hard as I could, all day, all night until I came upon a big city. (Otherwise known as "Nam Ren.") At this point, I was definitely lost.

Before, there was only one main street (the highway) to follow and in the city. Being in the city was so overwhelming because there were so many streets and buildings everywhere. I started walking aimlessly, asking God to give me some sign, tell me something I should do. I remember thinking, "You brought me this far, Old Man, now show me the way because I'm not stopping here. You're the only one who can show me how to get to America." I was never brought up religiously, but I always figured there was an 'Old Man' upstairs looking out for me. I continued walking around, looking around. Without warning, a bicycle came along and hit me. The man on the bike got off and helped me up. He started speaking to me in Cambodian, then he tried in Vietnamese. He asked me where I was going. Without thinking I said, "America." The man told me I can't say that to people because everyone will think that I'm trying to run away. Instead, if people ask me where I am going, I must say that I have to go to this particular island because my uncle is a fisherman there and I have to deliver a message that my grandfather is sick. The man told me how to get to that island...He said that half of the island is Cambodian, and the other half is Thailand...To get to that island he instructed me to cross a nearby river on a ferry...Then I must follow the road that goes out to the edge of the city, which will be in front of me as soon as I get off the ferry...At the edge of the city there will be an open market with a semi around there...There will be lots of objects and people on that semi...I must get on that semi and it will take me to the harbor, where I can catch the boat to the island. As he spoke I followed his finger to where he was pointing, but when I turned to ask him a question, he had already left - disappeared.

I turned around in a full circle, still looking for him and my eyes caught sight of the ferry he spoke of. I boarded the ferry and crossed the river. As the man had said, there was a road in front of me, so I walked along the road. I walked until around 10p.m. and I became tired. I stopped and started looking for a place to sleep. Glancing around, there was a spot where a couple of other people were sleeping, so I walked over and laid down. Those men started asking me questions (in Cambodian). Seeing that I couldn't understand, they took me to a Vietnamese army base nearby. Walking in, I already had a bad feeling. A Vietnamese soldier had noticed that I was half American and he asked me where I was going. Meanwhile, the man who had brought me, left. I answered the soldier, telling them that my uncle is a fisherman on an island and my grandfather is sick, so I must deliver this message to him. The soldier didn't believe me. He told me that I was ashamed of Vietnam and that I was trying to run away to America. The soldier grabbed my arm, led me to a container, and locked me inside. The container was about 5ft x 5ft and it was made of solid metal. It seemed as though there had been other people locked inside because it was dirty in there and smelled of human waste. I guess the soldier and his fellow soldiers decided to have some fun; they began throwing rocks at the container. The noise was so loud and it echoed inside; the sound nearly drove me crazy. My left ear started dripping blood.

When the noise stopped, I heard voices outside. It turns out that the Cambodian man that brought me to the Vietnamese army base had come back, hearing the noise from afar. Asking where I had gone, the Vietnamese soldiers told him I was inside the container. I guess he told them to open the container and let me out. I got out, stumbling a little. The Cambodian man, using hand gestures, asked me if I wanted to stay here with the soldiers, or go with him. I went with him. I followed him and he led me to the Cambodian police station. The officers at the police station were nice to me. The sergeant (or head officer) of the police station was half French, half Cambodian, and he spoke a little bit of Vietnamese. He ordered another officer to cook some chicken soup for me. I ate, and we spoke a little. He told me that the next morning, I could go wherever I want. I told him that I was going to go see my uncle.

The next morning I woke up and looked for the sergeant to say, "Goodbye," but he was no where to be found, so I left. I continued walking on the same road, on my way towards the edge of town. It was about 10am when I reached the edge of the town. I saw the semi the bicycle man told me about. I got on the back of the semi, having a few doubts that maybe I got on the wrong one. Still, I sat there and waited while the semi drove for about an hour. Then it stopped. Six Vietnamese soldiers had hailed down the semi and were getting onto the truck. I could understand what they were saying. As they were sitting around talking, I pretended like I didn't understand what they were saying. I couldn't let them know I was Vietnamese. For the rest of the ride, I sat in my corner, pretending to ignore them - at the same time listening to their conversation. They carried a large bag with a dog inside. They spoke of going back to the base and eating the dog to celebrate going back to Vietnam; the war with the Camaros was over. Although I was interested and I wanted to know more, I knew that if they discovered I was Vietnamese, they would kill me, so I stayed silent and tried not to look at them. We drove for about another 4 hours. The truck slowed and the soldiers got off the semi and went into the jungle. It was about 5pm when the semi pulled up to a harbor. As I got off the semi, I saw the boat the bicycle man told me about.

This boat was the biggest boat I had ever seen or imagined. I walked to the harbor and found out that the boat was broken.; the men were in the middle of fixing it. They told me that it would be a few more days until the boat would be fixed. Until then, I had to find a way to take care of myself. As I walked around, I watched some kids and learned how they made their money. I joined them and helped them unload boats' merchandise. There were about 9 kids, excluding myself - all Cambodian. When we had just finished the last load, it was time to be paid, but the kids didn't give me my share of the money. They knew I wasn't Cambodian, so what could I do - I was out numbered. I was really hungry that night. I slept under a coconut tree and the next morning, all I could think about was feeding myself. I was so hungry that I walked into a restaurant and, using hand signals, told the waitress that I would clean up everything on the tables for one bowl of soup. She said OK. I worked in that restaurant for the whole day. That evening I met the owner of the restaurant and found out that all of the waitresses at the restaurant were Vietnamese. These Vietnamese girls were all waiting for an opportunity - for someone to take them to the island. Their families paid lots of money to get them that far. Then the owner asked me if I wanted to stay there and work for him. He said, "If you stay and work for me, I'll take care of you; then later on you can have a family here." I said I couldn't. I told him that I have to see my uncle on this island because my grandfather is sick; my uncle must go back to see my grandfather. I don't know if he believed me or not, but he didn't ask me again. I worked for him for three days. At the same time, I helped people load and unload their boats (by myself) to help pay for my ticket to go to the island.

Finally, the big boat started. The people administering the boat told me that it would leave the next morning. I went back to the restaurant and told the owner that I must leave the next morning. He said, "OK." Then he gave me some food to take on the boat and said, "Goodbye." I headed for the boat and got on. After 15 minutes, the boat broke again and I found myself going back to the restaurant for my job back. The owner said to me, "When you leave, you leave - you don't come back. If you come back, you don't ever go." I said I couldn't do that, so I left. I ended up staying with the boat administrators and later that evening, the boat started again. By this time, I had no food left and didn't know how long it would take to get to the island, but I took my chances and got on.

I would never ride that boat again. It was the most dangerous looking boat I'd ever seen. With too many people on it, it began making all sorts of noises. I was sure it was completely overloaded. It turned out that the old boat pulled through and 2 days later it reached the island.

The island itself, according to the man on the bicycle, was half Cambodian and half Thai. As the boat pulled up to the island, I saw a huge mountain in the middle of the island. I started thinking, it would take about 2 days to get to the other side. At that moment it was probably around 11a.m. So once I left the boat, I began catching crabs that were running around the beach, burned them, and ate them, as well as coconuts. I filled up my stomach and headed up the mountain. I think it was about 4pm and I was deep in the woods. Suddenly, I heard a very familiar sound; I heard a 'click' behind my head. A man started speaking Cambodian. Then he started speaking in Vietnamese. He was a Vietnamese soldier controlling the border between Cambodia and Thailand. The soldier asked me who helped me get up there. I told him that I had come alone. Then he said to me, "You're one lucky kid to not have stepped on a mine and gotten blown up, and you're also damn lucky you haven't gotten shot by a sniper yet." He made me follow his footsteps back down the mountain.

Once we got to the bottom of the mountain, there was no place to lock me up, so the soldier tied me up (arms, legs) and hung me upside-down, like a roasting pig. About an hour later, he came back and cut me down. He asked me to go catch fish for him and his fellow soldiers. I told him that I was a good fisherman. When I came back, I had two fish. They cleaned and cooked the fish and I ate with them. Afterwards, they told me that they would take me down to the harbor, and to stay there else I'd get killed, either from stepping on a mine, or from a sniper. I said, "OK." Down at the harbor, I slept under a coconut tree that night.

The next morning I got up and started looking for work. I found a boat that I could unload alone. After I had finished the first boat, the people paid me and I fed myself. I walked around until I ran into a Vietnamese kid that had been living there for 1 1/2 years with his family. He asked me what I was doing on the island and I replied, "I want to go to Thailand." The kid asked me, "Who did you come here with? Who paid for you go get here? Do you have any money to buy your way to Thailand?" I said, "No. I came by myself." He told me that his family had paid some people a lot of money to get them that far. I decided that I certainly didn't want to live on this island for a whole year; I had to find another way. That night I slept under the coconut tree again.

The next morning I got up and looked for another boat to work on. I found another boat that I could unload by myself. At the same time, I started observing the boat. The writing on it didn't look at all familiar...it also had a large fishing net on top of the captain's cabin. I thought to myself, "Somehow, I must get underneath that pile of fishing net." Of course I had no clue if this boat was going to Thailand or back to Cambodia. I just had to take my chances. So that day I finished my work and got paid. Then I fed myself. I ate a lot more than I needed - who knew how long I would be on that boat? Whatever money was leftover from feeding myself, I gave to the old man who had been sleeping under the coconut tree with me.

I slowly made my way back to the boat I had been working on. I pretended to still be working on the boat, while clearing the pile of fishing net to lay myself down. I looked around...and when nobody was looking, I covered myself with the fishing net. I waited... and waited. Finally, after about 2-3 hours, I heard footsteps getting on the boat. Then the boat started. I couldn't see where we were going - I couldn't see anything. The whole time, I couldn't make one noise because the captain's cabin was right beneath me; I was about 5 inches away from his head. If I was discovered, I was sure that the'd throw me off the boat. Later, I came to learn that if they had been caught bringing someone on their boat, they could have lost their business. So I laid there for about another 5 hours. Finally, I felt the boat slow down and pull into the harbor. I waited for the boat to stop; and I waited to make sure everyone was off the boat. After a while, I stuck my head out to look. There was no one around, so I got off.

I walked off the dock and onto the side of the street. This new place didn't seem like Cambodia or Vietnam. There were lots of nice things: nice cars, nice boats, nice houses. I didn't know where I was. As I walked around along the side of a street, I came across an open house. In the house I saw two little boys sitting in front of a "moving box." I had never seen anything like it before in my life, so I went and sat behind those kids. The kids turned around and looked at me. Then they turned back around and continued watching the "moving box." There were incredibly huge men, bigger than I thought ever existed, just beating each other up. This was my first offical encounter with color TV and WWF.

The children's mother was sweeping nearby and saw me sitting with her children. She came up to me and began speaking, but I couldn't understand her. She ushered me to follow her. The mother led me to a restaurant; inside were two men (Thai men). She spoke to them, then left. The men invited me to sit with them. We ate together and then they took me back to their place. They, using hand signals, told me to sleep while they went out somewhere. I said, "OK." So I got on the bed, then got scared and jumped off the bed. The bed was moving. This would be my first encounter with a waterbed. I didn't like it at all. I grabbed a pillow and slept on the floor, outside of the room, in front of the TV. When the men came back, they tried to ask me why I wasn't sleeping on the bed. I started waving my arms, trying to tell them that the bed was moving too much.

Later that morning, one of the men took me out to the street and thumbed down a pick-up truck (which I now know is a Mazda). I sat in the back for about an hour while the man in the truck drove. Finally, the truck stopped and the man pointed towards a building, ushering me to go inside.

I walked into the building and saw metal bars - it was like a jail. I got scared and left. Outside there was a large fence surrounding this building, and people standing around, on the inside. Some of them spoke to me. It turns out that they were all Vietnamese refugees. They had paid a lot of gold and risked their lives to get to this refugee camp. They told me that I had to go back to that building, the one that looked like a jail, and do my paperwork. I said, "OK," and went back to the building. A Thai man came in and spoke Vietnamese to me. He asked me how I got there, who I came with, and finally, why I wanted to go to America. I answered, "I came alone, and I want to go to America because my dad is American." He told me that I must stay in that camp for 1 - 1 1/2 years, then I would move to the bigger camp. Then I was told that the American people would see if they will accept me or not.

I waited, was accepted, and landed myself in Minnesota.