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Thoughts and Actions on Black April 30?

Submitted by Thu Nga Do on Mon, 05/11/2009 - 21:44.
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Lời giới thiệu:  Nhân biến cố đau thương của dân tộc tháng 4 đen, ban tổ chức lễ tưởng niệm quốc hận 30-4 năm 2009 cộng đồng Dallas-Fort Worth, đã phát động một cuộc thi viết luận văn dành cho các giới trẻ từ 40 tuổi trở xuống, với chủ đề là : Nghĩ và Làm gì về ngày Quốc hận 30-4 ? Số thí sinh tham dự ngoài các giới trẻ trong cộng đồng người Việt hải ngoại, còn có sinh viên Việt nam hiện đang du học Hoa Kỳ.  Ban giám khảo thi luận văn hân hạnh lần luợt cho phổ biến một số bài chọn lọc đã trúng giải thưởng, để độc giả thưởng lãm tiếng nói từ tận tâm tư của thế hệ con em của chúng ta sinh trưởng sau năm 1975 về ngày Quốc hận 30-4.

 
Bài luận văn chọn lọc số 4 : 
Thí sinh: Sinh viên đại học năm thư nhất, 19 tuổi, qua Mỹ lúc 13 tuổi, bài viết bằng Anh ngữ 
Giài thưởng : Hạng ba : $200.00, một bằng khen thưởng, và một khung hình cờ vàng VNCH               
                                                 
 
Nguyen Vu Hoang-Anh
 
             How can someone fully describe or explain a particular feeling for an event, especially one that impact not just a person’s life but millions of others?  This is the question I asked when I read the essay topic on April 30, and I’m certain many people can relate, although each experience is different.   For many people this month marks the darkest time of year.   It is a time of memories that cannot be erased. Some of these people struggle with night terrors from flashbacks; one of those is my father.  Every year it is the same around this time, insomnia comes to those who have live thirty four years ago and upon entering their dreams they relive the same experience- nightmare. 
 
            Around the time of April, each day seems to drag on for my dad. Each night once he closes his eyes, the memories start to flood back: the battles, the killing, and the cruelty of the North on the days reaching April 30th.  I cannot say what really happened thirty four years ago since it is a topic my dad does not goes into details but I can say that the seven years after the South lost the war, his days in prison are not particularly pleasant.  Occasionally, those events in prison have slipped from his mouth of all the torture he has faced, you can see on his sadden face, the pain, and the sorrow, especially towards the people who were dear to him whom he watched die, a few who were his brothers, my uncles. 
 
My dad was a lieutenant of the South Republic of the Marine Corp; it is something in which he takes pride in since he reach that rank before the age of twenty five, one of the youngest to receive that honor.  The price for that is prison, his whole platoon wiped out, and later sought after thirty years later all because the South has lost.  He was not alone in the search to get rid of those who were involved in the South Republic, such as the people who were in the government or military.  One would think that after thirty years after war in which the Communists won, making people go to prisons for years, and take their family fortunes would be enough for them.  For the communists, they want to get rid of the root and would not stop until for sure all the rebellions are gone.  As the result, they have forced thousands of people to seek refugees in an unknown land, away from their family, and with nothing in their names.  This is not including the millions that had come to the United States thirty four years ago, not counting the millions that died on their way in search of freedom. 
 
The reason why my family now resides in the United States is not because there was a choice to pick but it was the only choice, one that I did not fully know until a few years ago.  When I was somewhere between the age of seven or eight, about thirteen years ago, my family came to the U.S., Houston to be exact.   For the first two years of my life in this new land, I hated living there.  I was away from my whole family who I saw every day and out with my cousins but once in Houston, each day I had to stay home, feeling confined.  As time passed by it was tolerable, then acceptable. The only good thing out of this was that I was much closer to my parents and brother.  I used to asked my dad when we first got to the U.S why we were here, and when we would go home again.  He would said, “We live here now and it’s better here.  I want you and your brother to have a future here, where there is freedom and the opportunity to succeed.”  It was not until a few years back that I come to realized that that was not the main reason.  The main reason was that the year we left was the last year to leave Viet Nam.  It was either leave the country or go jailed, which would most likely result in death.  The most likely choice to pick would leave but as the price of having to sign of never coming back again, resulting thousands of people not able to go back to their homeland.  This was a way the communists tried to get rid of all those they cannot control.
 
Even though the communists try to rid of everyone that was involved to make it easier to control people, it did not stop my dad.  He believes that no matter where he is, he could still make a different and stops the Viet Cong in some ways.  One of those ways would be getting rid of the “Vietnamese flag” that is currently representing the Vietnamese in the United States.  The red flag with the yellow star represents nothing but the blood of its people, filled with the corrupted government, the selling of its own people, and persecution of religion.  How can a flag like this represent the majority Vietnamese in the United States since they are refugees trying to escape this oppression of a government, where freedom is outlawed? How could a flag whose government sells it people’s land for their own luxury benefits whose account are in the billions while its  people are in poverty represent who the country?  With a flag like that being hang up, one would be ashamed to say that it is his flag with those meanings behind it. So far, the Republic flag has been recognized in fourteen states.  Like my dad, by trying to accomplish this acknowledgement still makes a different.  This says that the Republic has not died and still has hoped that one day would get its country back.
 
 In order to make this change, putting the Republic flag in a school would make a different for the younger children to know which flag actually represent the Vietnamese.  This is most affect especially in a university in which I am currently trying to at the campus I am attending.   I want to have a flag that is being hang that I can be proud of, that represent for where I came from, my ancestors, and future generations.
 
Nguyen Vu Hoang-Anh
 
Lời giới thiệu:  Nhân biến cố đau thương của dân tộc tháng 4 đen, ban tổ chức lễ tưởng niệm quốc hận 30-4 năm 2009 cộng đồng Dallas-Fort Worth, đã phát động một cuộc thi viết luận văn dành cho các giới trẻ từ 40 tuổi trở xuống, với chủ đề là : Nghĩ và Làm gì về ngày Quốc hận 30-4 ? Số thí sinh tham dự ngoài các giới trẻ trong cộng đồng người Việt hải ngoại, còn có sinh viên Việt nam hiện đang du học Hoa Kỳ.  Ban giám khảo thi luận văn hân hạnh lần luợt cho phổ biến một số bài chọn lọc đã trúng giải thưởng, để độc giả thưởng lãm tiếng nói từ tận tâm tư của thế hệ con em của chúng ta sinh trưởng sau năm 1975 về ngày Quốc hận 30-4.

 
Bài luận văn chọn lọc số 4 : 
Thí sinh: Sinh viên đại học năm thư nhất, 19 tuổi, qua Mỹ lúc 13 tuổi, bài viết bằng Anh ngữ 
Giài thưởng : Hạng ba : $200.00, một bằng khen thưởng, và một khung hình cờ vàng VNCH               
                                                 
 
Nguyen Vu Hoang-Anh
 
             How can someone fully describe or explain a particular feeling for an event, especially one that impact not just a person’s life but millions of others?  This is the question I asked when I read the essay topic on April 30, and I’m certain many people can relate, although each experience is different.   For many people this month marks the darkest time of year.   It is a time of memories that cannot be erased. Some of these people struggle with night terrors from flashbacks; one of those is my father.  Every year it is the same around this time, insomnia comes to those who have live thirty four years ago and upon entering their dreams they relive the same experience- nightmare. 
 
            Around the time of April, each day seems to drag on for my dad. Each night once he closes his eyes, the memories start to flood back: the battles, the killing, and the cruelty of the North on the days reaching April 30th.  I cannot say what really happened thirty four years ago since it is a topic my dad does not goes into details but I can say that the seven years after the South lost the war, his days in prison are not particularly pleasant.  Occasionally, those events in prison have slipped from his mouth of all the torture he has faced, you can see on his sadden face, the pain, and the sorrow, especially towards the people who were dear to him whom he watched die, a few who were his brothers, my uncles. 
 
My dad was a lieutenant of the South Republic of the Marine Corp; it is something in which he takes pride in since he reach that rank before the age of twenty five, one of the youngest to receive that honor.  The price for that is prison, his whole platoon wiped out, and later sought after thirty years later all because the South has lost.  He was not alone in the search to get rid of those who were involved in the South Republic, such as the people who were in the government or military.  One would think that after thirty years after war in which the Communists won, making people go to prisons for years, and take their family fortunes would be enough for them.  For the communists, they want to get rid of the root and would not stop until for sure all the rebellions are gone.  As the result, they have forced thousands of people to seek refugees in an unknown land, away from their family, and with nothing in their names.  This is not including the millions that had come to the United States thirty four years ago, not counting the millions that died on their way in search of freedom. 
 
The reason why my family now resides in the United States is not because there was a choice to pick but it was the only choice, one that I did not fully know until a few years ago.  When I was somewhere between the age of seven or eight, about thirteen years ago, my family came to the U.S., Houston to be exact.   For the first two years of my life in this new land, I hated living there.  I was away from my whole family who I saw every day and out with my cousins but once in Houston, each day I had to stay home, feeling confined.  As time passed by it was tolerable, then acceptable. The only good thing out of this was that I was much closer to my parents and brother.  I used to asked my dad when we first got to the U.S why we were here, and when we would go home again.  He would said, “We live here now and it’s better here.  I want you and your brother to have a future here, where there is freedom and the opportunity to succeed.”  It was not until a few years back that I come to realized that that was not the main reason.  The main reason was that the year we left was the last year to leave Viet Nam.  It was either leave the country or go jailed, which would most likely result in death.  The most likely choice to pick would leave but as the price of having to sign of never coming back again, resulting thousands of people not able to go back to their homeland.  This was a way the communists tried to get rid of all those they cannot control.
 
Even though the communists try to rid of everyone that was involved to make it easier to control people, it did not stop my dad.  He believes that no matter where he is, he could still make a different and stops the Viet Cong in some ways.  One of those ways would be getting rid of the “Vietnamese flag” that is currently representing the Vietnamese in the United States.  The red flag with the yellow star represents nothing but the blood of its people, filled with the corrupted government, the selling of its own people, and persecution of religion.  How can a flag like this represent the majority Vietnamese in the United States since they are refugees trying to escape this oppression of a government, where freedom is outlawed? How could a flag whose government sells it people’s land for their own luxury benefits whose account are in the billions while its  people are in poverty represent who the country?  With a flag like that being hang up, one would be ashamed to say that it is his flag with those meanings behind it. So far, the Republic flag has been recognized in fourteen states.  Like my dad, by trying to accomplish this acknowledgement still makes a different.  This says that the Republic has not died and still has hoped that one day would get its country back.
 
 In order to make this change, putting the Republic flag in a school would make a different for the younger children to know which flag actually represent the Vietnamese.  This is most affect especially in a university in which I am currently trying to at the campus I am attending.   I want to have a flag that is being hang that I can be proud of, that represent for where I came from, my ancestors, and future generations.
 
Nguyen Vu Hoang-Anh
 
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