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Fort Smith resident honored for Vietnam service Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Petrus Lai Nguyen's refusal to abandon his wife's family left him all alone for years. Nguyen spent nearly nine years in prison after he skipped his escape flight to the United States in 1975 during the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese. He was captured and jailed for his work for the U.S. Agency for International Development during the Vietnam War. Nguyen, who now lives in Fort Smith, stayed behind because his mother-in-law and two other relatives, both children, would not be allowed on the U.S.-bound plane. "She was a peasant, she couldn't read or write," said Derlyne Gibson, who co-authored Nguyen's autobiography. "They decided they could not leave her alone there in that city, and as a result, the next day, the Americans were all gone." Nineteen years too late, Nguyen and his family immigrated to the United States in 1994, settling in Arkansas. He and Gull Mickel R'Com of North Carolina, another Vietnamese man who worked for the U.S. government's economic and humanitarian assistance agency, received overdue commendations for their work Monday. USAID honored Nguyen at a ceremony at the agency's Washington headquarters. "We needed to recognized them for their service to USAID and to recognize the fact they were actually in prison for working for the U.S. government," said Lynn Mason of the agency. Nguyen, 72, had been an interpreter and senior officer for USAID during the war. He dug fish ponds at a prison camp for most of the nine years after the fall of Saigon. "Prison is very, very bad, you know, the life there," Nguyen said. "You work very hard and eat very little." He and hundreds of other Vietnamese who helped the United States during the war were captured and sent to prison camps once Americans evacuated. For nearly a year, Nguyen was interrogated at a prison, accused of being a U.S. intelligence agent. "Almost every day, they would come to get me and have me write a report to them, I kept telling them who I was, who I worked for and what the organization USAID was," he said. After he fell ill with pneumonia in 1983, he was released from prison, only to live the hardscrabble life of a former prisoner. The man recruited by USAID because of his proficiency in three languages was forced to hunt for gold and cut firewood to make a living. He relied on a friend from his USAID days to help eventually get him and his family to the top of a list for relocation to the United States. He and his family settled in Green Forest in 1994, then moved to Fort Smith a few years later. Nguyen and his wife work at a Tyson Foods plant in Van Buren. He became a U.S. citizen in 2000. "Every step of the way for him has been hard," said Gibson, of Berryville. Gibson, a former English teacher, met Nguyen when he lived in Green Forest. Their book, "A Long Hard Road to Freedom," was published in May. Gibson said government recognition of Nguyen's sacrifice was a long time coming. "It certainly is, but that's our government for you," she said. Mason said the ceremony to honor Nguyen and Gull Mickel R'Com of North Carolina had been in the planning stages for more than two years. A USAID employee who worked in Vietnam, Bill Egan, kick-started plans for recognition. Monday's event was the first time USAID recognized those imprisoned for their work for the agency in Vietnam. Mason said she expects more such ceremonies ahead. "Lai enabled us to have an effective working relationship with our counterparts," in the Kon Tum province of South Vietnam, Egan said. |
