The Vietnam War WITF Stories

Written by Fran Odyniec, Lebanon Daily News | Oct 12, 2015

Forty years ago, Dung Phung was a first lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Air Force. Phung, a helicopter pilot with 3,000 combat hours, lived on the Can Tho air force base about 100 miles southwest of Saigon with his wife, Loi, and their seven-month-old son, Manh.

“We heard rumors that people were escaping from the North to the South,” recalled Loi, sitting with Phung last Saturday afternoon at the dining room table in their home in Cleona.

Soon those rumors turned out to be true as thousands of Vietnamese were frantically searching for a way out of Vietnam as the Viet Cong onslaught descended upon Saigon in late April 1975.

Dung’s squadron commander ordered him and another pilot to evacuate women and children from the base on their two Chinook helicopters as quick as possible to a safe area on Con Son Island off the southern coast of Vietnam.

For these flights, between 70 and 75 people squeezed into helicopter space designed to carry 33 soldiers with full gear.

“I thought for sure we were going to crash into the sea”

“It was chaotic at the base,” recalled Dung. “At the island we hoped to contact the U.S. Seventh Fleet so that we could take our people to a ship.”

He made his first and only trip over the South China Sea at 9 p.m., flying under a ceiling of only 1,000 feet with poor visibility, searching for ships.

“I thought for sure we were going to crash into the sea,” Dung said.

After being turned away from a number of ships due to a lack of landing space, and nearly out of fuel, Dung was guided to a huge float big enough to accommodate his Chinook.

From there his passengers were ferried to a waiting ship. But with refueling impossible, Dung watched as his chopper was pushed over the side and into the sea.

The sight he witnessed aboard the ship was one that he hasn’t forgotten.

“There were 3,000 to 5,000 people sitting next to each other on the deck and in the hold,” Dung said of a scene that played out on many ships picking up refugees. “I was really worried most about my wife and son back at the island. What happened to them?”

Loi and Manh were coping as best they could with the turmoil unfolding around them on Con Son. That night, they slept under the wing of a C130 transport. But as the temperature dropped and the wind picked up, Loi found a hut that still had some room for her and her son.

The next morning she feared for the worst: Dung had not come back.

“I didn’t know where he was,” Loi said. “Did he die or was he killed?”

Then it was time for her and Manh to leave Cor Son.

As a Chinook helicopter approached, her spirit was rekindled.

“I was so happy,” Loi recalled. “He had come back.”

But the helicopter was piloted by Dung’s friend, Liem Troung.

Bracing herself for the flight, Loi carried Manh on board with diminishing hope that she would ever see her husband again.

Once they landed on a ship, Loi’s only thought was survival for her and Manh. They were assigned space in the hold of the ship.

“There was no bathroom, and it was greasy,” she said. “I didn’t get up until I had to for three days and two nights.”

A friend would occasionally take Manh up on deck for some fresh air.

When Loi managed to get on deck, all she could see was the sea, and she had no idea where the ship was taking them.

Eventually the ship docked on Guam, where the American Red Cross had set up a refugee center and tent city.

I thought I would never see her again

“There were about 100,000 people there,” Loi said. “We were scared but very quiet. I could not believe how nice they (the Red Cross) were.”

That tender, loving care helped ease some of her anxiety, but Loi was desperately trying to find Dung or at least learn news of him.

To make things worse, she had heard in her search around the center that a Chinook helicopter had crashed into the sea.

As it turned out, Dung’s ship was about four days behind Loi’s ship on its way to Guam.

After Dung arrived on Guam and had been assigned a tent, he immediately began searching for Loi and Manh.

“I was looking for about 10 or 15 minutes when I saw one of my squadron crew,” he said. “He took me to her.”

The moment Loi saw Dung, her anxiety and fears vanished.

“I felt like I was alive again,” she said with a large sigh, recalling that moment.

Dung said it was the happiest time of his life.

“I thought I would never see her again,” he said. “Our hug lasted pretty long.”

Their next stop was California, from where they would be sent to resettlement camps in either Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arkansas or Florida to await a sponsorship.

The Phungs were set to go to Georgia, but when the would-be sponsor learned that Loi was pregnant, the trip was cancelled.

The Phungs wound up at Fort Indiantown Gap’s Refugee Resettlement Camp where, Col. Frank Smoker, his wife, Kathleen, and their family lived on the base. Smoker was executive officer of the Pennsylvania National Guard.

Between June and December of 1975, 22,228 Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees came through the camp in hope of finding sponsorships in order to settle in the United States.

They lived in barracks of World War II vintage that had been rehabbed and winterized. Four troop billeting areas, designated as Areas 3, 4, 5, and 6 on either side of the fort’s Service Road, had been cordoned off for the incoming refugees.

It was at the camp’s library that Dung first met librarian Kathleen Smoker.

“The library was all-English,” said Kathleen, 90, over coffee with her son, Col. David Smoker, retired commander of the 193rd Special Operations Wing Mission Support of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard, who was visiting her at her home in Lebanon a week ago. “So not many books were read.”

She and Dung would sit and chat about his life and his family. Those conversations led to impromptu picnics on the lawn outside the library.

After learning that the sponsorship in Georgia had fallen through, the Smokers decided something had to be done.

“One night at nine o’clock, Col. Smoker came to the barracks and asked to sponsor us,” Dung said.

The Phungs spent one year with the Smokers and their children Dave and Barbara, and, in the process, became part of the family. Sponsors not only provided food and shelter for refugees but also helped them find jobs.

“The need was so great,” said Kathleen. “They had nothing, and they were delightful people and so kind and gentle.”

Kathleen was somewhat amazed at how she and her family got along with the Phungs.

“We learned how easy it was to get along with people from a completely different culture,” she continued. “It was an eye-opener.”

One of the many things that more than impressed the Smokers is the high regard the Phungs have for their elders.

“They have humility and respect for generational culture,” said Dave Smoker. “They always let the older generation take the lead.”

To which Kathleen added, “They hold the older generation in great respect. Unfortunately, we don’t.”

Knowing English, Dung landed a job at the Resettlement Center as a translator. One year later, the Phungs found their own apartment, and things were looking up until one night on Route 72.

They were heading home from a visit with the Smokers (who they respectfully and sincerely call Mom and Dad) around 8:30 one evening when they were involved in a three-car crash caused by a drunk driver. Dung went through the windshield, suffering severe cuts around his neck that affected nerves in his mouth, and he also suffered a broken leg. He spent 40 days in the hospital. Fortunately, two-year-old Mahn had joined his mother in the back seat, where Loi was nursing four-month-old Thao. None of them suffered serious injury.

The Smokers gladly welcomed them back, but after Dung was released from the hospital he was in need of work.

Col. Smoker helped him get a job at a civil engineering firm as a temporary draftsman trainee.

But Dung wanted to make more money for his growing family. He found a job as a warehouseman for Ono Industries in Jonestown, a job he held for 18 years. Loi, with a better command of English, worked as a seamstress in a knitting mill, then went on to work at the Kit Kat and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup division of Hershey Foods as a machine operator for 20 years. Dung left Ono and took a job with R.R. Donnelley in Lancaster as a mail machine operator. After 20 years, he is looking forward to his retirement in November.

The fact that he was not working in the aerospace or airline industry made no difference to Dung.

“That didn’t bother me at all,” he said. “I definitely thought that I would never fly again. I was in a situation that I had no choice but to take whatever was there. I was thankful for a job. I had to put three children through college.”

Their two sons, Mahn and Tien, graduated Penn State while their daughter, Thao, graduated West Chester University as a registered nurse. Mahn, 41, spent five years in the Air Force where he made captain and now works in network security. Tien, 34, spent 12 years in the Air Force. As a major he flew C-17 transport planes. He currently is applying for work as a pilot in the commercial airline industry. Thao, 39, is executive director of PowerBack Rehabilitation in Phoenixville.

“We’re lucky,” said Loi. “We thank America to grow up in this country in mind and heart. Thank God we are so happy and we have a life.”

Dung looks at his time as a refugee and now as an American citizen through the prism of opportunity.

“It is the best country to live in if you’re willing to work,” he said. “You can have almost anything you want. You have the opportunity to do it.”

For Loi, it’s a form of freedom.

“If you don’t work, you have nothing,” she said.

They both cherish and respect Frank and Kathleen Smoker, who helped them start a new life and grow into American society.

“They are the best parents anybody can wish to have,” said Dung shedding light on why he and Loi call Frank and Kathleen dad and mom. Frank passed on five years ago. He retired as a major general in the Pennsylvania Air National Guard.

It is the best country to live in if you’re willing to work. You can have almost anything you want.

“They are like second parents to us,” added Loi. “They love my kids, and my kids love them.”

Then she said in a quiet and heartfelt manner, “I miss my Dad.”

However, their love for Mom and Dad Smoker does not lessen their love for their biological parents.

“No,” said Loi in a gentle and reverent tone. “We love and respect our parents.”

Both of their mothers now live with one of Dung’s and Loi’s sisters in the Lebanon area.

Dung shook his head in disbelief over the American practice of placing family elders in retirement or nursing facilities.

“Respect for elders is a must,” he said.

During the last 40 years, the Phungs and the Smokers have remained very close.

“They love my mom and dad,” said Dave Smoker. “They come to all our family functions.”

“They are part of our family,” Kathleen repeated. “They are like our children and grandchildren.”

Speaking of grandchildren, Dung mentioned that a third grandchild is on the way.

Although Loi has gone back to Vietnam for a visit, Dung has not. He said that perhaps someday he will — along with the grand kids.

In the last 18 years, Dung and Loi have taken their turn at sponsoring folks from Vietnam, including many of their relatives.

“A lot of traffic has come through this house,” laughed Dung.

Like the age-old song says: ‘Will the circle be unbroken.” Dung and Loi are seeing to it that their family circle is kept so.