Nguyen Van The and Le My Lien—Vietnam

Divided by war, a young family trusts in the Lord to reunite them

Evacuating the Saigon Branch

On a bright Sunday in the war-torn country of Vietnam, Nguyen Van The, president of the Saigon Branch, passed through the outer gate of a French-style villa serving as the local meetinghouse. Right away, members of the branch surrounded him, their faces full of frustration and hope. “President The! President The!” they cried out. “What news do you have?”

Nguyen Van The sits behind a desk in an office while another man hands him a tithing donation.

President Nguyen Van The receiving a tithing donation in Saigon, Vietnam, 1973. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Photograph by James Christensen.)

He had news, but he was not sure how the branch would respond to it. He walked to the door of the chapel, and the Saints followed him, shouting more questions. Without answering, The shook hands and patted people on the back. Cong Ton Nu Tuong-Vy, the Relief Society president and lead translator of the Vietnamese Book of Mormon, took him by the arm.

“What counsel do you have, President The?” she asked. “What shall I tell the sisters?”

“Come inside, Sister Vy,” The said. “I will tell you everything I know after sacrament meeting.” He then urged everyone in the crowd to remain calm. “All of your questions will be answered.”

For decades, Vietnam had been a divided land. Conflict had erupted shortly after World War II when Vietnamese forces ousted the French colonial rulers who had governed Vietnam since the late nineteenth century. When rival parties in South Vietnam resisted communist rule, the region had descended into fierce guerrilla warfare. American forces had fought alongside the South Vietnamese for nearly a decade, but the high casualties had made the conflict unpopular in the United States, leading to the country’s gradual withdrawal from the war. Now the North Vietnamese forces were closing in on the southern capital of Saigon, and all remaining Americans were leaving.

The arrival of the North Vietnamese forces threatened to end the Saigon Branch. Up until a week earlier, when the last Latter-day Saint missionary evacuated the country, the branch had seen new members joining every month. More than two hundred Vietnamese Saints had worshipped regularly with Church members from the United States. Now the Vietnamese Saints feared the North Vietnamese would punish them for this association. Some Church members had already scattered, many of them joining the crowds at the airbase, hoping to escape the country.

As The entered the chapel and took a seat at the front of the room, he could hear the rumble of artillery fire—and some explosions sounded terrifyingly close. The irony of the moment was not lost on him. The war had brought the American soldiers who had introduced him and so many Vietnamese Saints to the restored gospel. Now that same war was tearing the branch apart. He felt as if he were attending a funeral for the small congregation.

There were about 125 branch members at the meeting when The stood up and approached the pulpit. They looked anxious, and many of them were weeping. He was feeling emotional too, but he stayed composed as he opened sacrament meeting. The Saints sang “Come, Come, Ye Saints” and partook of the sacrament. Then The bore his testimony and invited others to do the same. But as the Saints stood and shared their testimonies, he could not concentrate on their words. The Saints were looking to him at this time of crisis, and he felt inadequate.

After the meeting, The informed the Saints that the United States embassy was willing to evacuate Church members and anyone preparing for baptism. But Saints with family who were not Church members had to either leave their loved ones or stay behind. This news caused some Saints to cry out in anguish. “What about my family?” they asked. “I cannot leave without my family!”

With the help of the branch members, The created an evacuation list that identified which Saints would leave first. Despite the embassy’s request, the list included dozens of nonmember family and friends of branch members. The’s wife, Lien, and their three small children were among the Saints on the list. The branch members insisted that The’s family evacuate immediately so he could give his full attention to evacuating everyone else. As branch president, The felt it was his duty to be the last to leave.

Lien and the children, along with her mother and sisters, flew out of Saigon a few hours later.

The following day, the North Vietnamese shelled the airport in Saigon, damaging the runway and preventing military transport aircraft from landing. Then, over the next forty-eight hours, helicopters evacuated the remaining Americans and whatever Vietnamese refugees they could carry. The rushed to the U.S. embassy, hoping to find a way out for him and the other Saints still in the city. When he arrived, the building was on fire and smoke was choking the sky. Firefighters and crowds had gathered outside, but the embassy itself was empty. The Americans had already left the city.

Desperate to help the remaining branch members escape, The and a fellow Saint, Tran Van Nghia, hopped onto a motorbike to seek help from the International Red Cross. But they soon met a mass of people running down a one-way street in a panic. A tank with a large gun was rolling rapidly toward them.

Nghia swerved off the road, and he and The clambered into a ditch to hide. The tank rumbled by them, shaking the ground as it passed.

Saigon was now in North Vietnamese hands.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Refugees

One week later, in May 1975, Le My Lien stepped off a crowded bus at a military camp near San Diego, California, on the West Coast of the United States. In front of her was a sprawling city of tents set up to shelter eighteen thousand refugees from Vietnam. Grass and sand covered the grounds, with trees sparsely dotting the horizon. Children walked around in oversized military jackets, and adults went about their day with unsmiling faces.

Although Lien’s mother and sisters were with her, she felt lost. She was nauseated from her journey to the camp. She had no money and spoke little English. And she had her three children to care for while awaiting news of her husband in Vietnam.

On their first day at the camp, Lien and other Saigon Branch members—mostly women—were greeted by volunteers with badges identifying them as members of the local California stake. A neatly dressed woman introduced herself as Dorothy Hurley, the stake Relief Society president. She and the other stake volunteers were there to distribute food, clothing, and medicine to the refugee Saints, organize them into home teaching districts, and set up Primary and Relief Society. To Lien, the Relief Society sisters looked like angels.

A Vietnamese woman stands at the center of an army base tent and leads a congregation to sing.

A Sunday meeting with Vietnamese evacuees in an army base in California, 1975. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Photograph by Jack Lythgoe.)

The members of the Saigon Branch spent the afternoon on a tour of the camp. Gravel crunched underfoot as Lien and her family were shown the mess hall, Red Cross kiosk, and outhouses. The long walk took all afternoon, leaving Lien fatigued. She weighed less than ninety pounds, and her body was too weak to produce milk for her infant daughter, Linh.

That night, Lien did her best to make her children comfortable. The camp had provided her with no blankets and only one cot. Her sons, Vu and Huy, crammed onto the cot while the baby slept in a hammock Lien fashioned out of a sheet and rubber bands.

There was nowhere for Lien to lie down, so she slept sitting on the edge of the cot, leaning against a tentpole. The nights were cold, and the chilly air did nothing to help her worsening health. Soon she was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

Despite her sickness, Lien woke early each morning to pick up six small bottles of formula for her baby and get the boys fed. At mealtime, the mess hall was crowded with people waiting for their turn. With her daughter in her arms, she helped her sons load and carry their plates. Only when they finished eating would she go back to get her own food.

Lien’s heart ached when she saw other children waiting hungrily in line. Since rations in the mess hall ran out quickly, Lien would often pass food along to the children to ensure they ate. Some shared their carrots and broccoli with her in return.

She prayed continually that her husband would remain strong, believing that if she could survive her ordeal, then he could survive his. She had heard nothing from him since her flight out of Saigon. But a few weeks after her arrival, Elder A. Theodore Tuttle of the First Council of the Seventy came to the camp and gave Lien a personal message from President Spencer W. Kimball, who had visited the camp and met with refugees shortly before she got there.

“I testify that your husband will be preserved,” the prophet’s message declared, “and that you will be reunited as a family in the Lord’s own due time.”

Now, as Lien rocked her crying baby each morning, she cried too. “Please,” she begged the Lord, “let me get through just this day.”

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Patience in a Prison Camp

In 1976, Nguyen Van The was imprisoned in Thành Ông Năm, a squalid Vietnamese fortress serving as a prison camp. He was desperate for news of his wife and children, but the camp had largely cut him off from the outside world. All he knew about his family’s whereabouts came from a telegram from the president of the Hong Kong Mission: “Lien and family fine. With Church.”

The had received the telegram just before entering the camp. In an effort to restore order after capturing Saigon, the North Vietnamese government had required all former members of the South Vietnamese military to submit to a “reeducation” course on the new government’s principles and practices. Since The had served as a junior officer and English-language teacher for South Vietnam, he had reluctantly turned himself in, expecting the reeducation process to last about ten days. Now, more than a year later, he wondered when he would be free again.

Life in Thành Ông Năm was degrading. The and his fellow captives were organized into units and housed in rat-infested barracks. They slept on bare floors until their captors had them build beds out of steel slabs. Meager and spoiled food, along with the unsanitary conditions in camp, left the men vulnerable to sicknesses like dysentery and beriberi.

Reeducation also involved backbreaking labor and political indoctrination. When not cutting trees or tending crops to feed the camp, the men were forced to memorize propaganda and confess their crimes against North Vietnam. Anyone who broke camp rules could expect a brutal beating or solitary confinement in a dumpster-like iron box.

The had survived so far by lying low and clinging to his faith. He tried to obey camp rules and practiced his religion privately. He observed fast Sundays, despite being malnourished, and silently recited scriptures from memory to strengthen his faith. When a fellow Christian in camp gave him a smuggled Bible, he read the entire book twice in three months, cherishing the chance to read the word of God again.

The longed to be free. For a time, he contemplated escaping from the camp. He was sure he could use his military training to evade his captors, but as he prayed for help in the escape, he felt the Lord restrain him. “Be patient,” the Spirit whispered. “All will be well in the due time of the Lord.”

Sometime later, The learned that his sister, Ba, would be allowed to visit him in the camp. If he could slip her a letter to his family, she could send it to President Wheat in Hong Kong, and he could forward it to Lien and the children.

On the day of Ba’s visit, The waited in line as guards conducted full-body searches of the prisoners ahead of him. Knowing the guards would send him straight to solitary confinement if they found his letter to Lien, he had hidden the message behind the cloth band on the inside of his hat. He had then placed a small notebook and pen into the hat and set them on the ground. With any luck, the notebook would distract the guards just enough to keep them from searching the rest of the hat.

When his turn came to be searched, The tried to remain calm. But as the guards inspected him, he began to tremble. He thought of the confinement that awaited if his captors discovered the letter. Several tense moments passed, and the guards shifted their attention to his hat. They examined the pen and notebook, but when they found nothing out of the ordinary, they lost interest in The and let him pass.

Soon, The saw his sister approaching, so he discreetly removed the letter from his hat and pressed it into her hands. He wept as Ba gave him some food and money. She and her husband ran a produce business, and they did not have a lot to spare. The was grateful for all she could offer. When they parted, he trusted that she would get his letter to Lien.

Six months later, Ba returned to the camp with a letter. Inside was a photograph of Lien and the children. The’s eyes brimmed with tears as he stared at their faces. His children had grown so much. He realized that he could wait no longer.

Nguyen Van The and Le My Lien look down at their infant son, who plays with a toy.

Nguyen Van The and Le My Lien with their son Huy in Vietnam, 1973. (Church History Library, Salt Lake City. Photograph by James Christensen.)

He had to find a way out of the camp and into the arms of his family.

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.

Home at Last

On a cool, overcast evening in January 1978, Le My Lien sat nervously in a car headed for the Salt Lake City International Airport. She was on her way to meet her husband, Nguyen Van The, for the first time in nearly three years. She worried what he would think of the life she had built for their family in his absence.

As part of its mission to care for families, LDS Social Services had arranged with Church members in the United States to care for about 550 Vietnamese refugees, most of whom were not members of the Church. Lien and her family were sponsored by Philip Flammer, a professor at Brigham Young University, and his wife, Mildred. They helped the family relocate to Provo, Utah, where Lien was able to rent and later purchase a mobile home from a local Saint.

At first, Lien had struggled to find work in Utah. Philip took her to a thrift store to apply for a janitorial position. But during the interview, the manager tore her high school diploma in half and told her, “This does not apply here.” Lien wept as she picked up the pieces, but she later taped the diploma back together and framed it on the wall to motivate her children to pursue higher education.

She soon found temporary work picking cherries at a nearby orchard. She then found work as a seamstress and added to her income by baking wedding cakes. With help from Philip, she also earned money by typing reports for BYU students.

While Lien struggled to provide for her family, her children struggled to adapt to their new life in America. The youngest, Linh, was underweight and frequently sick. The boys, Vu and Huy, had difficulty making friends in school because of the language barrier and cultural differences. They often complained to Lien about their peers teasing them.

Amid her family’s hardships, Lien remained faithful to the Lord. She attended Church meetings regularly and continued to pray for her family and her husband. “Give me strength,” she would plead with her Heavenly Father. She taught her children about the power of prayer, knowing it could carry them through their ordeals.

Then, in late 1977, Lien learned that her husband was in a refugee camp in Malaysia. He had managed to leave Vietnam on an old fishing boat after finally being released from the camp at Thành Ông Năm. Now he was ready to reunite with his family. All he needed was a sponsor.

Lien began working even more hours to save enough money to bring The to the United States. The Red Cross gave her a list of everything she needed to do to sponsor him, and she followed the instructions carefully. She also talked to the children about their father’s return. Her daughter had no memory of The, and the boys could hardly remember him. They couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a father.

After arriving at the airport, Lien joined other friends and Church members who had come to welcome The. Some of them held balloons that shone in the evening light.

Before long, Lien saw The descending an escalator. He looked pale and had a lost look in his eyes. But at the sight of Lien, he called out to her. They reached for one another at the same time and clasped hands. Emotion welled in Lien’s chest.

She pulled The into a hug. “Thank God in heaven,” she whispered, “you are home at last!”

See the full text in Gospel Library for notes and source citations.