By Larry Shurilla
“When I returned home to our corn farm, Blia and Paxia accepted me right away and did everything they could to help me learn to live with my disability. It was only a few months later that we learned a peace treaty had been signed by the Americans and North Vietnamese in Paris and that the war in Vietnam would soon end. This sounds like good news, Justin, but it was not. We knew the moment the American military pulled out, the North Vietnamese army would move in. We knew that the South Vietnamese government, the country the Americans were helping, was weak, weaker than our own. We knew it was only a matter of time before the Viet Cong fully controlled South Vietnam and would come after us and this time we would have no Americans to help us. The American people were frustrated with the war. They were sick of their sons dying thousands of miles away from their home. They looked past what this meant for us and they pulled out.
“For the first few months after the peace treaty was signed, we still had hope that the North Vietnamese would be happy to gain total control of both North and South Vietnam and leave Laos alone, but gradually more and more yellow uniformed soldiers started appearing in our villages and cities.
“In 1975 we learned that the North Vietnamese had removed our president from office and put him in jail! We also heard that the Viet Cong were rounding up anyone that had served in the Laotian Army or had helped the Americans and were taking them prisoner or putting them to death! This was a very difficult time for Blia and Paxia.”
“Did they come after you, too, Grandpa? Did the Viet Cong ever capture you or Grandma Blia?” I asked.
“Yes, Justin. They came after us, again and again, but we were never captured. They were relentless. For almost three years, Blia, Paxia, and I would keep moving and hiding in the jungle to avoid the North Vietnamese soldiers. Think about that Justin! Three years on the run is a long time and if that wasn’t hard enough, near the end of those three years, Blia gave birth to our son, Sher. ”
“What did you eat, Grandpa, and where would you sleep?”
“During the first year of hiding, we ate no meat, no salt. We would try to hide near our farm and gather scraps of wheat and corn whenever we could. We would drink our water right out of creeks and rivers. For our beds, we would gather banana leaves and weave a leaf-carpet and sleep on the floor of the jungle. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we would find qos ntoo, wild potatoes, and feast on them.
“It was a hard life, Justin, a hard time for my family. Every day I prayed to know what to do, where to go. I wanted to stay in my homeland of Laos, but as the years drew on, I knew that would be impossible. The North Vietnamese soldiers were getting closer and closer to capturing us and we were so weak from hunger. Our clothes were becoming like rags and there were days we were so hungry and weak, we would just lie down all day and not move around at all.
“When you are truly hungry, getting food is the only thing you ever think about. You do not care how you look, what you are wearing, what the weather is like; you only care about food and where you can get some. You will eat spiders that crawl in the dirt, and plants that taste awful and might even make you sick, but something in the belly is better than an aching hole in your stomach. I became so tired of scavenging for food and worrying about my family.
“The North Vietnamese would also send airplanes into Laos. The planes would be looking for our campfire areas and they would drop a toxic chemical from the sky that we called ‘Tsuaj ab,’ which translated means, ‘chemical or bitter medicine.’ Itwas the color and consistency of egg yolks. Tsuaj ab would kill all the vegetation; anything green would die. If that wasn’t bad enough, if you got the tsuaj ab on your skin, it would burn you terribly. In a few days, your stomach would grow large and tight like a basketball. You could not eat anything. In about a month, you would die.
“Some of our friends, who were also in hiding, told us that the North Vietnamese were offering freedom to families of Laotian soldiers. They said that all we had to do was register with the North Vietnamese and they would let us return to our farms. We saw many soldiers and their families trust this rumor and leave for registration, but we never saw one come back. It was during these desperate times that Blia and I decided to make the escape attempt to Thailand, our neighbor country to the west.
*****
”Before we could leave Laos, Blia and I knew we needed to stop back at our farm one last time. Blia had been begging for months to return home in order to get the family tapestry she had placed inside a large plastic tub and buried near our small farmhouse. Blia felt the tapestry was the one thing she could never leave behind because it told the story of our family and that story was worth risking our lives.
“On the day we went back to the farm, the area was crawling with Viet Cong. Because Blia was smaller and quicker than I was, we decided she would make the attempt alone, for one person would be harder to spot than two. So about a mile from home, we split up. I took Baby Sher and Paxia with me, while Blia snuck back to the house, alone. Since we knew we’d have to keep moving to avoid the Viet Cong, we planned to meet at a certain spot in about an hour. If either one of us didn’t make it to the rendezvous point, we were to go back to our hiding place in the jungle and find friends for help. This was a very scary time for us. If we didn’t make it to the meeting point, that meant the Viet Cong would have caught one of us and we’d never see each other again! I’ll always remember when I kissed Blia goodbye, I saw such determination in her eyes. I almost felt sorry for the Viet Cong because I knew I wouldn’t want to be the one to stop her from getting that tapestry!
“When Blia got about 20 feet from the farmhouse, she hid face down under a large leafy bush. Blia said she could hear the soldiers laughing and banging around in our old house. The tapestry was hidden about 6 inches underground in the plastic tub, no more than 10 feet from the back porch near an old rusty, half buried barrel. Blia thought if she could crawl on her hands and knees to the barrel, she could start digging and if necessary, crouch low and hide behind it if the soldiers came. All Blia had to dig with, besides her hands, was a big old wooden spoon.
“She quietly made it on her hands and knees to the barrel, pulled the spoon out of her shirt, and started digging as fast as she could. Just as she reached the lid of the tub, two Viet Cong soldiers came crashing through the back door of the house and out into the backyard! They were wrestling, punching, and cursing each other and ended up rolling right next to the barrel! Blia said she coiled up into the smallest ball she could and prayed with all her might not to be discovered. While the two soldiers came crashing into the barrel, three more Viet Cong came sprinting out of the house, hollering, and pointing their rifles at the two fighters. Blia felt she failed for sure and just when she thought the soldiers would see her, a large bouatay came sprinting out of the jungle, running right toward the house! The Viet Cong were as hungry as any of us and with their rifles already perched on their shoulders, they started chasing and firing at the bouatay! Luckily they weren’t very good shots because they kept missing the beast! Blia said the bouatay was scared to death and kept zig-zagging wildly around the house and eventually ran right back into the jungle with all the soldiers, including the two fighters, in hot pursuit. That gave Grandma Blia just enough time to remove the tub, slip back into the jungle and return to our rendezvous point, on time. Once again, Justin, God kept our family together. It was no chance that Grandma Blia made it back to us safely. He has always watched over us and when we have needed Him most, He has been there.
“I was so happy to see Blia at the meeting place! I had imagined so many bad things that could have happened to her and how miserable my life would have been without her. After we all hugged and cried and once Blia told us what had happened, she carefully opened the tub and pulled out the tapestry. She tenderly kissed it and pressed the cloth close to her heart and whispered, ‘Zag nuav kuv khaws tau kuvib thooj tsev ca laum. Now, I’ll always have my piece of home.’”
*****
When I caught the disabled vet’s eyes with my own, I winked and gave him the “thumbs up” sign. He returned the favor and the crowd gradually quieted down. I continued my speech.
“First of all, I’d like to thank my opponent, Senator Nelson, for running a clean campaign and sticking to the issues. Senator Nelson is a credit to his party and I respect all the good he has done for the state of Wisconsin. He has served his fellow citizens with distinction and I congratulate him on an outstanding career of public service.
“A few months ago, I was asked by a television reporter why I chose to run for public office, why I wanted to become a senator. I said then that I wanted to help make America a better place for my family and for future generations. I’d like to elaborate on that theme a little bit tonight by sharing a short story from my grandfather’s life.
“My grandfather, Xeng Thao, was once a Hmong refugee, fleeing from Laos after the Vietnam War with his wife, Blia, and his two children, Paxia and Sher. They were petitioning to come to America. Sher Thao just so happens to be my father and is seated on the stand tonight. After a harrowing escape from Laos, my Grandpa Xeng took his family to the refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand. There he lived in a decrepit hut for about a year while his processing to enter America took place. The camp was crowded, dirty, and surrounded by razor-wire. The refugees were not allowed to move freely in and out of the camp. Each day trucks would come and take those who wanted to work out of camp and return them, exhausted, at the end of the day. They worked awfully hard, but made very little money. My grandfather once joked with us that he was a TV star because one long day after he returned from the work outing, American television reporters were crawling all over the camp, doing some sort of news report on the conditions of Laotian refugees. Grandpa said that one of the American women reporters came up to him and jabbed a microphone into his face and asked, ‘Why is it that you wait here, hoping to get permission to come to the United States?’
Grandpa replied, ‘In America, you can be free.’”
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