Return to Vietnam After 30 Years

Nov. 20, 2006 — -- Newsweek White House photographer Khue Bui was just a baby when his family was airlifted out of Saigon on a U.S. military helicopter one day before the South Vietnamese capital fell in April 1975.

On Sunday, Bui flew back into his hometown for the first time. Once again he traveled on a U.S. military plane, this time aboard Air Force One with President Bush.

With no memories of his short time here and only a relative's address, Bui went in search of a piece of his past.

Saigon: April 1975

Bui was a 1-year-old when the North Vietnamese army was approaching Saigon. On April 20, 1975, his father, a lieutenant in the South Vietnamese army, decided to move the family out of the country.

The family boarded a bus to get to Tan Son Nhut airport where it could attempt to get on a U.S. helicopter out of Saigon.

"My dad told me before he passed away that we were on a bus circling the airport trying to get onto the airport to get evacuated but the security guards weren't allowing the bus on the base or the airport and they weren't allowing any people on the airport," Bui said.

"So my dad -- I think he was carrying my brother, my mom was carrying me, we got off the bus. My dad had a backpack, which he said had some cash and gold in it. He handed it to a security guard who let the four of us onto the airport and from there once I guess you were onto the [helicopter] you were [evacuated] out."

That helicopter took the Bui family to a waiting U.S. military ship off the coast of Vietnam.

Ho Chi Minh City: November 2006

Before sunrise on Monday morning, Bui went off in a cab in search of the address stamped on the dog tag he wore as a young child fleeing the country in 1975.

The house was in the middle of the block on a long, narrow alley just off a main road in Ho Chi Minh City.

It was in a nice neighborhood filled with families and small children running around before heading off to school.

The sound of several people speaking English in their alley woke up several of the neighbors including the couple living in the house where Bui's family once lived.

Bui spoke to the couple through a translator because he speaks no Vietnamese.

They invited him inside to look at their home, and he was surprised to see how tiny it was. "I don't know how my family all fit in here," he said.

The house was sparsely furnished, with mats on the floor for sleeping and sitting. In the front room were several motorbikes and a desktop computer.

As we were trying to leave the neighborhood, several members of a family at the end of the alley motioned for the cab to come back.

The commotion outside had awoken a man in the house who said he remembered Bui's aunt and uncle, and he was eager to see Bui and look at his dog tag.

The Buis in America

After its journey out of Vietnam, the Bui family eventually settled in Texas, where Bui's parents were exchange students in the late 1960s.

His parents taught him English as a child because they figured that the United States would be the only home their sons would know and assumed that Vietnam would never open up again to tourists.

"We left in 1975 essentially at the height of Communism, and we never thought we would go back," Bui said.

"So my family essentially wanted me to adapt to American culture where we were going to live the rest of our lives."

"I don't want to say they wanted to Americanize me, but they didn't want me to have any problems going up in American society about adapting and understanding the culture."

Bui lived most of his life in Texas, attending the University of Texas at Austin as his parents did. He moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a photographer after college.

Most of Bui's relatives remained behind in Vietnam and eventually made their way to the United States over the next decade.

Bui's uncle was a doctor in the South Vietnamese military who did not leave before the fall of Saigon. He was put in a Communist re-education camp for five years -- something he never discussed with his family.

"After Saigon fell and the North defeated the South, a lot of the military personnel were put in these re-education camps to indoctrinate them to the Communists ways," Bui said.

"When [Bui's uncle] was in Texas when he first moved to the states, it was not something he brought up on us as [9-year-olds and 10-year-olds] as something to deal with. It was something he worked through. He got his medical license, worked at Dunkin' Donuts at night, and now has a successful life."

First Impressions

For Bui, seeing the home he knew only as an address made him think about what life would have been like.

"I'm happy that we found it. I see my aunts and uncles taking care of me and my brother here and spend time. It feels better to know that you kind of found a home, a part of your life. Whether you remember it or not, you feel like you've been here."

It struck Bui that as he walked around, he also could see his aunts and uncles and cousins in the faces of strangers living in today's Vietnam, but he had difficulty placing himself there.

"I can picture my aunts and uncles, cousins, family, my brother, my mom, my dad living here. But I look at myself, and I grew up in the states and this is my first experience back in Vietnam so I don't really picture myself here," he said. "I can't even picture what my life would be if I was actually here in Vietnam at the age of 33 and never gone to America. It's just a different world."

Bui admitted he did not know much about the details of his family's personal journey to the United States, but the trip home sparked something in him.

"I'm going to sit down and talk with my family more. I'd like to come back here on a nonwork trip so I can spend more time in the city, understand the culture here a little better."

Flying Back on the President's Plane

The significance of his return trip to Vietnam on Air Force One was not lost on Bui, despite his extensive travel log on the president's plane.

"It was interesting coming in with the president, riding along on Air Force One with the president to come into Ho Chi Minh City, a city that I had left 31 years ago. In 1975 I was evacuated by U.S. military helicopter to a military ship off the coast. To come back on a military aircraft into the city I left 30 years ago, it's a good feeling."