Readers Remember

Two decades have passed since my family and I left our comfortable home, relatives and friends in Saigon to find freedom with an unknown future. I still remember clearly the day we escaped the Vietnamese Communists. My mother, wiping her tears, walked away from the home she and my had father built, filled with memories.

We could succeed in escaping the horrible regime, or not. Either way, we would lose all we owned. My father and three of my sisters and my brother were already waiting for us in the tiny riverboat. The risky, adventurous journey began that dark night in May 1978.

PATRICIA LU CARBONI

Venice

I came home from school one day in the spring of 1973 to find my mother standing in the living room with a strange smile on her face. I heard her favorite song, “Daddy’s Home,” playing softly in the background. She played it all the time in those days.

When I asked her why she was looking at me that way, she didn’t say a word. She just kept smiling. Then I saw him.

My father was standing only a few feet away from her. I screamed and ran into his arms. He was just returning from his second tour of duty in Vietnam.

Back then, I didn’t know about the controversy surrounding the war. Nor was I aware of how many thousands never made it home. All I knew or cared about that day was that my Daddy was home to stay.

VIVIAN RODRIGUEZ

Culver City