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A Loving Confidential Letter to My Grandchildren you embrace our Vietnamese heritage by learning its
culture and its history, and speaking Vietnamese
My beloved grandchildren, language, it is a deeply meaningful appreciation you
can give to them.
As you grow older, I want to be able to talk to you and
I hope you will have the patience to listen to me, just The highest appreciation, however, must be reserved to
for a little bit. I can’t wait any longer to write this God. When you enter high school, and especially
letter. I think you are old enough to understand what college, the scientific theories may lead you to
you need to know. There is so much incorrect or even questions about the Christian faith. Keep in mind that
dishonest media information about the Vietnam war not everything can be explained by scientific methods.
that might be poisonous to the young generation, who “Love” for instance, that cannot be seen or explained
were born after this war like you. I want to let you but it truly exists and being the most precious gift for
know the truth because as long as you know the truth, our life. I myself had been undergoing such hopeless
you would understand how and why you are here in situations that I almost lost my faith. But God’s mercy
America. I hope that with this letter, you can better incredibly helped me and your grandfather survived,
understand us, your grandparents, your parents, and and saved our family. It is okay to question your faith.
your relatives. Also, I hope that you can learn more It is okay to doubt. But if you have any questions about
about your home country. God, I hope that you can find someone to ask. We are
all here for you in whatever way we can. The family
Our Vietnam has been miserably controlled by the loves and supports you. Faith is not just something that
communist regime since 1945. In 1954 your great is in the Bible, or in the books you learned in Saturday
grandparents (on both your mom and dad’s sides) school. Faith can be found everywhere, and in
escaped from the North Vietnamese communists at the everyone.
same time with more than one million refugees to the
land of free South Vietnam. Unfortunately, without the My beloved grandchildren, from now on you will
financial and army support of the US government, the interact with many kinds of people, but your parents
Republic South VN collapsed in 1975. As a result, are who you totally can trust, who love you without
your great grandfather (ông cố ngoại) and your any conditions. All we want is for you to be successful
grandfather (ông nội) were imprisoned with about and happy. We hope that you are proud of us, as we are
700,000 other Republic Vietnamese officers. About proud of you. Please keep doing your best- we are
100,000 of them died because of starvation and severe proud of your every effort.
corporal punishment in the prisons. Even the Southern
Vietnamese that weren’t trapped in prison were If you want to learn more about our country’s history,
suffering the cruel revenge of the Vietnamese about what has happened to bring us to our lives today,
communists. (I have written some stories about my ask your parents if they know the trusted sources. I sent
terrifying memories. Hopefully I’ll be able to translate him a video clip called “Souls of the Fallen”. I suggest
into English for you to read some day later.) you at least watch the beginning parts if you can’t
watch the whole film to compare the difference
People were maltreated every day. It became so bad between the victorious North American’s honorable
that many people preferred to die at sea, with an and respectful treatment of the defeated South
attempt to freedom, than to stay in Vietnam. Later on, Americans during the Civil War in what you learned in
the massive deaths of SVN prisoners plus the deaths of US history to the cruel and horrible North Communist
1,000,000 fleeing refugees that attempted to escape treatment to the South Vietnam soldiers.
from Vietnam in small boats and ships and in the
jungles called for the reception of the VN refugees and Most of all, I want to let you know how much we love
immigrants by the US government. Today, the high you. I want to be able to talk to you more, and listen
standard of living you are enjoying, the good more about your stories.
opportunities you now have in front of you- those have
all been the dream of millions of people all over the Love you always,
world. We are so happy that you can experience a
better life here, but it required the sacrifice and bravery Lê Phương Lan
of fleeing over sea from your mom side relatives and
the 13-year imprisonment of your grandfather. When

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