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April 30 marks 49 years since the fall of Saigon in 1975, the death of South Vietnam and the beginning of the exodus of a million Vietnamese over the next two decades.
This is the story of how a Vietnamese air force officer flew his family and two dozen other evacuees in a helicopter onto the USS Midway for their escape as they lost their country to communist North Vietnam. Nguyen Van Dong, now 81, lives in Texas. This account was written by his daughter Ngan Nguyen, who lives with her husband and children in New York City.
Can Tho province, South Vietnam, on April 28, 1975
A heavy fist banged on our front door. My family lived near Can Tho…