Operation New Life 50 years later: Dr. Hien Truong shares memories of fleeing war-torn Vietnam

For the last half century, Hien “Jonathan” Truong had always known deep inside that no matter how bad his situation was, things would always turn out fine.

Better than fine, even.

He has lived a good life for almost that whole time. He did well in high school, graduated fourth in his class, then embarked on his goal to be a physician.

Since completing his fellowship at Yale University, he has become a leader specializing in infectious diseases.

He is the vice chief of staff and physician in charge at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in California and was even named vice mayor of Lancaster for his regular volunteerism for the city.

He met Giao in medical school and they married. She, too, was a Vietnamese refugee. They have three daughters: Rachel pursued medicine and she just finished her residency at the University of Central Florida, Lauren is graduating from law school at Pepperdine, and Isabella is on a pre-law track at the University of Florida.

A child in Vietnam

It is a far cry from the diminutive Truong as a 9 year old, who only knew to follow his mom and dad.

They lived in a fishing village in South Vietnam and the capital Saigon had fallen, signifying the end of the war.

But his family was far from safe. His father was originally from North Vietnam, and his father before him was a schoolteacher in the north under the French regime. As one who collaborated with the losing government, their lives were at stake.

His father Tinh Truong knew that his past would catch up to him, and he would either be executed or jailed. He had heard that a U.S. Navy task force with an aircraft carrier flagship was in international waters and about to depart. Tinh Truong owned a boat with another family, and he thought he could catch them.

“Within about a day and a half, we reached that naval task force. But they stopped accepting people,” Hien Truong told the Pacific Daily News. “Basically they rejected us, told us to go back home.”

By then, there were about 30 other families in boats of various sizes. A priest among them convinced them to continue on the route and hope for the best at the ports along the way.

The families consolidated onto three of the boats left behind. Loaded with about 150 tightly packed passengers each, the small convoy reached Thailand.

“They said no, we don’t like refugees. But they gave us water and some canned goods. Then we continue to Malaysia and they said no, we don’t provide. And then we finally reached Singapore and it had been about seven days,” said Hien Truong. “Then Singapore says that they don’t take refugees either. But there’s a big boat over there headed to the Philippines.”

It was the same fleet that left them behind off Vietnam’s shores and this time, Truong, his family and about 8,000 refugees had become part of the fleet, bound for a refugee camp in Subic Bay.

‘My dad...liked it on Guam’

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The Truongs lived at that camp for about five months, said Hien, and then the families were flown to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam for their final staging before going to the mainland U.S.

“But my dad, he liked it on Guam. And so he wrote a letter to Bishop Felixberto Flores and asked him if we could stay. My father was Catholic, very Catholic. And so the bishop says yes, we will sponsor your family and a few other families. They sponsored us through the organization called Catholic Social Service,” he said.

The group put them up in a house right next to St. Anthony Church. Hien enrolled at Tamuning Elementary School, where he and his school-aged siblings took crash courses in English.

“My father, my dad who could fix anything, got a job at Moylan’s. He fixed office machines. Then we bought a house in Jonestown and that’s it. We are good,” he said.

Operation New Life

The Fall of Saigon was on April 30, 1975. It marked the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by North Vietnam.

The collapse of the South Vietnamese government and the evacuation of thousands of U.S. personnel and South Vietnamese civilians marked the end of the Vietnam War.

That year, Operation New Life processed 111,000 of the more than 130,000 Vietnamese refugees after the Fall of Saigon.

For weeks and months, before the refugees were settled in the U.S. mainland, many lived on Guam in Quonset huts and tents colloquially called “Tin City” and “Tent City”.

Those refugees went on to live new lives around the United States, and some settled on Guam.

Giving back

Truong said he grew thick skin as a child fleeing home. The rest of his life has been relatively easy.

His siblings have found success as doctors, lawyers and chemists. They are still good at math.

“I think it was like being the worst part of your life, like the worst experience you have, you could never get lower than that. So when I went to school, and I applied to school, and I was rejected, it was OK, I developed thick skin. I would run for office, and I would lose the elections, it’s OK. That’s nothing, no big deal. I was in a refugee camp. You can’t get worse than that, you know?” he said. “So basically, by being so low in your life, nothing bothers you. Rejection is expected.”

But he always tries, he said, three times or four times.

He said he keeps trying because he’s got nothing to lose.

“You know, I already lost everything,” he said. “And all of us, my siblings, we volunteer. All the time. We understand that we have to give back to this country that has blessed us with so much.”