My Own Brothers & Sisters
I am the oldest brother. I am blessed with seven brothers and two sisters. Sister #3 went home with the Lord at the age of five.
I fulfilled the same noble task as my father did: I mentored my two brothers # 2 and # 3 and I successfully coached them for their exams before they entered the Military Academy; I was the teacher of all my brothers and sisters in Bui Chu, 1952-1954; and I helped my younger sister get her California teaching credential. I also was the teacher of some of my younger cousins who also had stayed with me in Bui Chu, 1952-1954.
My second brother is 4 years younger than I. I served as his tutor and his mentor. When I was a district judge (justice of peace) in Ha Dong province, I asked my parents to let him stay with me, because he did not get along with my father. We lived far from home and very frugally. I coached him in academics which helped him successfully pass the Secondary Education First Cycle Examination. Afterwards, I sent him back home to my parents. He went onto a high school in Thanh Hoa province. He made a mistake in enlisting in the Communist Military Academy. Because he could not endure all hardships, he quit and journeyed back to the area I was assigned to the Appellate Court. He met my #3 brother and me. It was a great miracle! Following is my memory concerning bro. # 3 and how we met bro. # 2.
Brother #3 is 7 years my junior. After I sent bro #2 back to my parents, I took my #3 bro. along with me to Ha Dong province. I also coached him in academics and helped prepare him for the examination of First Cycle Secondary Education. While we were in Kha Lam village, the French airplanes circled our place, bombed the market and parachutists with their multi-colored parachutes descended towards us. We tried our best to cross River Day and fled to the mountains, praying for our safety and reciting Psalm 121. We passed by many corpses who were victims of the French air raid and soon were able to hide safely in the mountains.
The following day we marched on through the hills and mountains of Hoa Binh, Ninh Binh, and Thanh Hoa. We stayed in the home of Co Bien, near my place of work with the Directorate of Justice, III Area of the Government of the Resistance. Bro. #3 cooked our very frugal meals. One day prior to the examination, I took him to Trinh Tiet village. After a three-day examination, we went to the village market to buy some food. It was a great miracle: bro. # 2 just quit the Communist Military Academy, tried in his own way to locate me. We did not have any addresses during the time of the Vietnamese-French War! But the good Lord miraculously arranged our reunion! Immediately I tried my best to send my two brothers back to Hanoi for them to escape the Communists andcontinue with their studies. It was a perilous journey for them to leave the area of the Resistance and pass through the Nationalist Government controlled area.
The Lord led them back safe and sound to Hanoi. Both continued with their studies. In 1952, bro. #2 was drafted to Nationalistic Military Academy. In 1953, because the Communists arrested my father, my bro.#3 voluntarily enrolled in our prestigious Dalat National Mil`itary Academy. Both served valiantly in our South Vietnamese Army.
After the fall of Saigon, both brothers were sent to Communist Re-Education Camps (actually Communist prisons). Bro. #3 vegetated 12 years in prison; he survived an appendectomy (w.o. anesthesia while in prison). Bro. #2 vegetated 13 years and 6 months in Communist prison. After their release they came to the US and both now are with their families in California. Bro# 2 is now 78 y.o.; and bro. #3 is 74 years old. Praise The Lord for His mercy to them!
Brother #4 has been in France since 1962. He was one of my former students and had stayed with me two years when I was a teacher in Bui Chu, N. Viet Nam. (My wife and our two oldest daughters were in Hanoi with my parents-in-law at that time).
Bro. # 5, bro. #6, our oldest sister, and bro. #7 also were former students of mine and had been with me during my 2-year stay in Bui Chu where I taught in Ho Ngoc Can School.
Bro. #7 also had graduated from our Teacher Training College. After a few year’s teaching he resigned to become a preacher of the gospel.
My youngest sister and my youngest brother only had stayed with me in Bui Chu during the school year 1953-1954 when my mother had to live our native village because of Communist oppression. Both had also graduated from Teacher Training College and had taught English in our secondary schools prior to the fall of Saigon.
The following is an excerpt from my memorial speech given at Dr. Phu’s funeral in 2008.
Seven decades ago when I left my hometown in provincial Vietnam and arrived in the capital city of Hanoi to pursue my education.
“At the beginning of my first class in Thang Long Private High School, it so happened that Huynh Ton That came in and sat next to me at the first long desk, next to the professor’s pulpit.
It’s hard to imagine, that a few years later, my parents would ask Mr. and Mrs. Thuy TonThat to betroth Huynh’s younger sister as my fiancée. After our wedding in August 1944, both Huynh TonThat and Phu TonThat became my two brothers-in-law. When Huynh TonThat went home with The Lord, I became the oldest brother in the family.
Between Phu TonThat and me, there was a special bond of mutual brotherly love, respect, and trust.
He opened his Saigon home to welcome my wife and our two oldest children in 1954 when we left Hanoi as refugees after the Geneva partition of Viet Nam.
