Dec 9

Dec 9 Eulogy to my Father & Colonel Truong

Note to readers: I wrote my memoir TigerFish and published it in 2017 in which my father was an important and critical figure who I discussed at length and in great detail. I also continued working with him for my second full-length book, a historical fiction, inspired and based mainly on his life, until he passed away in August 2019. I had initially planned to publish this book in May 2020, but I have since suffered the losses of both my parents and that projected date will be at a later time. Here is my eulogy to my father from earlier this year that I’d like to share with you on the 100th Day of his passing to honor him and his legacy.

Eulogy to my Father

A week before my father passed away, I sat at his bedside, studying the wispy strands of gray hair draping across his forehead, the sparse and stubble facial hair on his thin face, eyes mostly closed, occasionally blinking to the sound of my voice. I stroke his arm and held his pale and almost delicate hand in mine, something I've never done in my adult life. It was only last April when I sat across from his bed where he was sitting up during our visit. He was still mobile though his health started to descend at an alarming clip. I cherished my one-on-one time with him. It was a rare gift because my dad was an impatient man when it came to small talks and fussiness. He preferred writing, or reading Vietnamese news and articles online. On a lighter side, he watched Vietnamese music programs for entertainment and nostalgia for the old country.

In his later years and waning months, when we visited, he did most of the talking and I gladly listened with keen interest, not wanting it to end. My dad spoke of different subjects, wherever his train of thought led him. He reminisced the occasion when he wooed my mom in her parents’ fruit orchard. He nearly gloated as he recounted her challenge that afternoon. "There are two kinds of grapefruits, one has pink meat and one white. Your mom asked me to guess the color of the grapefruit she began to peel. If I got it right, she would agree to marry me after my brief but persistent courtship." He guessed pink, and we know the outcome. They celebrated 63 years anniversary last year and passed away ten months apart.

In his retirement from Vendo from 2001, my dad began working on his memoir in Vietnamese. He shared it with family members and gave me a copy on a 3.5-inch floppy disk to translate it into English. I tried but didn't finish. I felt grossly incompetent with the responsibility and daunting task of portraying his life. My dad repeatedly and explicitly stated that it would be his gift and wish that the Truongs future generations understand why we came to America, and most importantly, how he devoted his life fighting fiercely against the enemy, so his children wouldn't live under communists rules. I've since put my personal apprehension and insecurities aside and devoted the time, however long it takes to fulfill his wish, to honor him and to keep his legacy alive.

Every time we visited, he asked if I had any questions for him about his own written memoir, how my writing of the next book, a historical fiction, loosely based on his life was coming along and gave me writing advice on how he would like it to read. I took the details of his request to heart and captured them on audio and video for accuracy. "If you have any questions, email them to me, and I will send you answers." When his eyesight got worse and he had difficulty reading emails, I spent more time in person. After I got into a car accident on my way to Fresno, he told me, "if you want to talk to me, call your brother Tommy and ask him to Facetime with me. It's too long a trip for one day." I never did but it made me smile every time I thought of it because he kept up with modern technology communications. He was always into electronic gadgetry and boasted that he bought his first computer at Radio Shack and had my brother Thao install Vietnamese accent marks so he can work on his side gig as a translator for the Fresno Unified School district.

On our visits, my dad wandered randomly from one topic to another when I didn't have a specific question for him. One afternoon, he pulled off his sock and chuckled while pointing to one of the oldest and most benign war injuries that he had before he reached twenty. "We captured a prisoner and kept him in an ad-hoc cell, using an ill-fitting door to block him in. In our grappling struggle, it came off and crushed my toe so I lost the tip of it." I've seen his injured toe all my life and he joked about it at times, just as he joked about the Frankenstein scars on his stomach and leg from two helicopter crashes."

After my mother passed away, my once mobile and healthy dad quickly declined and finally succumbed to the vascular disease. This injured toe flared up angrily and accosted him with excruciating pain. Instead of listening to my dad's nostalgia for the old days, chuckling when he was happy, or shaking his head when he was displeased, now I sat across from his bed watching him sleep or groaning when the medicine started to wear off. It's an irony that he escaped deaths countless times to pass away with the stark reminder of war from the smallest of his war injuries. How he survived the in battlefield trenches, numerous sniping attempts in the VC “Armed Reconnaissance Cells” which had the mission of capturing or killing South Vietnamese leaders and their families on his occasional home visits in Danang, when he dove off and rescued from the explosive planted on a French navy vessel named Adour by VC sappers, and not lastly, he and his father narrowly succeeded swimming ashore when the US bombed the bridge behind their small craft to disable the Japanese movement in Southeast Asia during WWII.

Children revere their parents and remember them as strong figures. My dad will forever my dashing, chiseled featured face, and formidable man. When it's hot in Sacramento where I live, I would picture him in his youth running barefoot on blistering tropical sand as far as he could then jumped on a large leaf to cool them off, then repeated until he reached his destination. I believed he inherited good ancestors karma because, in his early years, strangers and neighbors alike went out of their way to help him with books, tutoring, and education when his family wasn’t able to provide.

In twenty-eight years of his military career, he rose to a highly respected and infamous commander. His men loved him, and his enemies feared yet respected him. people saluted him as a war hero, and most significantly, in a US declassified document, shared with me by a US serving Colonel Pike who reached out to me when he made the connection that I'm the daughter of Colonel Truong. In brief, my dad and his men saved Danang from bloodshed during the Tet Offensive in 1968 even though they were greatly outnumbered.

Yes, he was a war hero, but I want you to know him as a dad who worked at Vendo for 23 years and never missed a day so his family wouldn't be wanting. My dad riveted himself to family loyalty, most notably to his parents and grandparents. I came across an old colored photo of him in a full colonel uniform sitting behind his desk. My dad peered at the camera, unflinching, and dignified. On the reverse side of the picture, he wrote and I paraphrased, "Dear mother, your son is now a full colonel to make you proud."

When I graduated from high school, my dad shopped with his modest and hard-earned money on a set of Cross gold pens and wrapped it up along with a Hallmark card. He patted my head when he handed it to me before leaving for his graveyard shift. He said he couldn't attend my commencement because it was a Wednesday night and he had to work. He retold the story that he watched me from outside my kindergarten classroom on my first day to make sure that I would be okay.

Sitting at my highschool commencement, I pictured my dad standing at his punch press at Vendo out on Ingram and Herndon Avenues, wearing his heavy steel-toed boots, brown polyester pants cinched at the waistline with a worn and frayed black leather belt, and a long-sleeve blue work shirt. This was his labor of love to ensure that his children would get a better education and a brighter future in America.

In Vietnam, I wished that my dad was a civilian so he could be home with us at nights like my friends’ families. When we came to America, I got to know him as even a stricter dad than he was back home. He wanted us to not lose our roots, but he also didn't want us to glom on to the few Vietnamese friends we had on campus so we can learn English, to be fluent, and to succeed in schools.

While we all struggled to assimilate when we arrived in our new country, my dad not only had to adjust to the food, customs, social norms and etiquette. But he found work to provide for our large family while reeling from the ghosts of war. He wanted to get an Associate degree in Electronic Engineering at Fresno City College, but our sponsors said we didn't have the funds for that. So he worked on an assembly line to make components for seatbelts, washed cars, tried to sell Rainbow vacuums unsuccessfully, and finally at Vendo as a press operator until he retired. My dad never stopped practicing his military discipline longer after our diaspora to America. He had scheduled a time and designated place for everything, and he was extremely frugal even with someone else's money. He recorded and tracked purchased items to per-unit costs to compare their values. He was displeased and thought that in his new country, folks often put money and material things before families and friends, and their moral compass seemingly corrupted from his traditional Confucian moral principles.

To know someone is to know their weaknesses and their strengths, their humanity, and their harshness. I experienced his strict parenting practices in my formative years but had the privilege of witnessing his enduring tenderness and patience when caring for my ailing mom day in and day out. It was like reading and watching The Notebook, but it was in real life. I learned about fatherly love in the most poignant light. He showed saintly patience with me and my incessant questions of the details of his life for my upcoming book. He was willing and generous with his time. Above all, he was relaxed and present, and sometimes we just sat in silence in the same room together, not needing to speak or fussing about one another. I knew that I wouldn't have the grace of his presence for much longer, and I always grieved and wept each time I buckled in for my car journey back to my own family.

I will explore the aches of my grief in my every waking moment, but I also know that I carry him in my every heartbeat. I pray that my dad will be with my mom, both are pain-free and can watch all the Paris by Nights Vietnamese Music Programs they want. I wish that my dad could take my mom to the beach he loved so much where the fresh spring water was only a few inches deep from where surfs broke and they can rinse off the saltiness of the after swimming. Whatever they happened to be doing, it would be pain-free. In closing, however we each grieve, may it bring each peace and solace so that we can continue to love our families while we are blessed with precious breath of life.