My Father

My wife had to write a paper for her tutor about her father, i think for father's day. She is from Cambodia and writes about her father during the civil war there and the rise of the Khmer Rouge. I cleaned the language up a little. The ending is sort of incomplete, but I think you'll get the general idea. I just thought it might be some interesting reading for you.

On XXXXXXX
06/27/2005

My Father

Dad was born in 1949 in Battambang, Cambodia. He worked for the government. I remember the civil war was off and on between the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian government.

In 1973 he was about forty years old. The Khmer Rouge attacked the town we were living in, during the night. I can still hear the guns going off and the people screaming. My father told us to be calm and told my mother to pack a few of our belongings. We got out of the house that night.

My father took us to an army barracks. Later, the Khmer Rouge surrounded the barracks. We were all scared. We ran out of food and the soldiers ran out of ammunition. No one in the barracks knew what to do. The commander told all the men in the barracks to use knives to cut the Khmer Rouge if they came into the barracks. Just a few hours later, the Khmer Rouge set the barracks on fire. My father grabbed my little brother and me. My mother grabbed my other brother. The commander threw a smoke grenade out of the door and my dad started out the door with a long knife in his hand and shouted to my mom “Run, follow me!” While running, we could hear the sound of the bullets flying all around us. No one was injured.

We continued running until we got to another town. My dad had friends there. We stayed there for a few months. The war seemed quiet. Then in 1979, my dad decided to move the family close to the Thailand border, or possibly into Thailand itself, because he felt that it would be safer there. We had to wait until the Buddhist New Year was over, and then we would make the trip. I still remember clearly those times, when my parents moved our family towards the Thai border.

But, as we packed the morning we were going to leave, the Khmer Rouge came into town. They rounded all of us up and marched us back to the town we had escaped from months earlier. This is when the war really began for me. We stayed there for another four years.

I believe my dad would still do anything necessary to protect his family. He was a great man.

She has told me stories that go into more detail about the four years under Khmer Rouge rule. I hope I can encourage her to add more to this paper in the future.