The Journey
Life was good in Vietnam. It had it's fun loving culture, like any other country.
It was safe to walk home or go to your friends house after school and maybe visit the lady at the che shop or the baker at the ban store.
But things changed it was no longer safe, we were trapped.
Like a worn out ball our culture and country faded away.
Men had to go to war or rather boys.
So many explosions followed by silent screams and the sound of gunfire. It was war at it's best. Most died, only the very lucky lived but still the impact shook them.
The spirit of the corpses floated in the air while the souls of the murdering limped away, unready for another battle.
Medals were awarded to the best of those that lived, but some were cowards and backed away. They let go of one risk just to take on another. A risk escaping our own country. In some cases there was just no hope and the badly engineered boat died half way out to sea, leaving us back where we started.
Now we are prisoners, even more trapped than we were before.
They beat us up and took our clothes away.
But we are brave men, we went to war and it proved our brains and skills. Escaping is on our mind; no barbed wire can stop it.
This time we made it. We made it to Malaysia. Buddha was on our side.
We stayed at the refuggee camps like thousands of others.
A year from then we flew to Australia, the 'free country'. We all laughed when the immigration man asked us where out lugguage was.
Things were different in the 'free country'.
In fact everything was different, but it was okay cause it was a 'free' country.
By missandpublications
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