The subject of this story is not a veteran, but her life was touched by the men and women who fought in Vietnam.
ERMA – Thy (pronounced “tee”) Cavagnaro was a year-and-a-half old on April 30, 1975, which was the day she and her family fled Saigon, in then South Vietnam, to escape the communist forces closing in on the city, leaving burning buildings and dead bodies in their wake.
Cavagnaro spoke at the Forgotten Warriors Vietnam Museum on Saturday, Sept. 27, giving the audience a taste of what it was like to be evacuated from danger and to lose your homeland forever. Although she was just a toddler, at the time, Cavagnaro had distinct memories of her father putting the family of five – two adults and three children – on a motorcycle and racing down side roads to avoid being caught. Cavagnaro, now 52, said she still remembers the sight of the buildings on fire and the bodies of those already killed by the communist forces.
She said when they reached the east side of the Saigon River, they abandoned the motorbike and the parents put the children on a raft with the intention of swimming across the river. However, they were stopped by a South Vietnamese police boat, which after determining that they were not Viet Cong – communist guerilla fighters – they transported the family across the river.
On the other side of the river, the family intended to meet up with a South Vietnamese naval vessel, a minesweeper named the Chi Lang II, captained by her uncle, her father’s brother, who would take them out of Saigon and, hopefully, to safety.
It was then that one of the first personal conflicts came up for Cavagnaro’s family. The uncle told Cavagnaro’s father that the vessel had a capacity of 104 passengers – now refugees. Her immediate family would escape on the boat, the uncle said, because they were family. Her mother, who was related by marriage, not blood, was told she could pick two of her 10 family members, and the rest would be left behind.
“They could not stay because there were only two options – a probable death, or years of torture in a reeducation camp,” Cavagnaro said.
She said the reeducation camps were supposed to teach South Vietnamese citizens about communism, believing they simply didn’t understand what it was. However, she said, the reeducation camps became more like the concentration camps of World War II, where many people died.
“Everyone knew what the communists were capable of,” she said.
At some point, her father told the family not to bother choosing who would be saved – that he was going to get them all on board – even the family dog. Cavagnaro said the Chi Lang II, which was supposed to have a capacity of 104, carried 998 people down the Saigon River out to the South China Sea.
Cavagnaro said the Chi Lang II was not alone. People attempted to escape on every type of vessel they could find or paid to get on someone’s boat. Other people used anything that would float to get down the river and out to sea. Cavagnaro said roughly half of the 800,000 who attempted to escape by water perished.
She said their boat snuck out from its port at 3 a.m., and at 10 a.m., the president of South Vietnam surrendered to the invading army.
Eventually, the Chi Lang II met up with some other refugee vessels and met up with the other Vietnamese navy vessels around Con Son Island, and fortunately, the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet. Among the U.S. naval vessels was the U.S.S. Kirk, a destroyer that had been reclassified as a frigate for submarine warfare. Cavagnaro said a helicopter flown by a South Vietnamese pilot approached the Kirk and asked permission to land. Initially denied, the pilot pleaded with the Kirk saying his helicopter was packed with refugees and there was nowhere to land. Understanding the refugees would perish if the helicopter landed in the sea, the commander gave the green light for it to land. No sooner than the refugees were on the Kirk another helicopter appeared, also carrying a more than capacity group of refugees. Having only one landing pad, the decision was made to push the first helicopter into the sea to make room for the next.
“Then came a third helicopter, and a fourth, and a fifth… in all there were 16 helicopters that carried refugees to the ship,” Cavagnaro said. “This was the greatest humanitarian mission in the history of the U.S. Navy.”
From Con Son Island, the vessels made their way to Subic Bay, Philippines, where they were initially refused permission to dock. Cavagnaro said some of the vessels carried the South Vietnamese flag, and since South Vietnam – the Republic of Vietnam – no longer existed, the government of the Philippines said the vessels belonged to the now Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Philippines, Cavagnaro said, was not eager to offend the new communist nation, so a solution had to be reached. The American side suggested that the South Vietnamese ships actually came from U.S. Navy stock, so the U.S. would simply take than back and reflag them with American flags. This initially did not sit well with the Vietnamese commanders, who understood it as the final insult in the takeover of their country. Ultimately, left with no other option, the crews assembled on deck, sang their national anthem, and saluted their flag for the last time.
This was followed immediately by raising the American flag. To illustrate how this might have felt, Cavagnaro produced the U.S. flag, and asked everyone to stand and sing the national anthem. Following that, she put away the U.S. flag and with her mother held the flag of the former Republic of Vietnam and asked the audience to join in singing the national anthem of South Vietnam. After an awkward performance of the song, Cavagnaro addressed the audience in Vietnamese, with only several English words, such as “sneaker,” mixed in.
“Can you imagine this happening here? Can you imagine your president surrendering?” Cavagnaro said. “This is what me and my family went through.”
The family was soon relocated to the U.S. territory of Guam, before being transported to Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, arriving June 2, 1975. Cavagnaro said the Vietnamese refugees, who left Saigon in the hot, dry season, were cold when they arrived in Pennsylvania. However, they were met at the airport by a bus that was loaded with clothes for adults and children.
Cavagnaro said, despite the cold they felt in June in Pennsylvania, they were thrilled to be in the United States.
“Of all the countries, we all wanted to go to the United States, the best country then, and now,” she said.
Her family, as it turned out, was sponsored by an American actor named William Mooney, who played the fictional character Paul Martin on TV’s “All My Children.” He and his wife, Valerie Goodall, a world-renowned opera singer, remodeled the basement in their East Brunswick home to accommodate the family. Cavagnaro said they would later take in even more refugees after they had conflicts with their sponsor families. She said her parents stayed with their sponsor for only one year, during which both per parents worked multiple jobs and saved enough to buy a home in South River. The family moved back to Wast Brunswick when she entered high school. She married her husband Jimmy in 2003 and the couple settled in Barnegat.
Cavagnaro sought to understand the Vietnam War, its causes and consequences, both for the refugees and the American military members who fought it. Cavagnaro said for many years, Vietnam veterans laid low, not advertising their association with the war. Many were met with hostility upon arriving home, which has led to veterans of that era greeting each other today with, “Welcome home.” According to Cavagnaro, even the veterans’ service organizations didn’t want the Vietnam vets for many years.
One day, Cavagnaro was on social media, where she saw more pride and symbols displayed by Vietnam veterans. She commented on a post saying, “I’m a Vietnam veteran, too! Thank you.” She said, while most of the feedback to her postings has been positive, one Vietnam veteran replied to her post that she was a refugee, saying, “Sorry.” When she asked why he was sorry, he said he told her he was sorry he hadn’t killed all her family and her ancestors.
Cavagnaro said one has to choose how to respond in a situation like that. She took the higher road and has spent the last decade thanking vets for their efforts, and eventually she and her family became U.S. citizens. Cavagnaro and her husband went to Indiantown Gap for the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, and she met a lot of veterans wearing their caps, shirts, and symbols of their service as Vietnam veterans.
Returning home, Jimmy and Thy formed Thanking Vietnam Veterans in Barnegat. She travels across the state, telling her story in New Jersey schools from elementary to the collegiate level, adjusting her presentation for the audience.
Cavagnaro is the owner and trainer for Amazing Eskies, a company dealing with the American Eskimo breed of dog.
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or call 609-886-8600 x-128.
