UC Davis psychologist shares how she and her family escaped the Fall of Saigon
DAVIS - This week will mark 50 years since the Fall of Saigon. The end of the Vietnam War resulted in hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving in the U.S. seeking a better life.
Dr. Carolee Tran, a trained psychologist who lives in Davis, was among that group.
Tran was eight years old during the Fall of Saigon, the day the North Vietnamese army took over the city - forcing the U.S. to abandon its embassy, evacuating personnel and thousands of South Vietnamese.
"These were the most precious pictures in the bag she carried," Tran said as she showed CBS News Sacramento the images.
Her maternal grandfather, who worked for the American embassy, knew of the imminent danger.
"He had my family and my grandparents, aunts and uncle go to Phu Guoc Island so that we would be close to the ocean so that could get out more easily," Tran said.
Carolee's father, a South Vietnamese army major, stayed behind.
For the next three weeks, they waited on the island.
On the morning of April 30, 1975, they spotted a white Naval ship.
"My grandfather knew that that was an American ship that was picking up refugees. So we started like 8 a.m. in the morning trying to get out. And for several hours, none of the fishermen would take us out," Tran said.
Desperate measures then called for desperate actions.
"Finally, my mom had this huge sack of money, and she was on her knees begging the different fishermen and told them, 'If you take us out, you can have all this money,'" Tran said.
They soon boarded a fisherman's boat and when they saw the ship, Carolee managed to get on a barge.
"Once I got onto the boat and stood on the scow, my mom told me to jump, jump onto the scows. And there were just people being trampled," Tran said.
Carolee reluctantly made the jump and got separated.
"And at that point, I was being thrown around like a rag doll and I was suffocating," Tran said.
A stranger then grabbed her hand and she boarded the ship.
Carolee felt alone.
"I stood at the edge of the ship and I could see my sister down below with my grandparents," Tran said. "Then I heard the loudest orchestra of humans, human suffering, people wailing and crying and yelling."
Carolee would eventually find her family on the ship, but the fear and misery never faded.
"My baby sister, who was 18 months at the time, we had no milk for her. So three days into the journey, we could tell that she was fading and she was dying," Tran said.
Her mother again taking matters into her own hands.
"My mom went around the ship and begged people to give her baby some milk or else she would die. And luckily, a mother of like four children shared the little milk that she had," Tran said.
The Naval ship finally made it to Guam.
There, Carolee, her family, and thousands of refugees found shelter at a makeshift camp known as Tent City.
At one point while at the camp, a young family member told Carolee that her father was there.
"I thought he was joking, so I was so mad at him. I chased him down and hit him. And so then I look and I see that my dad was indeed there walking towards the tent with my mom," Tran said.
Carolee and her family then headed for Camp Pendleton in San Diego - and would make a new life in Northern California.
Carolee would excel in school and become the first Vietnamese woman to earn a PhD in clinical psychology in the U.S. She also wrote a book called "The Gifts of Adversity," describing her harrowing escape from Vietnam.
Today, the married mother of two counts her blessings and knows the sacrifices made by refugees coming to America.
"We need to shine a light on the beauty of our country as a mosaic of all different people coming together. That's what makes our country beautiful."
Dr. Tran specializes in treating war and refugee trauma. She's an associate professor of psychology at UC Davis.
