She Ate His Heart

[Amman, 7/8/25]

South Vietnam’s first president, Ngô Đình Diệm, and his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, had a villa in Vũng Tàu. Her father was their chef. When they’re not there, he maintained the property. After the Ngô brothers were assassinated in a CIA greenlit coup, the villa was bought by a Frenchman. He retained her dad, so he stayed there for several more years. By 1975, he was a security guard for the US military. As North Vietnamese troops surged south, he could have been evacuated, but there was no question of leaving his wife and children behind.

“My father wouldn’t let us outside to see the Việt Cộng.” The term just means Vietnamese Communists. American books routinely get this wrong. “I had no idea what a Việt Cộng looked like. Finally, my sister and I went outside to see them. They were right there!” She pointed to an intersection 30 yards away. “On their tanks, they were so thin. They looked starved!” She laughed at the memory. “So those were the Việt Cộng.”

Toughing it out for years, they had emerged victoriously from jungles. Napalm, choppers and mines hadn’t finished them. Most had never had a girlfriend or been outside their village before being exposed to the unspeakable. Southern cities looked way better than they had been taught all their lives.

Abandoned houses and businesses in Vũng Tàu were looted. Most prized were bags of rice from a warehouse, she recalled. People hurried down streets with furniture, appliances and bolts of fabric.