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I was doing some browsing on the internet and came across Mr. Johnson's story about Vietnamese's Refugee Rescue on the USS San Jose. I believe my family was the first group he described in this story. We were rescued by the USS San Jose in December of 1979 or Jan 1980. My father passed away 5 years ago so I couldn't confirm the exact time. I know we arrived in the United State on Feb 14th 1980 and we stayed in the Singapore refugee camp for 2-3 months before we were sponsored by a Catholic parish in Aurora, Illinois.
The story Mr. Johnson described about the first group of boat people in 'most need of help' sounded like us. We were on our 22th day at sea with no food and water. Our boat motor broke down on the 3rd or 4th day so we were drifting in the sea. Shortly after that we ran out of food and water. We were able to collect water from the rain but that was never enough. I was 6 years old at the time with my father (42 years old), older brother (11) and 2 sisters (9 & 13). On the boat was some of my uncles and cousins. Unfortunately one of my cousin, 3 years old, died of starvation. Also a pregnant woman on board didn't make it. There were a lot of stories of huge vessel ships passing us by and the daily struggles to get food and water on a broken down drifting boat. I can share some of these stories later.
It's interesting that my 10 years old daughter is writing a story about my life for a school project and that I would come across your website. One picture I noticed was the one below. The girl in the picture looks like my older sister (9 at the time). I wonder if Mr. Johnson can confirm that it's from the first boat and if he has more photos. Thanks for creating this website and sharing the stories of the refugees.
Cuong Mai
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