Remembering the Vietnamese Refugees

It was on a cool raining morning on Boxing day 39 years ago, when I joined the Navy. At 18 years I felt I was already all grown up. I didn't know what grown up meant. Shortly after Midshipman training when I graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant, I was thrust into the harsh reality of the struggles of the Vietnamese Refugees. My first hand encounters with these people in rickety over-crowded wooden boats opened my eyes to the harsh reality of the world we live in. A world where governments don't protect its citizens; where you are responsible for your own survival. Where blaming someone else is a luxury albeit a pointless one. You either make the best of your circumstances, or die trying. I had never been to Vietnam and have not met Vietnamese people before. They were a "distant" country and people. I had no feelings for them. However, things changed immediately during my first face to face encounter with them. I felt sorrow, pain and anguish for these boat people; for their sufferings, their pain and their sense of hopelessness, every time we turned them away for reaching the shore. These pictures bring back memories of the time when innocence was lost forever.