The Fall of Saigon changed the lives of many people 40 years ago in April of 1975 as North Vietnam marched into South Vietnam and took over a country that wasn’t fully expecting such rapid change.

The event came toward the end of Vietnam War and it was a big change as the country moved to becoming a communist nation.

North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam and began the final attack on Saigon on April 29. By the the next day, North Vietnamese troops had occupied the major points of the city and raised their flag to show they had taken over. The South Vietnamese government collapsed shortly afterward and Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, after the Democratic Republic’s President Ho Chi Minh.

The fall of the city was preceded by the evacuation of almost all the American civilian and military personnel in Saigon, along with tens of thousands of South Vietnamese residents.

Two current residents of New Ulm, Kha Nguyen and Nga Nguyen, managed to escape the collapse of the government and eventually made it to American soil, although both paths were difficult.

Now longtime residents of New Ulm, Kha and Nga have called the city their home for about 18 years. Kha and Nga have been married for 20 years and have a son Kris, who attends New Ulm Cathedral High School. The couple owns T&M Nails here in New Ulm and it has given them a chance to be successful. But life was difficult for Kha and Nga a long time ago and they managed to escape before any further danger hit them personally.

Kha’s escape

Kha managed to escape South Vietnam at the age of 17 with the help of his uncle, who was a Governor of Da Nang where Kha lived. His uncle had the money and resources to help Kha escape, which he did in March of 1975, shortly before the fall of South Vietnam.

He was old enough to know that something drastic was about to happen to his country, but he was too young to do much about it. After his uncle offered help in escaping, the family got on a boat to Thailand before eventually making their way to Guam and then America less than a month later.

He grew up in the middle of the country in Da Nang, which was the second-largest city in Vietnam after Saigon. Once they felt they could escape, they did.

“I was 17, so I didn’t really think much,” he said. “But we just kind of went with the flow. I lived in the middle part of the country.”

He said that the war came there in April of 1975, shortly after they left.

“All of a sudden, the North came down and there was fighting all over the country,” Kha said. “The North, they come next to Vietnam, in Cambodia and Laos, they used the third country and they moved their troops along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.”

Kha said that the troops from the north attacked Da Nang before attacking the capital city of Saigon. Da Nang is the second-largest city in South Vietnam and the troops from the north were there in March of 1975. He said that the north would attack three different places at once because the South didn’t have the numbers. The north also benefitted from fellow Communist countries China and Russia, who gave them plenty of supplies for the war.

“The South Vietnam, they don’t have enough soldiers, when the Americans left in 1972, they didn’t have much of a support,” Kha said of the southern troops. “Before, Americans gave them support they need, the supplies and ammunition and after ’72 they left. So we fight kind of like a poor guy fighting. We don’t have enough supplies, we don’t have enough bombs, don’t have enough airplanes. The north, they got supplies from China and Russia, so they give them all the tanks and they want to take over the country.”

Kha said it almost became unfair after the American troops pulled out and left in 1972. From that moment on, North Vietnam had taken over with little resistance from the south.

“Back then, we had American support and we beat them back,” Kha said. “We killed a lot of them, that’s why they had to wait from ’68 to ’72 to recoup. They would fight a little over here and over there [to] see how Americans would react. When Americans left, they made the south sign a peace treaty with the north, but the north, they don’t honor it.”

While South Vietnam was being attacked, Kha decided he needed to take action.

“I had a uncle, he was a Governor of Da Nang, so he knew that he can’t stay there,” Kha said. “My dad was killed in 1968 and so my uncle knew that he had to leave. He thought that if he stayed, the North was going to come and kill him. He was a governor so he made a lot of enemies.

“So he told my mom that he leaving, so whoever wants to leave can come with him,” he said. “He had money and he know how to leave. So my mom said ‘wherever you go, we want to go with you.’ That’s how we left Da Nang.”

The family left on a ship in March of 1975 from a city close to Saigon. Soon after, they found out there was an American Navy ship close by in international waters waiting for them. Once they got to the American ship, they tried to get on but were initially denied because they didn’t have permission. They went back to land and came back three days later and were picked up and went to Guam.

After a short stay in Guam, Kha eventually made it to America, going to an Army base in Arkansas. There, they found a Catholic church to sponsor them and he got out of the base and moved to New Orleans. He eventually moved to Mankato and then New Ulm, where he’s called home since 1998.

But he’ll never forget the uncertainty he faced in 1975 when, as a 17-year old, he had to make the biggest decision of his life.

“We didn’t know where we were going to end up, we didn’t know if we were going to go back, if we were going to be leaving forever,” he said. “It’s traumatizing.”

Nga also escapes

Nga escaped South Vietnam and made it to the United States at the age of 31. She came to America in 1988, but it wasn’t easy.

Nga grew tired of the lifestyle in Vietnam and decided that escaping was her best option. She didn’t have family that was involved with the military so she had to do all of the work of escaping herself.

“If you don’t have money, you can’t escape,” Kha said of Nga’s situation. “If you lived by waterway, you can escape. But if you try to do it underground, the government could arrest you and you not allowed to leave. You have to pay money for people who have a ship or boat to escape.”

When she tried to leave the first time, she got caught and was put in jail for two months. After they let her out of jail, she again tried to escape and was successful the second time around, this time on foot.

Despite the fact that she was caught the first time and put in jail, she knew that she would again try to get free and out of the country. Because she tried to escape the first time, she was under the watchful eye of the police.

“The police watch you and they know when you left and where you are,” Kha said. “They knew that you maybe tried to escape, so they keep harassing you.”

Despite their troubles, the two were a couple of the lucky ones who managed to escape. While they’ll never forget the battles they fought to get here, they know that they’ll never have to face them again.