"I worked for three years as an interpreter for the US marines," Tam told me in his high-pitched, nasal English. "When the Americans withdrew I was stuck in Danang. We hid in a basement and listened to the radio. The North Vietnamese army was coming." He and his wife had fled south just ahead of the swelling tide of refugees seeking safe haven in Saigon, the last stronghold of the beleaguered South. Behind him an endless stream of humanity struggled along the cratered road, pushing wheelbarrows, leading bullock carts and shepherding their few belongings into an uncertain future. Tam himself carried a heavy burden - his four-month-old son.

His foresight proved in vain. Saigon was terror stricken, feeding upon itself in a suicidal struggle for individual survival. The Communists advanced in an unstoppable wave. The last hope of rescue that had funneled nearly one million Vietnamese into the city disintegrated into the heaving mobs that swarmed the Embassy gates. The Americans had left without them. Tam and his family went into hiding to await the inevitable.

An eerie calm descended upon the city as the conquering army approached. "There was no one left on the streets," Tam said, his eyes losing focus. "All you could see were the piles of uniforms where the South Vietnamese soldiers had thrown them down and run off in their underwear." Although almost no bombs had fallen on the city, the southern collaborators suffered no illusions of reprieve. It remained only to be seen what form the eventual retaliation would take.

The call came quickly. Tam was ordered to report to the Communist command. "They said it would only be for a few days!" he exclaimed indignantly. "My wife and child were depending on me." The days turned to weeks and months in a distant re-education camp. "My wife was forced to return to her family," Tam said, his cheeks reddening with remembered shame. "There was nothing I could do." Six days a week he was ordered to the communal fields, where he struggled to tease a meager crop from the arid hills. Every Sunday he was re-educated. "We were made to write the names of people we worked with, their units, commanders and rank. Always the same." He shook his head and poked at a sliver of beef among the ropy noodles. "I never told them I'd worked with the Americans." he admitted. Instead, he passed himself off as a radio operator for the South Vietnamese Army. "And," he added, rolling the words around in his mouth, savoring their newfound luxury. "I tried to forget my English. They were shooting American collaborators."

THE AFTERMATH