848 DAYS: <title-TBD> tells the story of Cambodian genocide survivor David and his family's journey to reach America in 848 days after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime. Born in 1969 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, David was only six years old when the Khmer Rouge came to power; forced the entire country of Cambodia to the countryside as part of their radical Year Zero cleansing campaign. It is estimated that 25% of the Cambodian population or one in every four Cambodians, perished during the four years of forced labor, starvation, brutal torture, mass executions, and illness. He narrowly escaped death in the youth labor camps. This is the inspiring story of David and his family's cunning survival during the Khmer Rouge genocide period and his enduring struggles at the youth labor camps; their extraordinary journey by foot, after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, to Thailand; forced repatriate to Cambodia; survived crossing landmine field; and their eventual settlement and integration in the United States. Despite his traumatic experience and lack of childhood development and learning gaps, David went on to earn both a bachelor's and a master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has enjoyed an adventurous career that spans over 25 years from high-tech product development to experience life packed in a suitcase and expatriate oversea assignments to working at remote classified locations and at maximum security prisons throughout the United States. A short chronological timeline of David's life is illustrated below.
David's e-book memoirs can be downloaded here: in planning phase, expected release — TBD
David's e-book memoirs can be downloaded here: in planning phase, expected release — TBD
1969-1975
In-The-Beginning |
I was born in 1969 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to an upper middle-class family. My father was a businessman, owned a successful wholesale distribution company while my mother is a homemaker taking care of her young children. We lived in a two-story townhouse with live-in maids a short walking distance from Central Market, an Art Deco landmark of Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.
Declassified information on secret United States B-52 heavy bombing campaigns from 1965 to 1973 where the US Air Force dropped more than 230,000 sorties on over 113,000 sites in Cambodia, a neutral country. According to John Pilger's documentary called Year Zero, The Silent Death of Cambodia: "No country had ever experienced more concentrated bombing than Cambodia where the United States unleashed more than 100,000 ton of bombs, the equivalent of 5 Hiroshima". This resulted in over 100,000 Cambodian causalities and displaced millions from their homes. The heavy U.S. bombing devastation and General Lon Nol's collaboration with the U.S., drove many ordinary Cambodians, mostly peasants, to join Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime.
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1975-1979
Genocide Period |
On April 16, 1975, the U.S. Marines evacuated the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. The next morning, the city fell to the Khmer Rouge where they forced evacuation of the city's 2.5 million people to rural countryside to reset the clock to "Year Zero", that all cultures and traditions are to be abolished and to purify Cambodia through a genocidal purge of intellectuals and targeted groups.
I was forcibly separated from my parents and taken away to various youth labor camps. I was forced to work in the rice paddies every day from dusk to dawn. At one point, I attempted to escape but was catch, beaten and starved. As time passed, all of us children were getting weaker and weaker. With the production drop in rice harvesting, the Khmer Rouge dramatically cut down on our rice consumption where we were given one meal a day of heavily watered-down rice porridge. We all had a large bony head, a skinny body where you could see our bones and a bloated stomach caused by malnutrition. The children started to die in large numbers from starvation and disease. Some died overnight in their sleep, some died in the work field, and some just collapsed and died. The starvation caused the children to develop diarrhea and disease due to vitamin deficiencies. Toward the end in 1979, we were all waiting to die.
Luckily, the country was liberated by the Vietnamese troops in early 1979. The Khmer Rouge had retreated to the remote areas. My brother and I were reunited as we were forcibly separated into different work camps as the concept of family was prohibited. All the children who had survived immediately took off to each of our respective villages to find our families. In the aftermath, it is estimated that at least 20,000 mass graves, known as the Killing Fields, have since been uncovered according to a Wikipedia article on the Cambodia genocide. Back at the village, we were very fortunate to find our parents and siblings alive. We learned that my uncle, my mother’s brother, and his entire family of five had been taken away and executed at a mass grave. My father's younger brother's wife and her son died from malnutrition and disease. We were also very saddened to learn that both my grandmothers from my father's and mother's died of starvation. We found my father in extremely poor health due to malnutrition. Both of my legs were swollen, and my lower left ankle area was severely infected. To this day, it had left a nasty mark on my lower left leg.
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1979-1981
Migration Period |
We spent some time getting our footing in place and scouting for food to allow everyone to recover, especially my father. It is amazing what food can do for you physically and mentally as we all slowly recovered from excessive malnutrition. My infected left leg started to heal as well. My parents were planning and preparing for us to eventually cross into Thailand. They had heard stories of dangerous bandits and landmines along the border jungles of Cambodia and Thailand. After about two and half months of preparing, in April 1979, my parents decided it was time for us to attempt to cross into Thailand. My parents along with other families lined up two smugglers to take us across to Thailand. The smugglers promised to take us along a safe route to elude bandits and landmines. In return, they charged a certain amount of gold per person. We spent the day walking from Phnom Proek to the Thailand border. We camped at the border until nightfall when each family paid the two smugglers per the agreed gold price. We walked throughout the night. I remembered the sky was crystal clear, and the jungle was so quiet, yet I could constantly hear a chirping sound. At one point, I was so tired that I walked into a tree. At dawn, to our surprised, the two smugglers left us but pointed toward the direction we needed to continue walking. Shortly afterward, we were met by a group of bandits. They looked through our bags for valuables and searched each one of us thoroughly. I remembered my mother quickly took out a banana sticky rice roll that she had made to feed my younger sister. One of the bandits wanted to take away the banana sticky rice roll but my mother quickly broke the roll in half and crushed it in her had to show him there was nothing inside. It turns out that my mother had hidden gold nuggets in the other end of the banana rice that was still wrapped in her palm. For the next few hours, the bandits stalled the group but eventually allowed us to continue walking toward the Thailand border. Eventually, we were received by the Thai border soldiers and transported to the refugee camp outside of Aranyaprathet, Thailand.
The Nong Samet refugee camp was located 5 kilometers north of Aranyaprathet, a border town in Eastern Thailand. It was an improvised camp that was disorganized and chaotic. There were people everywhere living in relief tents. During the first week at the camp, everyone in our family shaved their head bald. My mother had made a promise in 1978 at the height of the Khmer Rouge genocide when she had witnessed a lot of people around her died of starvation, disease, and exhaustion, and taken away to be executed that if her family survived, we would all shave our head. We’re not a religious family but during times of extreme desperation, one had to believe to have hope. My mother kept her promise. After staying in the refugee camp for several weeks, in early June 8, 1979, the Thai military forcibly seized control of the refugee camp and began a secret repatriation of the Cambodian refugees. We were part of the more than forty thousand Cambodian refugees that were loaded onto buses promising to eventually take us to America. It was a long bus ride and at a single rest stop, ordinary Thai people passed out small water bags and food snacks to us as we looked out the bus windows. Instead of journeying into Thailand, the Thai military dropped us off at a mountain top near the temple of Prasat Preah Vihear on the border between Thailand and Cambodia. Here is a snippet from Wikipedia on this event: "In June 1979, the Thai government forced more than 40,000 Cambodian refugees back into Cambodia at Preah Vihear temple. 3,000 or more Cambodians were killed attempting to cross a minefield. The Preah Vihear incident stimulated the international humanitarian community into action to help Cambodians who often arrived at the Thai border in the last extremity of starvation." Under international pressure, Thailand revised its refugee policy, but the damage had already been done to us and the more than forty thousand unlucky Cambodian refugees. We witnessed the sick and the elderly being left behind as the Thai army fired their guns up in the air to force people to descend the steep mountain. It took us days to reach the bottom of the mountain. Some families had to leave their elderly parents behind as they could not carry them. At the bottom of the mountain lay the Cambodia-Thailand border, littered with landmines. These landmines were placed by the Khmer Rouge. We saw families being blown up during the chaos. At least 3,000 Cambodians were killed. We felt hopeless and full of anxiety and panic. Our chances of survival seemed grim and my mother commented that had she known this, she would have wanted my brother and I to escape at the bus stop to attempt to survive in Thailand. It was not until the Vietnamese soldiers came to our rescue by sweeping out the landmines that we had order and a sense of calm. Because there were many people and landmines to clear, the Vietnamese soldiers placed stick flags to designate the presence of the landmines. We were forced to be methodical and walked in a single line following a path dotted by the stick flags, and only once an area had been declared safe, were we allowed to rest and sleep. It took us days to navigate through the minefield. Once cleared, we had no choice but to walk for the next two months to Phnom Penh. Our morale was very low, especially that of my parents. For the next two months, we were on foot walking every day from dusk to dawn, carrying and pushing whatever belongings we had at the time, which amounted to some clothes, pots for cooking, and leaky tent covers. The distance to Phnom Penh is over 200 miles or about 322 km. Some days were impossible due to heat exhaustion, heavy rain, tiredness, and voracious hunger. We would survive on a minimal amount of rice given to us by the kindhearted farmers but mostly on what we could find along the way. Some nights during the rain, our small and leaky tent was dripping with water. We had to sleep in a sitting position back to back with my siblings and parents. As a young boy, I vividly remembered night after night of being very hungry. I would daydream that one day when I had enough rice, I would stuff all of it in my pockets so I would never run out of rice. This is one of the reasons I don't like to waste food today.
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1981-1994
Integration Period |
Middle school: Settled and grew up in low income neighborhoods of Chicago. We lived in a small one-bedroom apartment for a family of seven. For the first time, we had a place to call our own and we could not have been more excited. I attended a gang infested middle school in 7th and 8th grades. I was attacked by gang groups which prompted me to join the Laotian gang for protection. I suffered from extreme anxiety disorders. After one year into our settlement, our apartment was burglarized and robbed of our belongings.
High School: My parents made the difficult decision against the comfort of surrounding Cambodian community and financial burden, of moving the family to a better place in Evanston, Illinois. Evanston is a suburban city located approximately 15 miles north of Chicago and is home to Northwestern University, one of the country's most well respected colleges. This allowed their children to attend better schools and a chance to integrate into the American culture. The two years in middle school did not prepare me for high school. I was thrust into a highly competitive high school for which I was ill prepared. I struggled in all subjects including basic English language; socially awkward; experienced persistent anxiety and panic attacks. Through hard work and perseverance, I graduated with minimum requirements for acceptance into The University of Illinois at Chicago.
College: Progressively excelled in engineering; graduated with a B.S. and a M.S degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Held part-time jobs as electronic technicians and engineering internship at Xerox Corporation in Rochester, New York. This helped to pave the way for a position with Motorola in Schaumburg, Illinois after my graduation in May 1994. I financed my own tuition with part-time jobs and student loans throughout my studies.
First jobs: At 13 years old upon arrival in the United States, my first odd jobs were going door to door, offering lawn mowing services and selling bakery goods at street fairs without speaking English. Gradually progressed to stable and lucrative jobs in golf course caddying; supermarkets and drugstores; part-time electronics technicians; and interning at Xerox Corporation.
For several summers starting in 1982, my caddy job was very lucrative. I would get up very early in the morning, most of the time at 4:30am and rode my bicycle for almost two hours to get to the Country Club in Glencoe, Illinois a beautiful affluent suburb north of Chicago that is 24 miles away from where we lived in Evanston toward the borders with Chicago. Weekends were the busiest at the Country Club and I would get there by 6:30am to enlist my name as it’s based on a first come, first out routine. I never missed a weekend as it was the most lucrative time. It took about four hours to play a round of 18 holes. So typically, I was able to go out twice per day on the weekends. Carrying two golf bags per 18 holes and with $20 (equivalent to $53.31 today) per bag plus tips, I was averaging between $46 to $48 dollars per 18 holes as most of the players typically tipped $3 or $4 dollars. This was a lot of money for a teenage in the early 80s. I once had a player that made a hole in one shot and he ended up tipping me $10. My favorite part was at the ninth hole where the caddies got a hot dog and a cold soda drink. Being a caddie was very lucrative and I made a couple of thousand dollars over each summer. All earnings went to my mother to help the family. The same was also true for my siblings. It was an investment in us and in our future. This taught me the importance of hard work, responsibility, and financial literacy at a young age. Started formal engineering career at Motorola in Schaumburg, Illinois after graduation in April 1994. Bought my dad a car and paid off my student and car loans within the first few years. |
1994-Present
Career & Family |
I've been extremely fortunate to continue to have a successful engineering career that spans over 25 years in high-tech industry. I've worked for six different companies at Motorola, Globalstar LP, IBM/inCode Wireless, TruePosition (now Skyhook), JT3 Defense Contractor (now JT4), T-Mobile USA, and Harris Corporation (now L3Harris Technologies). At each company, I was exposed to different processes, cultures, technologies, and people while gaining broad insights and experiences, better equipped to tackle challenging problems to stay relevant.
Work and family related travels have taken me to 30 countries. I met my beautiful wife while on a three year expatriate work assignment in a small town in Northeastern Brazil. We've been together for over 20 years. A couple of recent family pictures:
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