The first time Tri Huynh spotted a Thai pirate ship, he thought it was just a fishing boat.
But several hours later, when the third one appeared on the horizon, the teenager knew better than to hope for a rescue. Mr. Huynh -- who had gold chains sewn into his pants to hide them from bandits -- his older brother, Le, and more than 300 other Vietnamese refugees held tightly as the small wooden boat struggled to pick up speed in the rough water.
They headed farther into the Gulf of Thailand, away from both the pirates and their homes in Communist-occupied Vietnam, but not to safety.
Mr. Huynh pauses and shuts his eyes tightly as he tries to recall the events of 1979, when he and his brother fled their home north of Saigon out of fear of being drafted to fight the Cambodians. Sitting on a leather sectional couch in his large Columbia County home, he tells a reporter that he never thought his life would have taken him to Georgia.
"America is a wonderful country; that's for sure," Mr. Huynh said. "It gave me a second chance to have the freedom we used to have. If you work hard and save it, you can get to where you want to go."
Mr. Huynh grew up in the town of Phan Thiet, where his father owned a successful fishing company. After the fall of South Vietnam, his dad spent the next several weeks reporting his assets and income to the Communist authorities. Each day they made him fill out the same form until finally, exhausted with the charade, his father told them of his business.
"He worked really hard all his life to have that business," Mr. Huynh said. "When the Communists took over the country, they took his business, everything he had worked his whole life for. When I saw that, I knew I didn't want to live there anymore."
The local authorities sent the family to work on a rice farm, something they had no experience doing, Mr. Huynh said. After receiving word of the draft, Mr. Huynh and his brother pretended to be Chinese citizens so they could leave the country, and they boarded the boat for freedom.
Their first sighting of land took them to a small island off the coast of Malaysia. Exhausted and wearing only shorts, Mr. Huynh said, they huddled together on the beach that night to keep warm.
They awoke in the morning to find a swarm of angry locals pelting them with rocks and were soon corralled into a makeshift refugee camp.
They spent 13 days there and likely would have starved, had it not been for a fellow refugee who offered them baby formula he had packed for his three young children.
"I still remember the face of that person, but I don't know where he is now," Mr. Huynh said. "I would love to thank him. He kept me alive."
The Malaysian authorities packed the refugees back onto their boat and tugged them out to sea. Their only advice, Mr. Huynh said, was to point in the other direction, and they ordered them not to come back.
From there they arrived in Indonesia, where thousands of other refugees from Vietnam were encamped.
After eight months, an aid group from the United States allowed Mr. Huynh and his brother to enter the country, and they were sent to Morgan City, La.
With no job and only basic English, Mr. Huynh started work on an oil rig handing tools to a pipe fitter.
He lived with his brother and cousin in a mobile home. It was the first time they had experienced winter, and they braved it without a heater, Mr. Huynh said.
After four years he would move to Augusta, work for E-Z-Go and eventually start his own business -- Nail Garden in the Daniel Village Shopping Center on Wrightsboro Road.
He still occasionally visits family members in Vietnam, but both his parents are dead. Mr. Huynh said he never thought his life would have taken the course that it did, but he's thankful for it.
The Vietnamese government has relaxed some of its restrictions -- it no longer regularly reads people's mail -- but Mr. Huynh said he can't help but feel frustrated when he leaves his homeland to return to his home in Augusta.
"Every time I come home I wish my country was not like the way it is now today," he said. "But you can't change it really."
Reach Adam Folk at (706) 823-3339 or adam.folk@augustachronicle.com.
TRI HUYNH
OCCUPATION: Owner of Nail Garden salon
FAMILY: Wife, Tu; sons, Andrew, 11, and Alex, 13.
QUOTE: "A lot of people don't know what they have here in this country until they get out."
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I wonder if Mr Huynh recognizes the path the O administration is taking us down, since he's already experienced it.
Wasted days,wasted nights and wasted friends...thanks JFK and LBJ