Who Am I?

Hello there,

It’s good to see you. I knew I would make it here one day. I figured I would have arrived sooner. But better late than never. Right? It's crazy I am 52 years old now. Who would have thought, given the background I have and the experiences I’ve gone through? I have repeatedly been asked and reminded to tell my story or something. I’m not sure where to go from here, but as I like to say, “on to the next one.” 

I want to first start by saying that I’m not sure how I got to this point in life. I was born in Da Nang, Vietnam, approximately in1970 as per the medical doctors. I have no knowledge of my parents and remember some crazy things I did as a kid on the streets of Vietnam. Probably some of the same stuff all kids do, maybe. Haha. 

So here I am, a baby in South Vietnam in Saigon. I somehow was taken off the streets and put into a Catholic orphanage being taken care of by nuns and volunteers. These included American nuns and Volunteers. I want to say something about the War; I can remember the bombing and sounds of the bombs that dropped, the high pitch sound they made just before they dropped, and the ground shaking. The war was getting closer to us. 

I crawled everywhere I went as a kid in Vietnam. I was born with scoliosis and contracted polio later on. I can remember crawling and eating dirt oh, it's fun to be a kid, isn’t it? I'm not sure where I picked up this bad habit, but I am told, and sort of remember, as a kid, I had the talent of rolling my eyes to the back of my head. Supposedly this is a popular begging move panhandling 101. You have to love Vietnam in the 70s. haha

It’s April 3, 1975, and we are up and getting ready before breakfast. Today seems different; we are moving at a faster pace. Not sure what is going on, some American soldiers show up and start loading us orphans into their jeeps and trucks. We ended up going to an airport army airbase. Here we all were about board a c5 galaxy cargo plane. A soldier picks me up, carries me onto the plane up the stairs, and places me into a strapped box. The plane is packed with close to three hundred people. I’ve never been on a plane before. Of course, you understand why we are rushed off, but in case you do not know. This is around the time of the fall of Saigon to the Northern Vietnamese. The communist was coming. 

So here we are at twenty-three thousand feet. There's a loud noise, and the plane begins to lose altitude. The pilot is doing everything he can to keep the nose of the plane up. The pilot was able to land the cargo plane in a rice patty field about half of the passengers survived. I would pass out from the negative G’s from the free fall. I can only personally remember waking in the Presidio in San Francisco. I was in a large room filled with other children who were crying. It was crazy and a bit foggy from here on out, so I will do my best to interpret what happens to me next. Check back for my next blog and follow me on Instagram @JG_Money