Run, Run, Run: A Young Boy's Journey through the Cambodian Tragedy

By Glenn Boda

Cambodia, 1975, Pol Pot succeeds in military vistory and ascends to a four year ablolute dictatorship. After victory, he plunges Cambodia into total isolation and inflicts genocide on 25% of his citizens, a per capita rate exceeding that of any other country in history including Germany. Pol dreams that counterrevolutionary forces will take control, thus ousting him from power. This must be stopped at all costs.To assure it never happens, a list of executable infractions (inflicted on entire famiiles, even children and infants)is established and includes: education, wealth, speaking a foreign language, wearing glasses, living in urban centers, and the list goes on and on. To further prevent counterrevolution, all cities are evacuated and families are broken up by sending parents and children to different, isolated work camps. Family life is smashed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glenn Boda
• Release date: Jun 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301065356

Glenn Boda

Glenn is a retired college teacher from Madison, Wisconsin. He met Sophat at a temple In Phnom Penh many years ago. After hearing Sophat's compelling story, a collaboration was founded which resulted in this story finally being told. Sophat lived this unbeleveable story of survivial. He lives in Phnom Penh and attends graduate school at the University of Cambodia. He also serves as executive director of an organizatoin called Men's Health Social Service.

Book preview

Run, Run, Run:

A young Boy’s Journey

Through

The Cambodian tragedy

Glenn Boda

Copyright 2013 by Glen Boda

Smashwords Edition

Run, Run, Run:

A young Boy’s Journey

Through

The Cambodian tragedy

By

Glenn Boda

&

Sophat Phal

Acknowledgments

We extend or thanks and gratitude to those who read the early versions of Run, Run, Run. Collectively they have made suggestions that have greatly improved the content, writing style and tone of the writing. Jim Berger and James Knutson both made detailed corrections and comments that greatly benefited the book. We thank Cliff Dillhunt who made many fine suggestions including the title. Our thanks also go to John Boda, Clair Wiederholt, Harlene Ames, and Roger Parsons, all of whom added valuable input in content, timelines and style.

Chapter 1

Fire

Thunder roared from eight giant engines. The rumbling, deafening noise shook leaves on nearby palm trees. The engines struggled to get nearly a half-million pounds airborne. With tremendous effort, the burdened stratofortress barely topped trees near the end of the lit runway. Burning massive amounts of fuel eased the climb to 45,000 feet, but the thirty tons of bombs aboard still made the climb difficult.

The five-man crew finally received coded bombing coordinates by radio. The plane’s navigation system, primitive by modern standards, aimed a path toward ground zero. My family was unaware that the giant bomber’s coordinates pointed to our village. Soon they would know.

*****

Why did they target Tom Peng Chrov? America was fighting a brutal war against Communism in Vietnam. They bombed any target suspected of housing Vietcong guerrilla fighters. In these years, Vietcong soldiers slipped across the Cambodian border and often commandeered rice and other supplies from villages like ours. The Vietnamese did not live in our village – rather, they were merely occasional, unwelcome intruders. Still, their periodic visits to loot rice justified destroying the whole village.

Tom Peng Chrov was a small village surrounded by rectangular rice paddies extending in all directions to the horizon. Only the mountains visible in the far distance violated the perfect flatness of the land. Crisscrossed, raised dikes defined and subdivided each family’s farm. The dikes controlled and held the water needed for rice planting and served as the tenacious foothold for towering sugar palm trees. During the growing season, this quilted grid formed an intense patchwork of green hues. Paddies were flooded and planted as water and hand planting allowed. Each square and rectangle in the checkerboard held rice at various stages of growth. Colors varied from lime green seedlings, to dark emerald green maturing plants, to the rich gold’s of harvest.

Tom Peng Chrov was an island in this sea of rice paddies. A large Buddhist Temple anchored our village to the land and dominated the center of Tom Peng Chrov. Surrounding the temple were houses crafted generations ago by the skilled hands of our ancestors when precious teak wood was still available.

Each home rested on sturdy teak pillars that raised it above the height of the tallest person and gave protection underneath from rain and sun. For generations the sturdy pillars had protected houses from insects, water, and animals. The beautifully carved teak homes, capped with red tile roofs, kept families dry and secure for longer than even the oldest resident could remember. The teak remained strong, it had not yielded to rot from monsoon rains or decay from insects. Our village and its homes were the link to the spirits of our ancestors.

This season’s crop of rice was mature and the villagers were harvesting the precious, dried kernels. As on most days during the January harvest, the weather was clear and cool. It should have been a happy time, but the people of Tom Peng Chrov were frightened. Relentless B52 bombing was getting ever closer to our village. A bombing attack seemed certain. It was more than the fear of bombing that thoroughly altered this year’s harvest.

Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, Vietnam’s Vietcong, and our own Cambodian troops all frequented our village to seize rice. Fear of loosing our crop altered the work schedule. This year, the able-bodied men and women of Thom Peng Chrov secretly did the backbreaking cutting and threshing of the rice late at night to remain unseen. The harvesters and threshers slept during the day. Old women and young girls prepared dinners for them while they rested. Finally, they buried the harvested rice in tunnels away from commandeering eyes.

The work done by my family during daylight was nontraditional and unique. My father was building a small tunnel, not to store rice, but to provide shelter if our village was bombed by Americans seeking nebulous Communist targets. Fear strengthened family bonds and an even closer relationship grew between my grandparents, parents and my sister and brothers.

On January 11, 1970, the sun set in a cloudless sky. Soon, the endless stars forming the Milky Way peppered the sky. Dim glows from kerosene lanterns radiated from inside the teak houses and the absence of electrical lighting made the Milky Way even more intense. The night wore on, but then . . . could it be? Thunder? The sound was at first faint. The sky was still aglow with countless stars. There were no clouds. This was no storm. Bombs were exploding in the distance. My grandfather often retold to me the terror of this night and what was about to happen.

My family raced the fifty feet from our yard to the newly built tunnel. My family called it the mouse hole because of its size. Its length was perhaps ten feet and its width barely allowed two of us to squeeze around each other. The ceiling height prevented standing so we could move only with a bent back or by crawling. My father reinforced the tunnel with heavy, overhead logs. My family crammed into this small, pitch-black hole.

The soil was still damp from the rainy season and it exuded pungent odors that mixed with the human smells released during great anxiety. The stagnant, warm air sharpened the aromas. Anxiety turned to fear, as the thunder dropping from the planes grew ever closer. Explosive percussions exceeded the pain threshold as soil trembled and fell from the walls and ceiling of our tunnel. The deafening sound and shaking earth created unimaginable fear – fear forever seared in our memories. All in my family still jump when hearing an unexpected firecracker or the backfire from an engine.

The terrifying bombing continued for what seemed like hours as we huddled together in our shaking mouse hole. The bombing triggered more than fear. My mother’s labor began during the first stage of bombing. My father and grandparents prayed for the bombing to stop so that the birth could be above the crammed, dark tunnel. Yet the bombing continued above while my mother labored in the blackness of the trembling tunnel.

My family’s prayer was finally answered. Suddenly it was deadly quiet at just after midnight, January 12. Upon crawling out from our mouse hole, my parents and grandparents saw horror – fire engulfed much of our village. But seeking the help of a midwife was now even more urgent than helping neighbors extinguish fires. My father ran through our burning village to secure help amid the dangers of opposing troops and additional bombing. I would not wait! I was born with the help of my grandparents before my father returned with the village midwife. My parents quickly chose my name. I would be called Sophat.

So it was that I was born in the illumination from the fires of burning houses in our village. It was a quick birth in this terrible light, but at least it was outside the utter blackness of the tunnel.

But the danger did not end with my birth. Soon a new wave of explosions replaced the lull. Hell returned. My family rushed back into the mouse hole as the assault resumed with an even greater vengeance. Seven had emerged – eight now returned. The second attack was even more violent than the first, jarring, and shaking the earth around us. My family feared that our tunnel might collapse at any moment. Would we be buried alive? These were the first hours of my life.

The mouse hole survived the assault. We remained huddled there until dawn, when the bombing finally ended. We emerged from my father’s tunnel with cramped legs and bodies weakened from fear and exhaustion. What my family saw was horror. Our village was gone! Explosions, napalm, and fire razed everything. Our beautiful home and all its contents were just ashes. Even the wonderful Buddhist Temple, the centerpiece of the village, was destroyed and barely recognizable. Charred Buddha statues were scattered amongst the debris.

The smoke burned noses and stung eyes. Tom Peng Chrov was now smoldering teak wood littered with dead and burned neighbors, many of them thrown great distances by explosions. For generations teak’s great durability and strength had resisted the attacks of sun, rain, violent storms, and termites. This beautiful wood could not withstand the attacks of war. The bombs completely destroyed the village and craters now marked the direct hits. What had been the beauty of Tom Peng Chrov only a few hours earlier was now a scene of total destruction. Cries from the injured and sobs from the survivors of the victims filled the village. My parents and grandparents tried to help the wounded and burned as best they could.

We had survived the first of many brushes with death that all in my family would experience during the coming years. We now had no home . . . no belongings . . . no village. We were not alone. Cambodia was afloat in tragedy. The war in Vietnam now washed over our country like a giant tsunami. This evening marked the beginning of my family’s longest journey. Struggling to survive would take us through never-ending danger, fear, and near death experiences.

*****

Years later, my Grandfather Kheio’s stories, and descriptions of Tom Peng Chrov were so vivid that even today I feel like I have lived there all my life. I know every detail of the village even though it was destroyed at my birth.

Ours had been the largest house in Tom Peng Chrov where we lived with my grandparents from my mother’s side. My father’s name was Pang Phal and my mother’s, Em Long. At the time of my birth, I had two brothers, Samhoul born in 1962, and Samheo born in 1966, and one sister Maly born in 1958. At the time of my birth, they were three, seven, and eleven years old. As was tradition, my family lived with my mother’s parents, Kheio and Chaor.

Before being bombed, Tom Peng Chrov was a sleepy, tranquil village with beautiful teak houses ringing our Buddhist Temple. Our house, like all others, consisted of one large room. Our village was very old, but time had increased its beauty. The sun and monsoon rains had softened the color of the red tile roofs and gave the hand-hewn teak walls a beautiful, rich, grey patina color and texture. The villagers were very proud of their homes and of their cultural heritage. The continuity of many past generations bound the community together . . . everyone felt the spiritual link to our ancient ancestors.

Was our village idyllic or was it only primitive and crude? How did people live in Tom Peng Chrov before my birth? What was lost? What was really bombed and destroyed?

My grandparents and parents remembered life in Tom Peng Chrov as the only peaceful time of their lives. Of course, our village lacked many conveniences and infrastructure. Still, my family was deeply attached to the land and to the people of the village. Of course, I never saw Tom Peng Chrov. After the war, during Pol Pot’s reign, Grandfather Kheio became my best friend. We sat and talked for hours on end. His stories about Tom Peng Chrov made me feel that I had lived there all my life. Even today, every detail of the village is still vibrant in my memory.

The land along the edge of Tom Peng Chrov was not flooded for raising rice. Each family used this land to plant vegetables and fruits for their own consumption. Trees bearing jackfruit, coconuts, mangoes, oranges, limes, bananas, and other tropical fruits surrounded each family’s home. Crops of the sweetest watermelons and pineapples grew in everyone’s garden and were a daily dessert. Each family also had free-range chickens, ducks, pigs, and sometimes cows. Families cooked delicious dinners using the various kinds of homegrown vegetables. Spicy chicken and pork curries, many kinds of soup, and grilled meats scented the air with delightful aromas. These smells intermingled with the wonderful odors of countless other rice and noodle dishes. Often families traded food to insure a bountiful array of fruits, vegetables, meats, herbs and spices.

There were no tractors or other power equipment used on the farms. Water buffalos were the beasts of burden. They silently plowed the flooded rice paddies. Young village boys trained the gentle animals and were also responsible for their care and well-being. Strong bonds developed between a boy and his buffalo.

Tom Peng Chrov’s people received very few lulls in their work. Farmers plowed the rice paddies following the harvest in December, January, and February. Plowing was hard work. The strongest men plowed using powerful water buffalo – at day’s end, both man and beast were exhausted. Often the women and older men threshed the harvested rice while younger men worked in the fields. Repeatedly hammering bundles of dried rice stalks against a solid surface dislodged the precious kernels. After a full day of work, shoulders and arms hurt and everyone welcomed the refreshing evening’s sleep.

At the start of the rainy season in April, May, or June the paddies were flooded. After plowing, the backbreaking hand planting of rice began. For several weeks men, women, and children spend their days standing in water while bent over to transplant the small rice seedlings. After planting, the rice finally took care of itself until the dry season and the harvest.

Other work continued while the unattended rice crop grew and matured between May and November. During these months, sweet juice dripped from tapped sugar palm trees. Only young men able to climb the thirty to sixty foot trees did this work. They cut the fruit stems at the very top of the trees and attached bamboo buckets. Sweet sap continuously dripped into the buckets. Twice each day, during this half-year period, a trip to the very top of the tree was required to empty the bamboo buckets. The men lashed bamboo poles to the limbless, smooth tree trunks. The poles extended from the ground to the very top of the sugar palm. Barefooted, agile climbers used the poles as rickety ladders to reach the very top of the tree. After each day’s harvest, the women and children of the village collected wood as fuel to boil away water from the sap. Finally, only rich, sweet syrup or sugar remained. Of course, before going to bed, a sample of that day’s sugar palm candy rewarded both the children and the adults.

The village men, women, and children tended the vegetable and fruit crops throughout the year. Cottage industries such as basket weaving, carpentry, noodle making, and blacksmithing were specialties shared among village residents. The land and the special products made by neighbors provided nearly everything needed for life. My family’s village was nearly independent – almost nothing was required from the outside world.

Every morning before five o’clock crowing roosters awoke the fifty-five families in Tom Peng Chrov. Villagers would have viewed sleeping later as the sign of laziness. Of course, everyone retired early. The village did not have electric power, so all was dark and silent by nine or ten o’clock. Nobody in Tom Peng Chrov had a car or motorbike, so only talking, laughter, and the sounds of animals breached the silence. During the wet season, the lulling sounds of countless croaking frogs and chirping crickets filled the evenings. The most sophisticated machines in our village consisted of a few sewing machines and a dental drill – foot pedals powered both. The mother and older daughters of each family made most clothing. One of the families had learned dentistry and provided that service for the entire village. Drilling cavities was anything but painless. Patients were relieved when the amateur dentist finally filled the cavity by lightly hammering in pure gold.

At the time of my birth, illiteracy probably exceeded ninety percent in our village. It is likely that fewer than twenty percent of men could read and write. Women rarely had an opportunity to attend school because there were no public schools anywhere near Tom Peng Chrov. The Buddhist temple in our village taught children to read and write, but only to novice monk boys. My father and both grandfathers were novice monks throughout their childhood, and each had learned reading, writing, and many other skills. The temple was not just a religious site but also was the village’s school system. Unfortunately, it did not extend any opportunity to the girls in the village. The fifteen to twenty monks in our temple taught in addition to performing religious services.

Buddhist beliefs and ritual dominated the monks’ lives. Each morning before sunrise, they and the child novice monks arose and visited each family’s house to receive food offerings for that day’s existence. Early each morning the villagers gave rice, fruits, vegetables, meat, and other necessities to the monks in return for their blessings. Breakfast and an early lunch consisted of these donations. Buddhist rules forbid monks to eat past noon; they can consume only clear liquids after that. Their afternoons and evenings were a time of fasting. They usually awoke before the rest of the village and also retired earlier. To wear the saffron colored robes of a monk required great dedication and self-discipline. Every resident in Tom Peng Chrov greatly respected and revered the monks of our temple.

My grandparents’ home was the largest in Tom Peng Chrov and, like other village homes, consisted of one large room. Curtains gave minimal privacy to family members sleeping on floor mats or in hammocks. Families often slept under the house on hot evenings. Night breezes swept under the house and were the village’s form of air conditioning.

During rain villagers cooked under the home, otherwise it was done anywhere outside. From simple charcoal grills came delicious dinners. Wonderful aromas filled the entire village. Airborne spices mingled with the scents of seasonal flowers, blooming fruit trees and the sweet flagrance of maturing rice. During times of rice planting and harvesting, lunches were often prepared adjacent to the rice paddy rather than at home. Because of an early breakfast, women served lunch at about eleven o’clock, and they prepared dinners following the day’s work sometime after six o’clock.

The village had no latrines. Calls of nature required a shovel and the surrounding land. Villagers showered frequently by using a water bucket and ladle located under the house. Soap was usually unavailable. People preferred using a fragrant, red jungle fruit called katok that provided a lasting, spicy aroma. The women in the village gave everyone frequent haircuts.

Tom Peng Chrov had one communal water well that provided everyone’s drinking water. Villagers used nearby ditches to wash clothes during the rainy season. The dry season required using water from the village well for this purpose. Crops used no chemicals. Today, these fruits and vegetables would be organic, perhaps the people of Tom Peng Chrov were ahead of their time. During the wet season, the water in the rice paddies was crystal clear and could be safely drunk.

Of course, these facilities seem primitive by today’s standards, but they did little to distract from the villagers’ contentment and well-being. My grandfather often told me that before my birth, laughter and smiles were always abundant in Tom Peng Chrov. Everyone, both children and adults, could boast of many sincere friends and relatives. Every villager supported and helped any family experiencing illness, need, or the death of a beloved one.

Funerals, unlike marriages, directly involved the Buddhist monks of the village who performed final ceremonies leading to cremation on the temple grounds. The stricken family provided food for all attending the visitation of the deceased, which included the whole village as well as relatives from other villages. The family used their home to display the body for visitation. Wealthy or prominent families could afford a longer period for visitation – it might extend only one day for a poor family and three or four days for more wealthy families like ours. Finally, all attendees pulled a special wagon containing the body to the temple. Often sons or grandsons of the deceased shaved their heads and became short-term monks who led the procession. At the temple, after chanting by the monks, the closest relatives of the deceased lit the cremation fire. Later, the ashes were interned in family vaults at the temple, or were spread upon land or water that had been significant to the deceased.

Villagers heard the screams and laughter of children all day long. Clothes did not bother playing children – they wore none. The children had no ready-made toys but made their own. Only their imagination limited toys. Children vigorously played games that they invented. Older children played games like theater. They spontaneously acted scenes upon an imaginary stage. Many children improvised traditional Khmer dances. Both children and adults often sang songs. Many of the villagers played various types of musical instruments. Children rarely whined, cried, or showed signs of boredom. But smiles and laughter from children were plentiful.

Tom Peng Chrov also celebrated many traditional holidays. The largest was a three-day celebration in mid-April ushering in the Khmer New Year. Village feasts and a carnival atmosphere highlighted these three wonderful days. A liqueur distilled from rice mash was consumed but only rarely in excess. Children played, adults laughed and even the very old took great delight in the celebration. Of course, throughout the year there were many other celebrations, including some that were religious and others unique to our village. Families remembered birthdays, but unlike many other holidays, they rarely served as an excuse for a party. However, families did have a party three months after a birth to celebrate and to acknowledge the infant’s one-year anniversary of conception.

So, before being bombed was life in Tom Peng Chrov idyllic or crude? What was destroyed? Certainly, our village lacked technology, education, infrastructure, and conveniences. Nevertheless, it did possess compassion, contentment, tranquility, and independence. My parents and grandparents remember life there as blissful. They knew what was lost . . . the serenity of Tom Peng Chrov.

*****

Even before my birth, times had changed our peaceful village. Life became troubled as the roots of Cambodia’s impending disaster reached Tom Peng Chrov. The summer of 1969 marked the beginning of extensive U.S. bombing. North Vietnam used Cambodia to transfer and house Vietcong troops and equipment destined for their offensive against South Vietnam. Giant American bombers targeted Vietcong troops and equipment. The bombing pushed the Vietcong deeper and deeper into Cambodia. Enemy soldiers finally reached the area of our village and nearby they established a guerilla camp. Our rapidly growing revolutionary force, the Khmer Rouge, joined Vietcong fighters.

American saturation bombing was getting closer and closer to Tom Peng Chrov. My family’s fear of frenzied bombing was well justified. Between the summer of l969 and the early months of 1970, almost four-thousand B52 raids smashed Cambodia. Each plane carried sixty-thousand pounds of explosives – or about eighty-five, seven-hundred-pound bombs. More than 350,000 bombs pulverized Cambodia during this short time. Of course, the American’s were not alone. Our own Cambodian Air Force was also bombing suspected Communist strongholds.

Vietcong and Khmer Rouge forces needed food to survive. Villages like ours routinely had rice taken without compensation. Tom Peng Chrov was neither under government or Communist control, so villagers often saw soldiers from both sides. Farmers hid the rice secretly harvested during dark nights to prevent theft by either side. Still, both sides extorted food contributions in exchange for village and family safety. Government forces demanded money and men in addition to food. The army forcibly conscripted any young men who they saw – another reason for older boys in our village to harvest rice and palm sugar only on dark nights.

My grandfather told me that they often heard firefights between the two sides. The Cambodian government soldiers were as vicious as the Vietcong or the Khmer Rouge. Neither side took prisoners – it was life or death for soldiers on either side. We were caught in the middle. In addition to the dangers of firefights, the villagers lived in constant fear of American and government bombing. Of course, the air attacks aimed at the Communists did not succeed. The bombing only dispersed the Vietcong and drove them ever deeper into Cambodia. The bombing deaths and injuries of innocent civilian men, women, and children encouraged angry survivors to join the Khmer Rouge. There could not have been a more effective recruiting drive for the Communists as their numbers mushroomed during the bombing.

The full extent of bombing deaths was unknown – our government never investigated. It is certain that the aerial attack killed and injured many thousands of innocent people. Families in villages like ours lived in constant fear. There was no escape. Both sides held us hostage in the raging civil war. Dreams of peace replaced reality. Could we ever return to the serenity that existed for generations before this tragedy began? Everyone dreamed that we could. Not a single person could imagine our real future.

*****

My family, and all other Cambodian families, would suffer not one, but three great tragedies. They destroyed an entire generation.

First, civil war spilled into our country from the war in Vietnam. It brewed intense hatred and resentment between our own people. Government forces supported by America were engaged in bloody battles with Khmer Rouge forces supported by Vietnam and China. Both sides mounted unimaginably gruesome and hideous attacks. Pol Pot led the Khmer Rouge to victory on April 17, 1975.

The second tragedy was unexpected. Pol Pot’s Communist government committed hideous atrocities and massive genocide. They killed and starved nearly two-million people. Almost twenty-five percent of Cambodians met their death during their four years of genocide. The horror went beyond the dead. Pol Pot’s regime terrorized the survivors. We were starved, forced into slave labor camps, tortured, and isolated from beloved family members.

The third tragedy was also unexpected. Vietnam attacked and occupied our county.