April 1 1975. This time of the year, the weather was hot. As she stepped off Pan Am flight 116, a heavy blanket of thick humid air washed over her petite 4’11", 87 lb. body, making her skin start to bead-her dress started to stick to her thighs and back. The minute she landed, the odds were against her. No one thought she could pull it through, but she was determined to prove to them that her intuition was right. When it tugged at her heart, she had to follow its call.

She had had no sleep since leaving Honolulu International Airport. A small part of her mind was still rationalizing, doubting her decision in coming back to the chaos of war, the war in her blood country - the war in Vietnam. Over and over in her head, she repeated the reasons she was here. Get them out - I have two weeks to get them out. I must convince them to leave this time or I might never see them again.. Prepared for the worst, she was not afraid to leave empty handed. The only thing she wanted to do was to follow what was in her gut.

Half of the job was completed. A year ago she and her American husband Paul had sponsored her younger siblings, two brothers and two sisters to live in Hawai'i. Being the eldest, Mai wanted a better life for them. Now they were back home taking care of her ten-month old baby girl. Paul and the sisters promised to take care of Arya if she wasn't able to return. That was their deal. It was the last chance for her parents to get out of Saigon before the North took over. This was her last chance to get her family back together again so that her baby could grow up knowing her mom' family and culture. Her mind kept repeating, "Execute the plan and leave." There was no time to waste.

Pushing though a frantic crowd of brown, sweaty bodies, she jumped into a cab, holding tightly to her carry- on bag that held thousands in U.S. currency, a few clothes, and thousands of , dollars more of jewelry. "Take me to 124 Phan Dinh Phung," she ordered the driver.

Her voice boomed like a sergeants' but inside, her stomach was weak, fluttering. She sensed In her gut that her plan wouldn't be as easy as she predicted. Manic waves of families were leaving the city, three or four people packed on Vespas, two at a time balanced on bikes,. small busses filled with bodies squashed against each other, women and children on the streets crying, desperately running and searching for their families that were long gone. All of them were pushing to reach a waiting, boat on a beach or to cross the Cambodian border.

After a forty-five minute drive, the cab pulled up in front of a large French villa. The estate sat like a fort in the middle of their tea plantation, with no signs for miles of any war or panic. "Maman! PaPa!" she yelled through the bars the locked gate. Thuy, the housekeeper, ran out with surprise and released the locks. Cheri, Maman's pet terrier scurried out and barked at Mai, remembering her scent and licking her hand. Thuy rolled out PaPa in a wheel chair. PaPa was paralyzed from the waist down from a motorcycle accident a few years ago. A hemorrhage in his left brain left him unable to speak clearly since.

Edourd Phan Thanh owned several tea plantations in the South. Vietnamese by blood, French by nationality, he was a successful business man with stately features. He sent all of his children to the best boarding schools in France. Edourd had pride in his land, his estates, his wealth, passed down through the Phan-Thanh family line.

With an emotionally torn face, Maman dashed Out to greet Mai. Hesitating, Maman cried, "We did not think You Would come. We got your letter three weeks ago, it is crazy for you to come -you must turn around and go home. The North will not bother us, we are French. Besides, PaPa is sick, he is crippled, it will be difficult for him to travel."

This was nothing new to Mai. She knew it wouldn't be easy to tell Papa to leave. Of course he was crippled, but more than that he didn't want to leave his wealth behind, his collection of fine art European paintings and, his estates, his identity.

When it came to this war though, Mai knew more about the enemy than tier parents did. After graduating from journalism school in Paris, she was hired as a photo and news journalist and traveled with the government press all over the world. When the Vietnam war began in 1965, she began to write strongly opinionated stories that opposed the North Vietnamese government. She hated them, and she let them know it. She didn't back down, even after there was a warrant on her life. A bullet grazed her skull, but didn't kill tier; the small plane that flew the press was supposed to have crashed, but she and the captain jumped out; the rest died. The Communists didn't care what nationality she was, she was a threat to their image and they wanted tier dead. And, she knew, with all the wealth of tier family, they would kill for that, too,

Feeling the immediate resistance of her parents, Mai decided not to push the issue just yet. It would take time, but she had two weeks until the flight back to Honolulu.

April 14. A week had passed and tension was growing in the house. Time was running out and Mai had not yet been successful in changing Maman's and PaPa's minds. She almost started to believe that her plan was failing. Maman didn't want to discuss the topic of leaving, so Mai tried another approach to gauge Maman's feelings. She began to discuss plan B.

"Maman, I will go down to Saigon tomorrow and change $5,000 U.S. to Dong (Vietnamese currency). Leave it in your safe for a reserve," Mai said while carefully watching Maman's face to see her reaction . Oh, and just in case, this is a backup," she said, handing over two embroidered silk pouches of jewels.

Opening one of the pouches, Maman was mesmerized by the two huge rings-a one and a half karat diamond and the other, a three- studded Colombian emerald ring. She opened the other silk pouch that revealed two pearl necklaces. One was a three-strand Mikimoto necklace with a diamond clasp and the other was a single strand black pearl necklace. "Wear this on your body and if times get rough, sell it," Mai suggested. These jewels didn't mean anything to Mai; what was most important was to protect tier parents from suffering-if not from tile communists, then from poverty. Maman seemed unchanged in her decision.

The next day, catching a cyclo into the city, Mai left early with her bag full of money As she got closer to the city, she began to see the signs of panic and war. The streets were full of rubbish, people were crying or yelling at each other; shops were being boarded up; windows, taped. Reminded of her plan to take her parents out, she began to cry out Of frustration. This was not what she had planned. I have already accepted that my parents will not leave - how could I be so stupid for giving up so easily, she reprimanded herself.

Instead of changing the money, Mai was more determined that her plan must follow through. Imagining her parents as one of these brown hopeless faces on the streets, she felt that there was no alternative but to try and get them out. Mai yelled to the driver to change direction. She wanted to go to the Pan Am reservation office to confirm their flight out of Vietnam on April 24. After going to their office hundreds of times in the past, Mai knew her way to the Pan Am office by heart, but when she was unsuccessful in finding the lit Pan Am sign on the corner of Tu Do Street, she began to doubt her memory. Stepping out of the cyclo, she began to pace the sidewalk, retracing her steps from memory. After a few minutes though, she looked up and noticed the remnants of a shattered and unlit Pan Am sign. She felt relieved that she wasn't going crazy after all. The abandoned and littered office looked like the employees just packed up and left a few days ago, without a forwarding address. Feeling like her chances of executing her plan were quickly dissipating, Mai began to sweat, feeling the pressure of the afternoon heat bear down on her face.

"Take me to Air France- Hurry, Hurry, Hurry," she commanded the driver, shoving a twenty dollar bill in the driver's shirt pocket.

Trying to hold on to her strength, she tried not to panic. Seeing-several long lines of desperate bodies, Mai yelled for the cyclo driver to stop. The Air France office was packed with people trying to get out of Saigon at the last minute . Pushing her way through the mobs of people, Mai spotted a white European face. She was determined to get some answers.

"The Pan Am office is closed and this place is mobbed. What's happened?"

Feeling sorry for her, the young, Frenchman replied, "Tan Son Nhat Airport is closing tomorrow. Pan Am has already stopped their flights into Saigon and Air France will be stopping their flights tomorrow."

Knowing there was no chance for a ticket out, her hope was weakening; her mind turned into a dizzy blur of exhaustion. Walking back to the cyclo, she was no longer pushing through the waves of hopeful passengers. The numbed, expressionless voice was barely audible as she told the driver. "Take me back, there is no more to do.'

April 27. She had barely left her room since the day she came back from city. Crying all night and sleeping all day, Mai had been torturing her mind for two weeks with the same thoughts. "You stupid fool, they were right all along," she thought, remembering, her friends had warned her not to go back. She remembered them saying, "Don't be stupid." Even her brothers and sisters told her that Maman and Papa would not leave, but they still could not stop her from following the pull in her heart. That pull in her heart had never failed in the past. It always gave her an "All O.K." to do the most impossible things as a journalist. Now it seemed that her intuitive sense had failed for the first time.

After much thought, there was no choice but to numb her heart, give up on them and concentrate only on getting out. After mechanically packing her carry-on bag, she threw the five thousand dollars and two pouches of jewelry into PaPa's steel safe.

It was early morning, and the dirt road that led to Saigon was empty. There was a curfew. The police ordered no one to leave their houses, but Mai didn't care. Her thin, weak body kept on walking towards the American Embassy- her last chance out. Underneath the strips of her slippers. blisters had already formed and popped, leaving her feet raw and bloody.

Reaching the Embassy, her animal instincts were aroused at the sight of hundreds of desperate, black haired, skinny bodies trying to push through the large Embassy gates. Fifty or more American MPs formed an arm-to-arm. chain, preventing anyone from coming through. Other MPs equipped with large rifles were hitting the backs and legs of men and women trying to climb the wails. Throwing herself into the swarm of the crowd, Mai pushed and crawled through the mass. Rubbing against the arms of the MPs chain, the wave of the crowd pushed her. She stumbled and fell forward to the ground. She was in!

It was the early morning of April 29. The sun was starting to rise over the horizon. The large air-conditioned room was filled with waiting people. Since the telephones were shut off, the radio was tile only connection to the outside world- On all the loudspeakers, Prime Minister Tran Van Hung's voice announced on the radio, "For all those who want to leave Saigon, today is the last day.

This announcement was all it took to do the impossible all over again. Grabbing her bag, Mai, remembered her vows in coming back and quickly walked out of the room into a blanket of humid air. As she walked out of the Embassy gate, people yelled at her, "You're crazy for leaving! You'll never get back in!"

She began to run, and run and run.

"Maman! PaPa! Open up,"' she was yelling through tile bars of the locked gates. It was déjà vu.

Thuy opened up the gates, and at the villa's front door, Maman rolled out Papa in his wheelchair. Before they could say anything, she had to explain herself.

"I heard on the radio that today is the last to get out! Please, you must come with me, "she pleaded. "I was already inside the Embassy, but I left to come back and get you. Please hurry, we must not waste any time!"

Something in her voice made them trust her. Maman and PaPa sensed for the first time that she might be right, that they were foolish not to listen to her this time. Grabbing the money and jewels from PaPa's safe, Mai helped Maman pack a small suitcase of clothes, pictures and jewels.

PaPa started to feel weak and queasy. Without saying a word, Mai could see on PaPa's face that it was going to be difficult for him to leave, let alone push him along the bumpy dirt roads for two hours into the city. The only way to quickly make it back to the Embassy was to have someone drive PaPa.

Mai ran two miles to a neighbor's house. Shoving, one thousand U.S. dollars into the neighbor's pocket, she demanded, "Take my father to the Embassy." Hesitating to break tile curfew and leave his family, he almost declined, when Mai shoved another thousand dollars into his pocket.

The cyclo carried Papa and his wheelchair. Walking, Maman and Mai spotted the Embassy in tile distance. The crowds of people at the Embassy gate were more frantic than before. Leaving her parents in a safe spot, Mai once again pushed her way through the swarm of the crowd, squeezing and sliding her skinny body to the front of the gate.

As fate were trying to tell her something, a force from the crowd shoved Mai forwards onto her knees, in again, but without her parents. Throwing her self back out to the crowd of desperate faces, she looked like a woman who had lost her mind. She was no longer relying on rationality, she was depending on another power to get her through. With every last ounce of strength, Mai pushed PaPa and Maman through the crowd of resistant bodies. Reaching the gate, Mai began to plead to an MP to break his chain and let them in. Programmed for this kind of situation, the American MP hardened his arm grip, and with a hard face Ignored her cries.

"Please let us in! My husband is an American, I have a baby girl at home. Please, I live in Hawai'i, I have a greencard. Mai continued to plead, thinking of anything to convince the MPs to let them in.

"Look at your father," one of them said. "He is old and crippled.

Why don't you just leave him, he will die soon," another MP added.

Mai didn't give up. After an hour of pleading to the two same MP's, her eye spotted an American journalist she worked with before. "Frank! Frank Bishop," Mai yelled. Hearing his name, Frank recognized Mai from the other side of the gate and walked toward her.

"Frank, please, I need your help to get my parents through. I came back to get them out. Please find a way!

Frank Bishop, a reporter for the Florida Tribune, came hack to Vietnam as a volunteer assistant to help last minute evacuations at the Embassy. Talking to the two MPs, Frank said something that convinced them to release their arms. "You and your folks can leave with me," Frank said, while guiding Mai and her parents into the same large air-conditioned room filled with people. "I need to help assist these people out tonight. After that we will be able to leave. Please be patient and don't worry, We'll get you and your folks out safely. Feeling relieved that she got this far, Mai relaxed a little and got something to eat and drink for her parents.

The sun was going down over the horizon. It was April 29. All night she waited and the more she waited, she felt a tug in her gut, warning her that something wasn't right. Mai had been watching people slowly leaving four or five per helicopter. Only two of them were flying to and from the aircraft carrier, the Okinawa , waiting in the South China Sea.

It was 1:00 a.m. April 30. Seeing Frank a few feet away talking to some MPs, Mai interrupted their conversation.

"Frank, why haven't we left yet? Time is running short. Please, don't makes us wait any longer. I have a feeling if we don't leave soon, we won't be able to leave at all."

"Don't worry," Frank replied. "As soon as I have the green light, we'll be leaving, hold on a little longer."

"No Frank!" Mai urged. "We need to leave on the next helicopter out. We cannot risk waiting for you! "

Hearing the stubbornness in her voice, Frank could not refuse her request.

3:00 a.m. the next helicopter arrived.

Two MPs lifted PaPa and carried him towards the roaring sound of the chopper blades. Ducking low, Maman and Mai followed. After lifting PaPa out of his wheel chair into a seat, the MP closed the door, and the helicopter lifted from the ground.

Safe on the air craft carrier, Okinawa, Mai spotted Frank a couple of days later. Peering deep into her eyes, and then looking down to the ground, Frank spoke in a barely audible voice. You were light," he said. Frank told Mai that the 3 a.m. helicopter Was the last one to carry out the Vietnamese. The next chopper was ordered only to pick up tile last of the Americans at the Embassy and no more. The North rolled their tanks in on the morning of April 30,1975. She was called stupid, crazy, and foolish for going, back to Vietnam. But those words could not suppress the Intuitive pulling in her heart. An invisible power assured her, "Do not think, my child, trust the feeling and carry through.