After Mr. Dang's release, some Saigon newspapers printed retractions,
apologizing to the Dangs for the negative media frenzy. Duyên Anh, a renown
South Vietnam writer, musician and reporter, whose literary works were printed
on several newspapers such as Xây Dựng, Sống, Chính Luận, Công Luận, Con Ong,
Tuổi Ngọc.... chronicled the Dangs' ordeal. His article focused primarily on
Mrs. Dang and her struggle to save her husband. Tragedy struck again in 1968,
during
the Tet Offensive, when Mr. Dang's younger brother was among the
thousands who perished in central Vietnam by the invading armies from the North.
Like many of these unfortunately victims, Mr. Dang's brother's body was never
recovered.
After a few years with Bank of America, Mr. Dang was approached by a group of
acquaintances who had found successes with entrepreneurship. Mr. Dang joined a
small company that contracted with South Vietnam army to dispose steel and other
metals wastes. His skills in dealing with English speakers soon made him from an
advisor, to vice president. The company expanded its customer base to U.S. army
and other allies beyond Southeast Asia such as Taiwan and Japan. Until the
Fall of Saigon,
Mr. Dang was the chairman of the executive board for an import-export
company, South Asia Facilities. After the Fall, Mr. Dang was again imprisoned
for his involvement with the
previous regimes.
Mr. Dang's encounter with American prisoner of war (POW) brought him to the
attention of the United States once more [Government Printing Office, 1992]. The Dangs finally escaped to the
United States during the boat people plights [Baltimore Sun, 1987]. Mr. Dang worked for U.S.
Catholic Relief Service and Department of Social Service as employment counselor
and coordinator for the local Southeast Asian population until his
retirement [Baltimore Sun, 1987].
In hindsight, if both the Catholics and Buddhists were to work together, this
violent and sad chapter in Vietnam history would have easily blown away.
Unfortunately, radical reporting had created such a hostile environment [American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 2004], that
impeded any cooperation and spawned many misunderstandings that can be still
found in
today's
books.
In 1987, Pagodas Publishing Company, in Paris, France, re-printed a book,
written in Vietnamese by a Buddhist monk with alias Tue Vinh, revisited the
reports that were initially provided to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon indicating
Major Dang ordered his troops to fire. In 2002, former General Nguyễn Cao Kỳ
published his memoirs, "Buddha's Child", reiterated the claim that Major Đặng
ordered his troops to shoot at demonstrators, killing 9 Buddhists and wounded 24
people at this same event [Wolf, 2002], [Wikipedia, 2006]. Other sources indicated the turmoil preceded
the deaths was caused by skirmishes between Catholic and Buddhist youth and college students, which
went out of control. No reliable sources could pinpoint the cause of the
casualties, which varied from 4 deaths and 24 wounded, to 8 deaths and no
wounded [Truong, 2010]. One reason for the durability of this misinterpreted version is
that the
endless repetition by other commentators produced the
impression that it had to be right [Moyar, 2007].