International Officer Candidate School 1975

It all started in February 1974 with an intensive English language training at the Khmer Navy Headquarters in Phnom Penh. There were twenty of us.

We left Cambodia on 21 September 1974 and arrived in Lackland Air Force Base (near San Antonio), Texas on 24 September 1974. There, we went through a more advanced English language training until January 1975. There were twenty of us.

On 15 January 1975, we arrived in Newport, Rhode Island. Folks, did you remember seeing the snow for the first time? Never mind... We were Tango Company. We went through the real Naval training. And we also watched Walter Cronkite in the evenings. We did miss our motherland, very, very much. There were twenty of us.

We were to graduate on 20 May 1975. And you know what happened on 17 April 1975? Tango Company lost its flag. Thus we couldn't be in the Parade, and we graduated in a private ceremony, instead. There were twenty of us.

We came as a group. We traveled as a group; we lived, slept, ate as a group. There were twenty of us.

Then we left Newport, RI, one by one. Some went to Europe; some stayed in the New England area; some went to the Washington DC area; some settled elsewhere in the US. And three went back to Cambodia.

There are still many of us.