Major General Le Minh Dao was the Commander of the 18th Infantry Division of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). At Xuan Loc, he became the ground commander during the final Battle for Saigon. A highly respected officer, known for his dogged determination, he held off the North Vietnamese for three weeks in April of 1975, before the ultimate fall of Saigon on April 30th. Dao was captured and spent 17 years in so-called “re-education” camps, before being released in 1992 and then given political asylum in the United States in 1993.

In Children of Hope, The Story of Le Minh Dao, Michelle Chen, one of Major General Dao’s nine children, tells her father’s tale, through audio tapes recorded with him in his later years. In addition, the story of the rest of her family’s escape to freedom, through her own recollections and those of her mother and her oldest sister, is relived. The thoughts of two American military colleagues of her father conclude a moving firsthand account of life in Vietnam before, during and after the Fall of Saigon, a world event that touched so many lives.

Michelle Le Chen was 7 years old when her father was incarcerated in 1975. Her mother spent the next 17 years working for her husband’s escape or release. The rest of Michelle’s family escaped from Vietnam in 1979-80, with most of them settling in Virginia, where she would live for the next 25 years, before moving to Florida in 2014.