LB Faculty Member Lamnguen Virasak Reminisces on His Time Living in Laos After the Vietnam War

In 1975 when the United States pulled their troops from Vietnam, it finally meant the end of the 19 year conflict that had left more than 1 million dead. But for then 6-year-old Lamngeun (Lam) Virasak, the war was far from over. 

The conflict in Vietnam was not contained by the country’s borders. The fighting and bombing spilled over the border into the neighboring nations of Laos and Cambodia.

“I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t war in Laos,” Virasak remembers. “We heard bombing all the time and we never knew if we would make it until tomorrow.”

Virasak, an Instructional Assistant in the Machine Tool Technology Program at LBCC, spent the first six years of his life living in Vientiane, Laos with his mother, father, older brother, Vieng (8), and three younger sisters, Veun Kham (3), Dandy (2), and Sisi (>1). 

Although officially a neutral country, the landlocked nation of Laos became a main playing field in the conflict in Vietnam due to its location between China, Vietnam and Cambodia. The Ho Chi Mihn trail, which was used by the North Vietnamese communists to move supplies, ran through the mountains and jungles of Laos and Cambodia and connected North and South Vietnam. 

In 1962 the International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos was signed by China, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, the United States and 10 other countries. This agreement forbade each country from either invading Laos or establishing any military bases in the country. But several countries didn’t adhere to the agreement – the US included. 

Laos was in the middle of a civil war of its own. The communist group Pathet Lao, who was allied with North Vietnam and the Soviet Union, was trying to overthrow the Royal Lao Government and take control of the country. By the early 1960’s they had gained enough power to draw the attention of the US. President Eisenhower told the National Security Council that “If Laos were lost [to communism], the rest of Southeast Asia would follow.”

Fearing the spread of communism, the US authorized the CIA to begin training anti-communist operataives in the mountains of Laos with the mission of interupting the supply chain on the Ho Chi Minh trail. They enlisted the help of the Laotian military to aid them in their fight against their common enemy. 

The US also began a covert campaign against Pathet Lao. This would become known as the “Secret War” in which the US dropped more than two million cluster bombs on Laos making it the most bombed nation in history. 

Despite these efforts, just a few months after the US pulled out of Vietnam, the Royal Lao Government fell and the Pathet Lao assumed control of Laos.

Virasak’s father, Kham Virasak, was a Laotian military man. During the Secret War, he was one of the soldiers who had helped the CIA in their anti-communist actions. Because of this, the family was worried for their father’s safety under the new regime. 

“One day my dad didn’t come home from work and we knew they had taken him away,” Virasak said. 

Kham Virasak had been taken to a concentration camp near the border of Vietnam along with other soldiers who had helped the CIA. But the Virasak family wouldn’t know what happened to their father for over a year. 

“Mom continued our normal routine,” Virasak said. “We didn’t know what happened to our father, but just had to hope he was still alive.” 

Virasak’s mother, Kham Kong Virasak, began working on her brother’s rice farm to support her family. For the next several months the family was watched closely. They had to be very careful not to stray from their daily routines or draw any attention to themselves. They were not allowed to leave the city, to write or receive letters from Kham Kong’s father in Thailand. 

“One evening, a man came to our house and told our mother that our father was in Thailand and that he was going to help us escape from Laos,” Virasak said.

The family was overjoyed to finally learn that Kham was alive!

Kham Virasak had escaped from the concentration camp along with six other prisoners. For months they walked through mountains and jungles of Laos, hiding from the communist regime and making their way west toward the safety of Thailand. Along the way, one man was shot dead, and as they crossed the Mekong River, so close to freedom, Kham was shot in the leg. The wound was life threatening but he made it across the river to the shores of Thailand alive. 

Kham spent three months in the hospital recovering from his injury. When he was finally released, he contacted his father-in-law, a Mekong River sailor, and asked for his help to get the rest of his family out of Laos safely. 

The messenger was a friend of Virasak’s grandfather, and a fellow sailor. He was allowed to move between Thailand and Laos because he transported goods between the two countries. 

The day after the messenger came to the house, the Virasak family carried out a plan to escape to Thailand. After school, the children walked to their uncle’s house which was near the river. They had visited their uncle many times before so it didn’t arouse any suspicion. Kham Kong joined the children after work and they all had dinner together at her brother’s home.

Around midnight, Kham Kong woke her children and they made their way quietly to the shores of the river where two of her fathers friends waited for them with a boat. Kham Kong climbed into the canoe with the three girls, while Vieng and Lam clung to the sides in the warm Mekong waters. As quickly and quietly as possible, they made the 30-minute crossing to the shores of Thailand. Scared and unsure of what to expect their anxiety melted away when they recognized the figure of Kham Virasak waiting for them on the shore. 

Happily reunited, the family spent a month living with their grandfather before moving into the Nong Khai refugee camp. 

“The camp was about the size of the LBCC campus,” said Virasak. “Each family, no matter how big, was given a room about 14ft x 14ft to live in. The floors were bamboo and there were no beds or furniture. Once a week the aid workers gave each family their food which had to last all week. It was the same food day after day.”

The family spent the next four years living in the camp. In 1979 they moved to Bangkok where they hoped to obtain sponsorship and move to the US. 

The family only had to wait three months before the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Corvallis offered to sponsor the family. As sponsors, the church covered housing and other living expenses for the family for the first couple of years. They helped Kham find a job, and to get the children settled in school.

“At first school was kind of weird,” Virasak said. “People made fun of us because we didn’t speak good English and for the first couple of years I really missed home because everything – the food culture, everything – was so different here.

“After a while I made friends and got used to everything and I came to know it was better here. It was safe. There was so much freedom here.”

Despite having to leave everything they owned behind in Laos, the Virasak family will never return to their home country.

“It isn’t safe for us to go back to Laos because the communists are still in power,” Virasak told me. “My mom and sister went back to Thailand once to visit cousins, but we’ve been here so long now, this is home.”

Virasak’s mother and father both got jobs at OSU, and in 1985 they bought their own house in Philomath. 

Virasak graduated from Philomath High School in 1989, and went on to attend LBCC and OSU earning degrees in Mechatronics and Machine Tool Technology from LBCC. He spent 15 years working for Nypro Oregon as a Senior Process Technician in research and development and has worked for LBCC since 2012.