General Healey
General Healey's speech to the Second world Convention of 
Khmer Krom, Washington D.C.USA. August 14 1987

Mr. Chairman
Ladies and Gentlemen;
 I felt very humbled by your kind invitation to come to spend a few moment with 
you this evening and to once again be among the many very wonderful people that, 
during the time I was in Vietnam (and it hardly seems possible) that my first 
association with the knmer krom came about almost 25 years ago. that wakens one to 
a continuing advancing age. I am most grateful of this opportunity.
  What I am about to say may sound to some like an indicment of American policy 
pacts, and the shame ful experiences that we, the Special Force, had to undergo 
when we left our friends in Southeast Asia in 1973 I can tell you from personal 
experience that, since that time, I have on many occasion unashamedly cried because 
of my personal involvement with the Khmer Krom and the Khmer Serei Force, who were 
unafraid to stand wth the Civilian Irregular Defense Group scattered throughout 
the Delta of Southest Asia, who stuck with us on occasions when others of fainter 
heart left us. More of that in a moment, I think it is appropriate for the 
Americans who are here to understand that, of all the experiences that I had in 
Vietname and of all the lessons I learned as a human being and as an individual, 
my association with your people is a lasting and indelible mark in my mind, A 
gentle, quiet peaceful group of people strongly religiously oriented, family 
oriented, who live- even when they were poverty - with great dignity, an ancient 
race of brave men and women. It was Colenel George Morton, he's here, who first 
permitted me to visit you, and I am sure that all of you who associated with us in 
those early day will remember that he was really the one who identified the great 
fighting spirit and capability of the Khmer Krom, from Tay Ninh province to Hatien, 
down in the Delta area of Vinh Gia, Moc Hoa, Hiep Hoa and in all the other 
locations where you proved yourselves so valiantly. I was specially impressed 
during my years of service with you with the resoluteness of your people in the 
face of great adversity, to continue the fight, to not accept second class 
citizenship in the republic of Vietnam those created French border born of the 
degradation and unkind treatment that you received. The loyalty, the commitment 
that you made were fundamental to your way of life and I strongly urge you not to 
stop thinking and being that way.
We were included in your group of friends and, as I said, when others left us in 
the face of severe adversity, we could defend on it that the Khmer Krom were 
present in the camp, as they were in 1964 at Moc Hoa and Heip Hoa. We did not have 
to worry about staying alive because the Cambodian boys were with us when others 
run away.
  I can remember being underground in a bunker at Dakto and the only strength that 
really held in 1969, were the Khmer Krom. And at Buprang month later, when our 
fire support bases that were forward to the border were surrounded, I received 
some wonderful military instruction from some of my very small men who held to the 
hills with their finger nails and asked me not to allow the Vienamese to attack, 
but to hold on so that the enemy force would continue to gather around their 
positions and then they told me that the solution to the problem was to ask 
general Abram to send in the B-52's and kill the enemy because the only thing that 
could happen to the Vietnamese camp would be that they(the Khmer Krom and their 
three Americans Advisors) and the fire support base to the North and the East of 
Buprang, would be caught in the middle. General Abram was convinced to allow us to 
hold.   I'm very proud of the fact that holding on for 22day-much of it without 
food or proper water to drink, end without us hearing again, from some of the 
enemy units that surround us directly. This was unbelievable. They keep telling me 
"The Khmer people are to loving a people. They don't really fight. Well they don't 
like to fight, but when the time comes that it is necessary- Oh! yeh, Oh! they 
fight so well.

  I recall numerous conversation with Dr. son Ngoc Thanh in his small apartment in 
Saigon. When we were getting ready to send the first three batalions to Phnom 
Penh from Long Hai. He told me that " The greatest treasure of any nation were 
its people. He said that " The greatest protection of any people, in any nation, 
is freedom. He told me that " Freedom could only be guaranteed by equality under 
laws, and he pulled out script of the Cambodian people-a hand-written copy of 
what he had praised to be the constitution of the Khmer Republic. He didn't speak 
all that well in English, but he told me that he had used the American Constituion 
as his guide-not French Constitution, not the German Constitution, nothing from 
Great Britain...but the American Constitution.
He said that he hope was that the preamble to our constitution would become almost 
the Brahmanist's prayer, that it would be understood by every young boy and girl 
in Cambodia. Dr.Son Ngoc Thanh told me that the wisdom of the ancient dictated 
that some place in this world that there would be a nation that would become 
a guiding light. Then, he identified my country. And I was very proud at that 
moment. When he told me that he said "Now, it become necessary for us to educate 
our young people so that they will understand the blessing of liberty and the 
right to self-determination'. His last words before we send the first three 
batallions to Phonm Penh were " In Cambodia, we must have , as soon as possible, a 
republic of the people, by the people, and for the people, and we must educate 
them and to tell them that treasure is worth giving their lives to have".

Regardeless of how it is looke upon, believed or not believed, for or against, 
when a policy of a great nation, such as my country, encourages and supports men's 
strugle for freedom, men to commit themselves, their fortunes, their honor, their 
lives to gain or to maintain that freedom, it is indeeded terrible 
act to walk away from that support. The American people in 1973, in the face of 
internal home political difficulties were strugling with themselves. As a 
previous speaker mention, a very vocal, small, but well organized than vocal group 
of people who mouthed the surrender of Southeast Asia( by our departure would 
cripple in fact) and they send us home. Those responsible for that 
desertion of our friends on the battle field, should never forgotten. Their names 
should be indelibly etched in our mind so that, when and if they should never run 
for public office, the American people who vote should be told that they were the 
ones who were responsible for the surrender of not just 17.5 million people in 
the Republic of Vietnam, but for million of people who died in the Cambodian 
Holocaust, and million who remain enslaved. There are still fain-minded people 
among us, and we yet, today face another American decision where we have 
encouraged by our support the people in Central America to fight for the freedom 
against enslavement. And once again, in political turmoil domestical, they are 
those of faint heart who sometime I wonder if they do not truly believe in some 
kind of a dialectical materialism theory of the inevitability of communism, tell 
us to now run from those we encourage to take to the field to  fight for freedom 
peace offensives are not new to America. God knows we hope for peace. 

We pray for peace, but as long as there is a man or woman enslaved under the yoke of 
communism, none of us will be free, because that yoke that imprisons humanity in 
so many parts of the world, is hungry for more, and they are never satisfied.
Those who do recommend for the opposition, have never tasted slavery. 
They have never seen quite, loving boy who lived in the rural areas of Cambodia 
and who, in 1970, return to their home to fight the enemy, deserted in the field. 
They have never see the Khmer Rouge that only number about 2900 people in the 
hard core organization, capture the youth of Cambodia, take them into the forest, 
indoctrinate them and creat from that youth of Cambodia an uninform, misinformed 
and misguided group of executioners that killed almost 2 millions proxies, or they 
would not say, "Desert those who are struggling for freedom". The peace offensive 
has been launched. The smell is familiar. I only say to those who search for 
those things that we take for granted.
  At this moment, I am still tremendously impressed by you that knowledge that I 
first recognized 25 years ago, continues to develop and you are the ones I still 
remember, I wonder what manner of greatness must you posess to imagine to be free. 
And whenever I see the limited numbers that are or the few who were sacrificed at 
all to tast this beautiful freedom, I recall my religion and what I believe in and 
my God and I assure you it is the same God, just on the diffrent road. I khow that 
1987 years ago or there abouts, in a small room, onece again in the Middle East, 
twelve resolute men gathered together to express their views of God. 
So no matter how few you are, don't you forget Khmer Krom that you are and that 
your children are.
  Thank you very much for inviting me.