Beyond the Fear of Death #744735

This memoir tells an extraordinarily powerful story that perfectly captures the emotions and struggles arising from the real-life escape of Dy Dinh Le and his family from Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. As a former South Vietnamese Air Force pilot, Dy Dinh Le spent four years living as an outcast under the communist regime, leading to two arrests under suspicion of avoiding incarceration in the Soviet-style gulags where hundreds of thousands of ex-military personnel and officials from the former Republic of Vietnam were imprisoned. The victorious communist regime kept many, including his father, elder brother, and uncle-in-law, in such concentration camps throughout the jungles in the south and north. After the execution of his uncle-in-law and the abandonment of his body in the Hoàng Liên Sơn mountainous area, Dy Dinh Le’s mother and wife feared for his life and begged him to flee the country. After realizing the imminent danger he faced, he vanished one day, returning one night out of thin air to take his wife, 3-year-old son, and 22 other relatives to board a wooden fishing boat to flee Vietnam. As fate would have it, and beyond the fear of death, he stayed behind at the last moment to allow another relative to leave. This painful sacrifice of his chance for freedom and the opportunity to travel with his wife and son left him fighting against all odds to chart his escape guided only by the good of humanity—the individuals who became true guardian angels paving the path away from the communist’s wrath and toward true freedom! Beyond the Fear of Death is an extraordinarily miraculous story of a South Vietnamese hero who survived his treacherous journey to freedom and, four decades later, honorably served the U.S. government for over 37 years, ultimately being recognized with an American flag—flown above the U.S. Capitol in his name—and a distinct acknowledgment from the 44th President of the United States of America.