Operation Brighteyes
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OPERATION BRIGHTEYES is a story about the release of an American prisoner of war from the Viet Nam war. Unlike many other books, this one is told from teh pointof view of one of the Vietnamese Boat People who escapaed from Viet Nam after the end of the war.
Phong Van Quong had worked for the Americans as a graphic artist during the war. Like many other loyal Vietnamese civilians he was promised that if anything other than a victory for South Vietnam should happen, he would be allowed to come to the United States. Like so many others, he was left behind when the North Vietnamese came into power after the Americans left Viet Nam.
Quong returned to his village in the Mekong Delta and tried to assimilate back into the life he once knew. Two things kept him from making the transition. One was that his sister Bea was living with an Officer from the North Vietnamese Army and the other was an American POW who was being kept in the compound where Quong worked as a cook.
Quong and Bea developed an elaborate scheme to allow Quong to leave Viet Nam with irregutable proof of a live American Prisoner of War. After nearly being killed in Saigon in his quest to find a boat that would take him out of the country, he finally manages to get on an old freighter headed to the open sea. At sea the boat encounters pirates, a lack of foor and water and a crew that is only there to further rob and intimidate the helpless passengers.
Once on American soil, Quong manages to convince the interviewer at the relocation camp that he knows of a POW. He gives them a name and when it proves to be accurate he is flown to a base in the South were he is further interrogated. Once he provides the proof of the POW, an elaborate plan is put into place to rescue the American. There is only one problem with the plan. In order for it to work, the Americans want Quong to return and be on the ground when the rescue takes place.
He was promised he would not be left behind once by the Americans and the word was not kept. Can he trust them this time? If he goes back will it be only for the sake of releasing the POW or does Quong have his own agenda?
OPERATION BRIGHTEYES answeres these and many other lingering questions about the war in Viet Nam, the treatment of the Boat People and the possibility of American Prisoners of WAr who may still be in country.