child soldiers

As it turned out Peter Pknd did adopt us and moved us with him to America Where we went to school with his real kids. I wasn’t good at school like my adopted brothers. And the kids in America were very mean. They called us monkeys. When we were living in Peter Pids home I started to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and then I became mean. I once even ran away. But Peter pond helped me a lot. He taught me how to speak English and speak up about the things that happened in Cambodia and the things that I went through with the Khmer Rouge. I even went back to see my sisters and my aunt. I also met with many others that helped me on my journey.

Mr. Peter Pond is a very important american man. he saved my life when the hospital was fludding and i couldn't move. peter pond is a very nice man, he takes me and some others from the orphanage to eat good food. And he brings us clothes and candy and books and the other kids get jealous. The other kids say he is going to take us to america with him but we don't know yet.

At the hospital there are lots of sick kids without families. while i am in the hospital i feel like i might be getting better but then there isn't  enough medicine for all the kids and the food supplies are running low. Even though i am in a hospital and i should be getting better. i don't think i'm going to make it. i don't think i should live, i killed too many people while i was Khmer rouge.

My entire experience with the Khmer Rouge, is something that I never want to relive, but I think that the toughest part was when i was trying to find Vietnam. On my trip to Vietnam, i felt like i was going to die, i ate some very disgusting things, like a baby monkey. i got very sick and started hallucinating. the hallucinations were so bad that by the time i actually got to Vietnam, i didn't know what was real and what wasn't.  

When the war with the Vietnamese started, they started recruiting anyone who wanted to be Khmer rouge. Me and my friends from the band volunteered to be Khmer rouge. we figured we had a better chance to survive, if we stayed and helped instead of  fleeing and be in hiding. We didn't get any training, we were just given guns and told to be careful. After that, all the kids i knew from the camp started dying. One of them even shot himself. 

my family had brought its own rice from home. but that only lasted for so long. the Khmer rouge would measure the food for each family. i had a family of 7 and they would give us half of a nestle can for all seven of us. The food wasn't enough for all of us, so my aunt would grab dirt and add it to the rice to make it thicker and have us get full faster. that was in the beginning. after we would get less food. then we would get food every 3 days or so. 

The Khmer Rouge tells us to stop at an empty field. He then ask us for our families background, what our jobs are, my aunt tells them that we sell in the market. The Khmer Rouge tells us the we grow rice now, that we are all the same. The Khmer Rouge doesn't have names they just called themselves comrade. Now we all work in the rice field, everyday. Everyone works, including children and old people. 

They said the would only be gone for 3 days but its been so much more. I don't know how long, I've lost count but its been much more than 3 days. I have been walking none stop for a very long time. I have no food and no water, and I am so tired! many other people have been dying they just fall down while walking and don't get back up.

The day everything changed I was woken up with the screaming of soldiers yelling "we are Khmer rouge" , "we are red Cambodia". But I go to my friends house and they have to leave. the next day the Khmer rouge says that everyone has to leave because the Americans are coming to bomb. so we prepare to leave for 3 days just like they said. 

Before the war came to our city, I lived a pretty good and happy life, I wasn't rich, but I was happy and joyful. I would walk all over town gambling, or selling ice cream, also I would just walk around and look at people and see how happy they were, and see them enjoy the music coming through their radios. I would see them singing and dancing, overall having a good time. i lived in a very happy town.