In January Bun Yom gave an engaging presentation at a U.S. Military conference about his experience leading the Cambodian Freedom Fighters against the Khmer Rouge and his escape from Pol Pot’s Killing Fields.

VIEW BUN YOM’S MILITARY CONFERENCE PRESENTATION

Follow me on Twitter @BunYomCambodia. I’ll be posting events, book signings, and updates. Thank you, Bun

The room was silent as Bun Yom, a Cambodian man and Ellensburg resident, addressed the Army cadets who filled the hall. His English is tough to follow, but it’s an achievement for a man who speaks six languages  – English being his most recently learned. He addressed the cadets Friday night to impart the lessons learned from his experiences.

“The Khmer Rouge forced my family to go into the jungle. No house, no nothing, they tell us to get out,” Bun said. “We have no food, nothing.”

At first appearance Bun (pronounced Boone) is a modest and humble man, short in stature and unthreatening. However, Bun has an amazing story of hardship and strength. Bun survived years of enslavement in the killing fields of Cambodia and went on to become a freedom fighter, liberating thousands of his people. His story is a tale of courage, honor and loyalty to his people. His journey ultimately ended in Ellensburg, thousands of miles from his homeland.

Bun Yom was born in Cambodia in 1960, the second of four children. Shortly after he was born, his mother found a five carat ruby, which earned them enough money to buy land. His parents began a business where they bought rubies from others and sold them in Thailand. Because of this, Bun’s parents were able to send him to school. At the age of six, Bun began school and quickly skipped grades on the recommendation of his teachers.

Bun lived a normal life until 1974 when the Khmer Rouge came to his town and forced the people out of their homes and into the jungle. They had no food or supplies Bun was only 14-years-old.

“My brother was only six-years-old and he would keep crying, and the Khmer Rouge said if they let the baby cry they would kill everyone, so me and my sister tried to make the baby stop crying,” Bun said.

The Khmer Rouge told them that if they returned to their homes they would be killed, so they stayed in the jungle with-out food until the children were taken away. A day later, the Khmer Rouge split the boys from the girls.

“I tell my sister when you find food, bring food to our parents first … From that day, I never see my sister,” Bun said.

The Khmer Rouge forced the children to take tests to determine if they had an education or were fit for forced labor.

“They’d ask, ‘Are you student?’ Some kids say ‘Yeah I’m student,’ and they ask another kid and they say, ‘No I’m a farm-er,’ and they put him in another truck,” Bun said.

“Once the truck got full, the kids that have the education, they go to kill them in a big hole.”

One kid escaped and warned Bun and the rest of the kids that they should all claim to be farmers and lie if their parents had been merchants or doctors. Bun and his siblings were tested many times, but they always passed the test by lying about their family. The Khmer Rouge separated Bun from his brothers and put him to work in the killing fields. They were called the killing fields because the children who worked there had little chance of surviving. They worked to build a dam with nothing but buckets and shovels, and survived off of nothing but a scoop of soup rice a day.

After building the dam Bun was sent to plant rice, but first had to work to clear the fields of the bodies of children who had died in a vast flood. In five days, his crew loaded over 1,800 bodies into trucks.

“If someone falls down, the Khmer Rouge tell us to pick him up and put him in the truck and they take him away and dump him with the bodies”, Bun said. “Sometimes my friends collapse, I don’t know what to do and you try to help them and you cannot. I cannot help myself either that year, but whenever I fall down I get up quickly or else the Khmer Rouge take me away too.”

After almost three years in the killing fields Bun was skin and bones from living off of one scoop of soup rice a day. He slept in water with his crew because the ground was too hard for their brittle bodies. The water left them cold and miserable.

“My friends keep die die die – we can see the people dragging dead people every hour,” Bun said. “The Khmer Rouge don’t care, they just point and shoot them like animals.”

Bun’s situation looked hopeless until one night bun met two Cambodian freedom fighters who were there to free his crew. Bun cooperated with the freedom fighters to organize the escape of his 200-man crew. Of those, only five arrived to the Cambodian freedom camp.

“Bombs fell everywhere on the front, on the back,” Bun said. “Some of the crew said ‘Bun Bun! go back, go back’ and I said ‘No, no we can’t go back, the Khmer Rouge kill you anyway, we go forward and maybe we get lucky.’”

After regaining his health with the Cambodian freedom fighters, he began training to become one himself. He learned how to find mines and travel the jungle. On his first mission in 1979, he carried more than his bodyweight in rice to an area where kids worked the killing fields. He changed clothes and mingled among them to gain their trust and show them that food and hope was near. He earned their trust, and in his first mission Bun led roughly 1,000 people to freedom, without even having a weapon. Over the course of that first year, Bun helped lead between 4,000 and 5,000 people to freedom.

Bun’s leaders realized his skill, and soon he had 300 soldiers under his command as he rescued people from the killing fields.

“The thing I found most amazing about Bun is for all his experience with the Khmer Rouge … he would go to great lengths to capture and not kill them,” said Bill Chandler, a close friend who introduced Bun to the audience. “I know many of us would get revenge, but he didn’t.”

Bun’s time as a soldier came to an end in 1983 when he received a letter from his mother. Bun had thought his family was dead, but he learned that they were in a refugee camp in Thailand. Bun was torn between serving with his soldiers and reuniting with his family. His bosses refused to let him go, but after receiving a third letter Bun made the decision to return to his family, leaving under the cover of darkness.

In 1984, the U.N. moved the refugee camp to the Philippines and later that year Bun traveled to the United States, arriving in Yakima. He still lives in Ellensburg with his wife and three children. The search for family members continued until his eldest brother was found in Cambodia in 1996.

Jessica Myers, junior spanish major and a cadet, grew up next door to Bun’s family and didn’t realize he was the speaker who would be sharing his experiences of the killing fields.

“I thought it was really inspirational –you don’t get a lot of speakers that have amazing stories like that,” Myers said. “His attitude was amazing. There are so many traumatic things that happened to him but his main focus was on his goal.”

Bun ended his speech by telling the cadets what he always told his soldiers:

Today I spoke to many at Seattle University for International Week. Thank you for listening to my story. It is important to me that everybody hear my story so people know, especially young people who are coming into world to manage it. It was very good to see so many people from all over the world going to school and learning together. This is what will make people stop the crazy things they do, knowing the other people are people too, like them. All very good. We will put on here the pictures from today and send you email. Hope you like my book and my story and tell all  people.

Thank you,

Bun Yom

Thank you to Central Washington Military for inviting me to speak at your special dinner event last night. It was very nice to tell my story to many good people who are serving our country so this never, never happens again. So important to help people and save lives, on both sides if you can. It feels good to me to see good people like this doing important job. And my family thank you for inviting them too. We have many pictures we will put on here soon. Send me email and I tell you when: bun@andantepublishing.com.

Thank you, Bun Yom.

Last night we go to Sharon’s house and talk to her book club friends about Cambodia and my book “Tomorrow I’m Dead.” Thank you to all! They all are so nice, we talk for a long time and they really like my book and want to hear what it is like for other people. Then they give $1,200 to U Dong to feed people in my brother’s town. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I don’t know how to say. Why we forget to take picture? And really good food too! Then it snow like crazy and we all drive home in snow. Very good night and now many people know about my book and Cambodia people and Khmer Rouge so it never, never happens again. I hope to see all people again. I write more later have to drive over snowy mountains. Thank you! Bun

People ask about next book. Yes, I am writing my next book called “Welcome to America, How I survived in the U.S.A.” It’s about my life in America after refugee camp. Big change for me and so glad to come here, but very hard place to live.

People say we are free in America. I say no, we are not free, we are safe, that is a good thing, but not free. All the time pay taxes and papers. If you don’t do it phone goes off or insurance and it’s a big problem for many in America. Very different, not like Cambodia, and very hard. American people don’t know how hard because they not live other place.

Many nice people are here who help me a lot and help other people a lot. There are also many people who make it hard. They steal and other things that make it hard to live here. Sometime because they don’t like my skin, they treat us bad. Makes it very hard. But I am thankful to many Americans who gave my family a lot, a lot, of help. It is important for people here to make life good for each other. That is the only way. Then all people will have a very good life. That is of highest importance.

Thank you to all of the people who helped the Cambodian people. We think a little money is a little thing, but in Cambodia you can feed many people all day for one coffee drink price. All the money you send goes 100% to buy food for people in U-Dong, and I send more money when people buy my books. I tell you how much they thank you, but I talk to them and see how much they thank you and if you could talk to them too you would know and feel good about helping.

Bun Yom

Escape from Khmer Rouge is hard and dangerous, but we were very good at helping people do it.  After escape the hard part. People then in dangerous jungle very weak with no food and dangerous animals and mines everywhere.  We bring food and show them the way to refugee camp and take out mines and protect them from armies and not get lost and many other dangers for days until we get them to camp.

All they ever gave us to eat was each day a bowl of rice soup and a chunk of salt.  The rice soup was like water with a little bit of rice floating.  It was never enough.  We always hungry, very hungry, and skin and bones. We would eat everything else too, but we couldn’t get caught or they would take us away – forever.  We would eat bugs and little fish in rice fields we would hide in our clothes and eat later.  Sometimes we could catch a mouse or snake and we would eat that too but we could never get caught.