1. Moneth Mey

2. My name is Loung Ung. I was born in Phnom Penh in 1970.

3. My father is Cambodian and my mother is Chinese. I am the sixth daughter of seven children.

4. As a child I lived in a small city in Cambodia. One day I saw soldiers wearing black uniforms, they were forcing me out of my house to another city that I didn’t know. I was scared. I got separated from my family.

5. The Khmer Rouge soldiers put my on a truck and took me to their training camp. I was trained as a child soldier by Pol Pot’s army.

6. I had to train every single day and use guns when I’m still a child. I felt terrified. My family is poor and I had to protect them. I couldn’t protest about training as a child soldier because they would have killed me and my family. I only had my brother left. We were surviving a war but were still children. I wished I could escape! I missed my parents and relatives but I had no choice but to keep on working.

7. 2 years later… I escaped from the army camp when the Vietnamese invaded and took over Phnom Penh. My relatives sent me a letter that I could leave the country and come to the Thailand refugee camp. So my brother and I left to Thailand, we walked past the border to the refugee camp, we were very tired.

8. Once we were in Thailand we had to stay in a refugee camp. The camp was dirty and it smelled like spoiled egg, it was crowded and hot because there were lots of people.

9. I hated living in the refugee camp! I wanted to know how many more days we had to stay there. I couldn’t even contact my parents and relatives. They were stuck back in Cambodia

10. After a few months in the refugee camp we were given the opportunity to move to the United States for a better life. We wanted to study and get good jobs. We sold our gold, clothes and belongings to buy plane tickets to come to America.

11. I was ten when I came to America; I wanted to be like other students in my class. I did not want to know any Cambodian news and when my sister Chou sent me a letter I did not reply. I was immersed in the American culture.

12. When I first came to America I was scared and terrified. I looked different because our clothes didn’t match with the Americans. We didn’t look the same. All the children at my school everyone teased me. We met our relatives and stayed at their place.

13. My brother and I learned English. We were good students in class, we had a better life then when I was in Cambodia. At first English was very hard but know I find it easy and I made lots of friends. I didn’t want to be connected to Cambodia. I wanted to be American not Cambodian.

14. I studied in a nearby school and our older relatives paid my fees so we could study and become successful. I am very lucky I had family to sponsor me.

15. Many years later … I am now a famous author. I have written many books. I am also a spokesperson for the USA Campaign for a Landmine Free world.

16. After years later I found out that memories are never silent, whether or not I speak or write about it, they are always there, and sooner or later they’ll come boiling back up.