VHM_0070

This processing card was issued by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in coordination with the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok to Phan Nhật Nam in 1993. The H22 code marks his case within the 22nd phase of the Humanitarian Operation, which prioritized former officers, political prisoners, and public figures detained after the war.

Born in Nại Cửu, Triệu Phong, Quảng Trị, Phan Nhật Nam trained at the Đà Lạt National Military Academy and served in South Vietnam’s elite Airborne forces before becoming a widely read war correspondent and essayist. After April 1975 he was arrested and held in northern reeducation prisons, including Hỏa Lò in Hanoi, for fourteen years (1975–1989), eight of them in solitary confinement, due to his military service and published anti-communist writing.

Following years of petitions, he was approved for emigration under the Orderly Departure Program in 1993. After completing medical and administrative clearances, he departed Vietnam in November 1993 and resettled in the United States shortly thereafter. A prominent military writer and commentator, he later published works including Stories That Must Be Told, The Distant Road (1995), The Silent Night, and The Fire-Keeping Winter (1997). The stamps and annotations on this card record the steps that enabled his final exit from Vietnam.