A storm pounded the fishing boat all night. The scores of Vietnamese refugees crowding the decks were terrified. Tranh N. Truong, 18, became violently seasick and passed out.
The storm was so terrible that Truong's 13-year-old cousin apparently couldn't hang on any longer as waves pounded the small vessel. He was lost overboard.That was in 1980.
Today, Truong - a farm boy who fled the communist regime in Vietnam - has been named one of America's top young scientists.
Truong and two other Utah researchers are among 169 young investigators who recently received hefty cash prizes to continue their investigations by the National Science Foundation.
All three teach and pursue research at the University of Utah. The others are Thomas P. Beebe, who studies analytical and surface chemistry in the chemistry department, and Janice J. Trautner, who studies structural engineering in the department of civil engineering. (See story on A7.)
The awards allow young investigators to receive up to $100,000 yearly for the next five years to be used toward their teaching and research.
The foundation provides a base of $25,000. This is augmented by up to $37,500 yearly in additional NFS funds, if matched dollar-for-dollar by industry and non-profit institutions.
Truong, who teaches in the chemistry department, is a theoretician who uses computers to model chemical reactions, attempting to simulate the action of individual molecules under various conditions.
"Once we understand that, the goal is to either predict for something we don't know or to propose something that some other reaction might have for a specific design property that we would like," he said.
Some of the reactions have implications for biology and physiology, some are important for potential technical applications.
"We've been making progress on that, and we are now at least at the step where we can predict certain chemical reactions, how they occur," he said.
Truong was born nearly 32 years ago, shortly before the American involvement in the Vietnam War. As a boy he helped his mother sell cigarettes at the bus station in Saigon.
He vividly recalls the fall of South Vietnam in 1975.
"Actually, it was exciting, in a way. I was like 13, 14, and then there was chaos. Guns were dumped all over the street."
South Vietnamese soldiers were shedding guns, military gear, even their uniforms, and just running as the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese armies swept in.
"When the communists come in, they forced many people to be farmers," he said. He was one of those. Truong became a farm laborer. As he puts it, he was "a farmer for hire - a handyman."
He couldn't speak English.
In 1980, he and his brother, then 13, were among 108 refugees who attempted to flee Vietnam in a single fishing boat. They left Saigon in several small boats and coasted to the port city of Vungtau, about four or five hours away.
"There we get into a little bit bigger boat, but it is a small fishing boat," he said. There was barely enough room to move around.
They left Vungtau on April 26, 1980, and headed into international water.
"But on the second day we hit the storm and our engine was broken down, and we were at the mercy of the storm," he said. Without power, the boat was lashed violently by the wind and waves.
He does not know how his cousin was lost overboard. After that happened, Truong said, he grew dull to the terror.
"It was scary at first, but after that you kind of numb out," he said. The boat people tried to survive one minute at a time.
After floating another day or so, "we eventually were spotted by the (U.S.) Seventh Fleet patrol airplanes. At that time we were in international water. We were somewhere between Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam."
A patrol plane dropped a radio, and soon afterward the refugees were rescued by an American battleship, the Long Beach. They were taken to a refugee camp in Thailand.
"I stayed there for three months," he said. "The camp was very crowded and no housing, and the conditions were very, very bad."
But then the two youths were sponsored as foster children by a farm family in Minnesota.
"They were very kind. We called them Mom and Dad, and we still do."
He went to high school in rural Minnesota, but the school officials seemed not to know what to do with him.
"I don't know how I got a high school diploma," he said. He suspects he got it largely because the school wanted to get rid of him.
"The high school didn't want to deal with me anymore. The fact is, I was the only refugee there and we were the only foreigners" in the area.
School officials wanted him to "please go on. They were hoping I would get a job at McDonald's somewhere."
Instead, he was accepted at the University of Minnesota. Eventually, he earned his doctorate from that university.
He won an award from the National Science Foundation as being among the top young Ph.D.'s in the country, which led to a fellowship at the University of Houston, where he carried out postdoctoral research.
After that, Truong moved on to the University of Utah, where he has taught in the chemistry department for more than a year.
He has been able to sponsor his mother and three sisters. They arrived in Utah from Vietnam about 10 months ago.
On Wednesday morning, Truong went to a Highland High School PTA meeting, on behalf of his sister, who is a student there. And maybe scientific history will repeat itself.
"She's doing very well," he said.