By DAVID BOWSER The Pampa News
Pampa News photo by David Bower Sichan Siv having lunch at The Cattle Exchange in Canadian, 2003.
The story starts in Cambodia and ends on the Fourth of July at the Canadian rodeo.Sichan Siv, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and husband of Martha Pattillo, a Pampa native, is the author of a new book, “Golden Bones,” the story of his journey from the killing fields of Cambodia to the White House and the halls of the United Nations and his relation to the Texas Panhandle.
It was in 1970, when Prince Sihanouk was deposed in Cambodia and Lon Nol took power that the North Vietnamese Army broke out of their sanctuaries in eastern Cambodia and attacked Cambodian forces. While a 1973 agreement in Paris ended the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge began their battle to take over Cambodia.
By 1975, the Khmer Rouge had taken over the country and nearly two million people had died of exhaustion, starvation and summary execution.
Siv escaped Phnom Penh with his family in 1975, but he is the only survivor. His mother, brother, sister and their families were clubbed to death by the Khmer Rouge.
Siv escaped Phnom Penh with his family in 1975, but he is the only survivor. His mother, brother, sister and their families were clubbed to death by the Khmer Rouge.
Siv made it to Thailand only to be held as an illegal alien. Eventually, he made his way to the U.S., arriving in Connecticut in June, 1976. He had two dollars in his pocket.
The name of his book comes from his return to his father's village in Cambodia in 1992.
“Cambodians call someone who is very blessed or lucky a ‘person with golden bones,'” Siv said.
The villagers knew he had survived the Khmer Rouge massacre, had gone to America and was working in the White House for the President of the United States.
“They called me the ‘man with golden bones,'” Siv said.
The book is due to be released in early July.
Siv is expected to be in Pampa and Canadian for the Fourth of July celebrations.
“For us, the most exotic thing in the world would be to go to Paris or to the pyramids or to Cambodia and Angkor Wat,” Siv's wife said.
For her husband, she said the most exotic experience of a lifetime is to come to the Texas Panhandle and ride on a real ranch.
“He just thinks the panhandle is THE place,” she said.
When Siv was growing up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, he used to watch John Wayne films in French at the movie theaters.
“Here, the heavens and earth hug each other,” Siv said on a visit to the Brainard Ranch in 2003.
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