"We were them:" Vietnamese Americans help Afghan refugees

　タリバン政権の報復をおそれ、アメリカに保護を求めるアフガニスタン人に、かつて同じ思いをしたと感じる人たちが助けの手を差し伸べている。

　ベトナム戦争中にアメリカに協力し、戦後、迫害を恐れてアメリカへ逃れたベトナム人とその子供たちだ。

　国外へ脱出しようとカブール国際空港に押し寄せる群衆を報道で目にしたベトナム系住民は、「かつての自分たちを見るようだ」という。

　今日のGetUpEnglishはこのニュースを読んでみよう。

　https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20210920/p2g/00m/0in/047000c

In the faces of Afghans desperate to leave their country after U.S. forces withdrew, Thuy Do sees her own family, decades earlier and thousands of miles away.

A 39-year-old doctor in Seattle, Washington, Do remembers hearing how her parents sought to leave Saigon after Vietnam fell to communist rule in 1975 and the American military airlifted out allies in the final hours. It took years for her family to finally get out of the country, after several failed attempts, and make their way to the United States, carrying two sets of clothes a piece and a combined $300. When they finally arrived, she was 9 years old.

These stories and early memories drove Do and her husband Jesse Robbins to reach out to assist Afghans fleeing their country now. The couple has a vacant rental home and decided to offer it up to refugee resettlement groups, which furnished it for newly arriving Afghans in need of a place to stay.

"We were them 40 years ago," Do said. "With the fall of Saigon in 1975, this was us."

Television images of Afghans vying for spots on U.S. military flights out of Kabul evoked memories for many Vietnamese Americans of their own attempts to escape a falling Saigon more than four decades ago. The crisis in Afghanistan has reopened painful wounds for many of the country's 2 million Vietnamese Americans and driven some elders to open up about their harrowing departures to younger generations for the first time.

　vie(vying) for spots on U.S. military flights: アメリカ軍の航空機の座席を競いあう

　vie: 競う、競争する

○Practical Example

　Ten teams vied with one another for [to win] the championship.

「10 チームが互いに選手権を目ざして競い合った」（コンパスローズ）

　harrowing: おそろしい