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Local author writes book about a family’s experience fleeing Vietnam

By Jess Mancini 3 min read

PARKERSBURG -- A professor at Marietta College has written about the journey of a Vietnamese family in a new book co-authored with a friend who participated in the harrowing escape from Saigon nearly 50 years ago.

"Uncommon Cargo: Sacrifice. Survival. Hope" is the story of Eva Nguyen Whitfield who as a 3-year-old girl escaped with her family and others in a cargo plane piloted by her father, Chau Tan Nguyen, while under fire as it left the airfield. April 2025 is the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.

"It's a pretty engaging story," said Jason Nulton, who wrote the book with Whitfield. "I think this is one of those stories that stands on its own."

Nulton, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from Washington, W.Va., is on the faculty at Marietta College, where he is the coordinator of the Office of Community Engagement.

Whitfield, a friend, told Nulton the story of how her family escaped Saigon while it was under siege in April 1975 in the plane flown by her father, an officer in the air force of South Vietnam.

He kept thinking about it and believed the escape would be a wonderful story to tell. Finally, Nulton and Whitfield decided to memorialize the escape in the book.

"I said, 'My gosh we have to write about this,'" he said.

The book was easy to write, Nulton said. Eyewitness accounts from the family remained fresh despite being nearly 50 years old, he said.

Whitfield, her family and the others aboard the craft saw many horrific sights, Nulton said. She was too young to remember, but her uncle saw a plane shot down, breaking up in mid-air with people falling to their deaths, he said.

"He saw this happen," Nulton said.

While the book was easy to write, matching what happened to the historical record took much work, such as finding the official account of the downed plane witnessed by her uncle, he said. The research was necessary for accuracy and authenticity, Nulton said.

"It took some effort to do a lot of that," he said.

During the interviews, members of the family learned things from each other they were unaware of, he said.

"That was very gratifying and special," Nulton said.

Care was taken to confirm the stories with the family, Nulton said. The process was enjoyable and humbling, he said.

The book is considered historical fiction based on true events, Nulton said. Several people are composite characters, but the events that took place happened, he said.

"It's all based on truth," he said.

The family had nothing when it arrived in the United States. All was lost as they escaped Vietnam, possibly in the last plane to leave Saigon, Nulton said.

But the family prospered and is an American success story, he said. Whitfield graduated in 1994 from Virginia Tech with a bachelor's in finance and marketing and lives in northern Virginia with her husband Scott and sons Jake and Chase.

"Uncommon Cargo: Sacrifice. Survival. Hope" is available online through most major book sellers including Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Books A Million. The more-than-450-page book is $29.95 and the Kindle version is $4.99.

"Uncommon Cargo: Sacrifice. Survival. Hope" is the second book written by Nulton.

The first was "To War with the 4th: A Century of Frontline Combat with the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, from the Argonne to the Ardennes to Afghanistan" in 2016.

The book is about the history of the 4th Infantry Division in World War I; D-Day, the Hürtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge in World War II; Vietnam; and Iraq.

Starting at /week.