ABSTRACT
At the time of the fall of the Lon Nol regime to the Khmer Rouge in 1975, a number of Cambodian military men were in the United States to study military tactics. Some of those who reported to Camp Pendleton decided to attempt to return home to Cambodia instead of becoming refugees in the United States, primarily because all had wives and families in Cambodia. Most of the Cambodians who left Cambodia in April 1975 were urban, middle and upper class, educated city dwellers. The Cambodia Crisis Center, a national fund-raising organization to collect money for international relief organizations feeding the Cambodians along the border, in the Thai holding centers, and inside Cambodia itself, was in full swing by the spring of 1980. Politically, US Cambodian groups were split into several factions at that point — all noncommunist and all supporting the resistance activities along the Thai-Cambodian border and just inside Cambodia.
