Photos by David Bowser

"Cambodians call someone who is very blessed or lucky a ‘person with golden bones.' They called me the ‘man with golden bones.' "

— Author Sichan Siv

Long Way From Home

Cambodian lived through killing fields

By David Bowser
Correspondent

The story starts in Cambodia and ends on the Fourth of July at the Canadian rodeo.

Home on the Range: Sichan Siv

Sichan Siv, a former member of the U.S. mission to the United Nations and husband of Martha Pattillo, a Pampa native, is the author of "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 of 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 its sanctuaries and attacked Cambodian forces.

By 1975, the Khmer Rouge had taken over the country and nearly 2 million people had died of exhaustion, starvation and 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.

Eventually, he made his way to the United States. He had $2 in his pocket.

The name of his book comes from his return to his father's village 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, gone to America and was working in the White House for the president.

"They called me the ‘man with golden bones.'"

Siv will be in Canadian for the Fourth of July.

"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 is to come to the Texas Panhandle and ride on a real ranch.

"He just thinks the Panhandle is THE place."

When Siv was growing up in Cambodia, he watched John Wayne films in French.

"Here, the heavens and earth hug each other," Siv said looking out at the horizon on a visit to the Brainard Ranch near Canadian in 2003.

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Posted: July 3, 2008