Cambodian Returns As US Navy Commander

[Richard]

The American dream continues.

US Navy Commander Michael Misiewicz docked the USS Mustin in Cambodia Friday. He last saw his homeland, and many of his relatives, as a boy fleeing the murderous Khmer Rouge.

And so it goes...

Richard

37 Years After Escaping Killing Fields, A Cambodian Returns As US Navy Commander
CSM, 3 Dec 2010

US Navy Cmdr. Michael Misiewicz watched today as relatives prepared to board his destroyer, which was docked a few miles off the shore of Cambodia. He had not seen any of them since he left the Southeast Asian nation as a boy 37 years ago, escaping civil war and the murderous Khmer Rouge.

The commander’s face was impassive at first, but it softened as more and more extended family members were helped onto the barge below him. Then he saw his aunt, now 72, who had helped him leave for the US so many years ago. Commander Misiewicz walked slowly down the metal stairs and they embraced, weeping.

“When I saw her this morning,” he later told reporters on the ship, “I just couldn’t hold back the tears, I was so happy that she was here. It’s been a very long time.”

The USS Mustin, which arrived in Cambodia Friday, is on a four-day goodwill mission that includes meetings with the Cambodian Navy and community service projects. Misiewicz made it clear that he places his duties as captain first, but also said that he had been “overwhelmed” by emotions upon his return.

Escaping the Khmer Rouge

Now 43, Misiewicz was born Vannak Khem in the rice fields outside Phnom Penh. As a child, he spent some days watching movies and playing games at the house of his future adoptive mother, Maryna Lee Misiewicz, a US embassy employee for whom his aunt worked as a maid. As the civil war between the Cambodian government and the Khmer Rouge worsened, his aunt and father arranged for her to adopt him, and they left for the US in 1973.

(cont'd) http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-...Navy-commander

[JJ_BPK]

The American dream continues.

I like,, Thanks..

[aegisnavy]

Bravo Zulu to the CDR and his crew.

[PRB]

Triumph of the human spirit....but only possible in a country that allows one to rise to their own level unencumbered.
Great American story.

[sleepyhead4]

This story is very similar to that of my CO. The Great American Dream and Opportunity at its best.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!