Boy who fled K.Rouge returns to Cambodia a US navy commander

AFP ^ | November 28, 2010 | Michelle Fitzpatrick

[decimon]

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – When the destroyer USS Mustin docks in Cambodia next week it will be more than just a routine mission for the ship's commander.

Michael Misiewicz is Cambodian by birth and was just a child when he was wrenched from his family and homeland 37 years ago, to be sent away from the country to escape the civil war with the Khmer Rouge.

He has not set foot on Cambodian soil since.

"I have been fighting a lot of emotions about coming back to my native country," said Misiewicz, who was born Vannak Khem, of his impending return.

"To know that I've got relatives there that have wanted to see me for decades... I don't know if I will be able to hold back the tears," he told AFP by telephone aboard the US warship.

The 43-year-old was a small boy in the early 1970s when Cambodia was engulfed in a civil war between government troops and communist Khmer Rouge fighters.

In 1973, his father arranged for him to be adopted by an American woman who worked at the US embassy and was preparing to leave the increasingly dangerous country.

[Bryanw92]

This kind of story can only happen in one country! Damn all the liberals that want to destroy it.

[dogcaller]

This is the America the Poseur will never understand.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Wonder if he was Khmer or Hmong?

[InternetTuffGuy]

He’s All-American now.

[Maine Mariner]

He will never understand why US Coastguardsmen(women) in Search and Resure go out to try to save lives and may not come back. He will never understand policemen and firemen went up the Twin Towers knowing they might not have come back. He will never understand that the Japanese naval officer who led the attack on Pearl Harbor came to the US and as I understand it stay for awhile.
He knows so little about this great nation and what he knows is mostly wrong.

[1rudeboy]

Am I reading you correctly? You just insulted the commanding officer of a U.S. naval warship.

[llevrok]

What a GREAT American story!!

[BunnySlippers]

Excellent comment! Thank you.

[paudio]

No. He actually just insulted the One who claims to be a Commander in Chief.

[Maine Mariner]

OH NO! I SEE MY MISTAKE. I WAS RESPONDING TO POST #3 WHO WAS TALKING ABOUT OBAMA. SO WHEN I SAID HE, I MEANT OBAMA.

The Navy Commander is a great American. If my son joins the Navy, I hope he sails with someone like him.

[1rudeboy]

No worries. The interweb is a cruel place. ;)

[Screaming_Gerbil]

US Navy Commander Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz

Cambodian-American Navy Officer to Return to Birth Country after 37 Years

Boy who fled Cambodia's 'Killing Fields' returns as US naval commander

...I went [to the U.S] and I think the initial thought was for me to get a better education, live a better life and eventually return to Cambodia," Misiewicz said...

Misiewicz was very young when he immigrated to the U.S. After arriving in Alexandria, Va., in April 1973, his adoptive mother, Maryna Lee Misiewicz, who raised him as a single parent, enrolled him into the 1st grade the following fall. Misiewicz received extra English tutoring for the next three years and eventually continued his education in Lanark, Ill., which was his mother's hometown...

Nearly four decades later, Misiewicz believes the Navy has given him an incredible amount of opportunities that he would have never experienced had he remained in Cambodia...

"I really feel privileged and blessed to be able to return with this crew to where I was born and to do so with the ability to promote American goodwill and share with Cambodians the success stories, not only mine, but a lot of success stories within our crew," he said...

Misiewicz says he is proud of his background and even more proud that the growth of diversity in the Navy has given him and others a chance to excel in life.

"When you think about all the things that could've gone wrong, I think I'm truly blessed to have so many opportunities and certainly the different miracles that have occurred just for me to reunite with my family."

[NonValueAdded]

Weapons free, Commander

[dsrtsage]

Some of the comments on this article at the website are downright disgusting...Liberals have disgusting minds