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| US Navy Commander Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz who left Cambodia and his family 37 years ago to escape the Khmer Rouge It will be the first time Commander Misiewicz, 43, has set foot on home soil since he left in 1973. |
As a boy in Cambodia Michael Misiewicz fled the civil war with the Khmer Rouge. Now 37 years later he is about to return to the country of his birth as commander of US warship.
28 Nov 2010
Ian MacKinnon in Hua Hin, Thailand
The Telegraph (UK)
The guided missile destroyer USS Mustin, with a complement of 300 crew, is due to dock in the south-western port of Sihanoukville later this week.
"I have been fighting a lot of emotions about coming back to my native country," he said by ship-to-shore telephone. "To know that I have relatives there who have wanted to see me for decades . . . I don't know if I will be able to hold back the tears." Commander Misiewicz, who was born in Vannak Khem, left Cambodia as the fighting between the Khmer Rouge and the US backed regime of Lon Nol intensified.
His father had arranged for him to be adopted by a woman at the US embassy who was leaving for home as the situation in Cambodia grew more perilous.
While studying at naval college he began to learn more to of the atrocities committed by the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge when an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians perished in the "Killing Fields", of torture, starvation or disease.
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"I have been fighting a lot of emotions about coming back to my native country," he said by ship-to-shore telephone. "To know that I have relatives there who have wanted to see me for decades . . . I don't know if I will be able to hold back the tears." Commander Misiewicz, who was born in Vannak Khem, left Cambodia as the fighting between the Khmer Rouge and the US backed regime of Lon Nol intensified.
His father had arranged for him to be adopted by a woman at the US embassy who was leaving for home as the situation in Cambodia grew more perilous.
While studying at naval college he began to learn more to of the atrocities committed by the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge when an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians perished in the "Killing Fields", of torture, starvation or disease.
Please click here to read more...
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