WEBVTT

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(light music)

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- You just came from a country
where you had no future,

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and now you get to go

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to what most people consider

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the greatest country in the world.

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That's like a second chance
at life, so to speak.

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My name is Major Dat Nguyen

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I work at Africom as a operation analyst

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in the J8 Directorate.

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(light music)

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So for me, growing in Vietnam,

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I was still a child at this point.

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I remember bits and pieces,

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and what the adults
would tell me later on.

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The conflict ended in 1975.

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Before the conflict, our family
was part of the Old South.

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And so when the Communists
won the conflict,

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anybody who had ties to Old South

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was pretty much blacklisted.

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It came to a point where,
where my relatives decided

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this is not how we wanna continue.

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There's no future for us in Vietnam.

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And we started looking for ways to escape.

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So we escaped by boat.

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We all loaded onto the boat
at midnight, pitch dark.

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(light music)

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Imagine, you have a boat
the size 2.2 meters wide,

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1.2 meter high and about 15 meters long.

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Not a big boat.

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This is like a fishing trawler.

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And then now,

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imagine squeezing in 149
people on the little boat.

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Then we spent three days
and four nights at sea.

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But luckily for us,

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we ran into an oil rig,

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and they direct us to Malaysia,

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and that's where we ended up.

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Most of the refugees were
chosen to go to United States,

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because of the ties from
the Vietnam conflict.

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(somber music)

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Since I've been in the United States,

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I have been given opportunity
to go to school for free,

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and to go to West Point,

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where I received all this
great training to be leaders.

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And I think this is one way that,

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I look at it as giving
back to United States

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for the opportunity that
the country's given me.

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Every day when I put on the uniform

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I consider a privilege to serve.

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And for me, the country,
the United States,

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gave me the second chance,
make something of myself.

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Had I been stuck in Vietnam,

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I don't know what would happen to me.

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(somber music)

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You know the American dream, right?

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People say that a lot,

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and I really, truly believe in that.

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And I think our family is a
living a bond with that aspect.

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For us, America is still
an amazing country.

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(light music)

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We are truly grateful for this nation.

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(light music)