Khang Nguyen 
     
Washington Post - Saturday, September 15, 2001; Page A20 


Khang Nguyen grew up familiar with war. In South Vietnam, he and his family heard the frequent boom of shells and gunfire. Once, a mortar shell fell on a house across the street from his home, killing their friends inside.

In 1975, when communists took over the country, he and his family fled to an airport in vans. His father and two of his siblings made it onto a flight to the United States, but the rest of the family got left behind amid the chaos.

Nguyen, his mother and other siblings lived in poverty, peddling rice on the streets. Meanwhile, his father, a former employee of the U.S. Information Services in Vietnam, used his contacts to find the family.

In 1981, the parents and nine children were reunited in Washington.

Family members said Nguyen relished his newly ordered, stable life. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland. For 13 years, he worked for the Defense Information Systems Agency at the Pentagon, and during the past six months was a systems administrator for a Navy contractor.

Nguyen, 41, loved working at the Pentagon and would buy hats and T-shirts with government logos. He devoured books on the military, particularly about the Vietnam

War.

"This is our second native country. We have gotten so many opportunities," said his wife, Tu Nguyen, 38.

Tu Nguyen, her eyes dry after several days of crying, said she hasn't been able to tell their 4-year-old son, An, what happened to his father.

Wednesday afternoon, the Pentagon arranged for Khang Nguyen's car to be towed from the parking lot to a relative's driveway. Family members said that the little boy jumped up and down, pressing his face against the car windows, looking for his father.

"He was lucky; he was born here," Tu Nguyen said quietly. "He never suffered any pain from the war. But now he is 4 years old, and he has lost his father."

-- Phuong Ly