THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 13, 1997 TAG: 9702130321
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JO-ANN CLEGG, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 90 lines
Most weekday mornings, 73-year-old Tin Tran can be found at work, doing the job he has loved since the day he signed on with the Virginia Beach Health Department more than five years ago.
But on Wednesday, Tran took a rare day off for an event he had been waiting for since he first arrived in the United States after spending years in a North Vietnamese prison camp.
Just before noon, in Courtroom 4 of the federal court building on Granby Street in Norfolk, Tran became a United States citizen.
For the ramrod-straight, one-time cavalry officer for the South Vietnamese army, it was an especially proud moment.
``I surely do want to become a citizen,'' he had said thoughtfully the day before he took the oath of allegiance. ``I most surely do.''
These days Tran, his wife, Nguyen Tung T., and two of his five children live in the Green Run section of Virginia Beach.
Tran has been working since his arrival here as a translator for the Beach Health Department - interpreting for his fellow Vietnamese immigrants not only the language but also the customs and requirements of his adopted land.
He came into the job when he went for the routine TB test required of all immigrants from his part of the world. Virginia Beach Health Department nurse Liz Palmer recognized something special in the man sitting across from her in the small examining room.
The department was looking for an outreach person to work with the immigrant population, and Tran, with his precise English and gentle manner, seemed to fit the bill.
``He translates anything and everything for us,'' said public health nurse Nancy Patch, the TB program's coordinator. ``Deliveries, commitment proceedings - every-thing.''
He also does much more. Although it's not part of his job, Tran accompanies Vietnamese patients when they apply for food stamps or the WIC program, monitors their charts to make sure that they get in for necessary appointments and puts them in touch with others in the community who share their ways.
``We couldn't do our work without him,'' Patch said.
Thirty years ago, life was very different for the Tran family. Tran was an officer with an elite South Vietnamese army unit, someone whose career was on the rise. Two tours of duty in the United States - one at Fort Knox in the 1950s, the other at the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in the 1960s - made him invaluable in working with the Americans who arrived to aid his country.
One with whom he established a close friendship was Theodore Roosevelt Lowman, then a U.S. Army major acting as an adviser to the cavalry unit Tran commanded.
It was a friendship that was to last, deepen and become even more important as time went by. ``He was my friend of 30 years,'' Tran said. ``I am very happy and proud of that.''
Realizing that the fall of South Vietnam was inevitable, Tran sent his oldest son to France in April 1975. In June of that year, Tran was imprisoned by the North Vietnamese in what was known as a re-education camp. It would be 12 years and three months before he was finally released.
Throughout his imprisonment, his old friend Ted Lowman kept track of Tran's whereabouts as best he could, and the whereabouts of Tran's family as well.
When Tran's oldest daughter, her husband and their small child escaped by boat in 1986, it was Lowman who found them months later in an Indonesian refugee camp.
``He sent them a $100 check,'' Tran said, shaking his head. The daughter and her family, he said, eventually made their way to Australia, where they have become citizens.
After his release from prison in 1987, Tran and his remaining family became part of the long line waiting to come to the United States. Ted Lowman, living in Virginia Beach by then, became the Tran family's sponsor.
It would be four years, almost to the day, before Tran, his wife and two sons would arrive in Hampton Roads. Within weeks, much to his surprise, Tin Tran had found his job at the Beach Health Department.
Last fall, five years to the day after he established his residency, Tran applied for citizenship.
On Wednesday, in front of federal Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr., it was granted to Tran and about 75 other new Americans. Joining him in the ceremony were his sons Khao and Tho. Nguyen Tung T. and their oldest son, who came from France for the occasion, watched proudly.
Still, it was a bittersweet moment. Despite many attempts to cut through the international red tape, the Trans' youngest daughter is still in Vietnam.
And Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt Lowman, USA (ret.), the man responsible for bringing the Trans to this country, died Monday after a long illness - just two days before his old friend took his oath of allegiance to the country they both loved. ILLUSTRATION: MARTIN-SMITH RODDEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Tin Tran, 73, took a rare day off from his job at the Virginia Beach
Health Department on Wednesday in order to become a new U.S. citizen
at the Federal Courthouse in Norfolk.