Vietnamese man at home with K-9 unit

By Kate Feldman, Tampa Bay Newspaper Weekly

TARPON SPRINGS – Tommy Nguyen left home at 14, but it was barely by choice.

Tarpon Springs Officer Tommy Nguyen. Photo courtesy of TSPD

His father had been a high-ranking officer in the South Vietnamese Army, but when the Vietnam War ended in 1975, the communist government sentenced him to eight years in prison; his wife was sent to a work camp.

Even after he was released in 1983, the elder Nguyen was denied legal documents, which prevented him from living in one place for long and forcing the family to continue moving around Vietnam.

Seven years later, Nguyen and his father decided that life had to be better anywhere else and joined the growing list of Vietnamese citizens fleeing the country and communist rule.

Along with 19 other Vietnamese people, the two Nguyens crowded into a small fishing boat and traveled for three days and nights through choppy waters and pirate attacks. When they reached land in southern Thailand, they joined thousands of refugees from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in a refugee camp. If they were lucky, they slept in a hut without a blanket; on bad nights, they were at the mercy of nature.

In November 1993, 18-year-old Tommy and his father made it to the United States, hurtling across Florida highways until they made a home in a mobile home park in New Port Richey.

In time, Nguyen learned English while completing his degree at Countryside High School, then studied in the Air Conditioning, Refrigeration and Heating program at Pinellas Technical Education Centers. He worked in a restaurant, a factory in Tarpon Springs and as an air-conditioning technician. But he dreamed of becoming a police officer.

“There aren’t a lot of Asian cops,” Nguyen said. “I wanted to help out the older, Vietnamese community.”

The Tarpon Springs Police Department became home, where Nguyen began as a patrol officer.

His father died of liver cancer in 2000, but Nguyen said he knows his dad would be proud of how far he’s come from the refugee camp. He brought his mother to Florida five years ago, but his three older brothers still live in Vietnam.

“I know my dad would have loved to see me (as a police officer),” he said.|

Read the full article by Kate Feldman from Tampa Bay Newspaper Weekly.