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Topic: Family News (Read 670 times)

lakelady
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Family News
« on: Jul 6^th, 2004, 7:37am »

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From the Montgomery Advertiser, July 4th

This family is related to me by marriage of my only female cousin on my mom's side. The little tyke in the pic has been to all the family get togethers at my granny's house over the past year. I am so happy to read that him mom has finally returned home!

AL BENN'S ALABAMA Family knows freedom's value

Phounimith Thongrivong couldn't understand what was happening to her.

It was dark and a wide river lay in front of her family.

She was only four at the time, but she learned later that her mother had bribed a group of border guards and crossed the Mekong River with her four children.

They had been in Communist-controlled Laos. Soon, they were at a refugee camp in Thailand, where Khamphet Thongrivong waited for his family. Eventually, they all came to the United States.

Americans who take their freedom for granted, especially on this Independence Day, could learn a lot from the Thongrivong family.

Army National Guard Spec. Phounimith "Mit" Rice, left, plays with her 2-year-old son, Alex, who is held by her father, Peter Thongrivong. Rice's military police unit returned to Fort Benning, Ga., on May 22 after a year in Iraq.
-- Alvin Benn Advertiser

Thanks to a Pennsylvania church that sponsored them and supportive neighbors in Alabama where they moved, they have realized their American dream.

A few years after arriving in Alabama, the Thongrivongs raised their right hands and became naturalized American citizens during a ceremony in Atlanta.

"Mom and dad were really happy that day," said Mit Rice. "They still had a language problem, but they have worked hard to become good citizens."

The Thongrivongs settled in Opelika after living briefly in Montgomery and adopted many American customs, including Christmas. They were Buddhists in Laos.

For Mit, which is shortened from Phounimith, her love of country extended to military service. She wanted to do something to show how much she appreciated her freedom. She found it in the Alabama National Guard.

She already had excelled as a student at Opelika High School, where she finished with a perfect 4.0 grade point average. At Auburn University, she graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in microbiology.

"I think everyone should serve their country in some capacity, and I thought the military was right for me," she said. "I was 25 when I joined the Guard. They called me granny. Most were 18 or 19."

She had met Brandon Rice when she was in elementary school. He was one of her brother's best friends, but she didn't think much of or about him at the time.

When Rice returned home from the Navy, the two of them began dating. They were married in 1998. He became a lawyer. She became a researcher.

Her desire to serve her country was realized when she joined the National Guard in 2000. Not long after she completed basic training, she learned she was expecting.

"They put me on KP duty so I wouldn't have to do anything strenuous," she said. "We got our deployment orders on Feb. 14, 2003."

Researcher Rice had become a military police officer -- all 5-foot-1 inch, 114 pounds of her. Her size didn't hold her back and it wasn't long before she was promoted to the rank of specialist.

Her unit, the 214th Military Police Co. based in Alexander City, left for Iraq in late June of 2003. While in Baghdad, they trained Iraqi police, escorted convoys and performed many other duties, many of them hazardous.

Spec. Rice saw the horrors of war all around her. She saw the dead and the wounded, the homeless and the helpless.

She never knew the savage nature of war as a toddler in Laos, but she learned more than she needed to know in Iraq two decades later.

Serving overseas was tough on everybody in her unit. For her, it was doubly daunting. Her son, Alex, was only a few months old and she was in a war zone.

"Thanks to Brandon and others in our family, Alex was taken care of without me having to worry," she said. "But, I still missed them a lot. We all missed our families."

Each night before she went to sleep, she walked over to the wall near her bunk and kissed the photograph of her baby boy. One of 16 women in the unit, she wasn't the only mother doing the same thing.

The MPs, who lost one member in an insurgent bombing in Baghdad, returned home a few weeks ago. Hundreds turned out to greet them at Fort Benning, Ga. They've been on leave since that time, but are preparing to return to their training.

Asked about their reception in Iraq during their tour of duty, Rice was succinct in her assessment.

"The kids waved at us, but others didn't," she said.

The Thongrivongs are a long way from Laos and that refugee camp in Thailand, but they haven't forgotten relatives they last saw in 1979.

They'll carry those memories with them today as they cook hot dogs and hamburgers, eat watermelon and watch fireworks.

It's one of their favorite customs in the land of the free and home of the brave.

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