By CASEY NEILL
ANDY Nguyen went from lawyer to fruit picker when he escaped to Australia after the Vietnam War.
The 66-year-old completed his law degree in South Vietnam in 1972 then joined the army to stop communism spreading from the north.
He trained as an officer and led a reconnaissance team until he was wounded in 1974.
No longer able to fight, he left the military to start his career as a lawyer.
After the war ended on 30 April 1975 he started his search for a boat to flee his country on.
“I could not live there anymore,” he said.
On his fourth escape attempt he made it to Malaysia without his wife and two-year-old son, with plans to later sponsor them to freedom.
“At that time, everyone wanted to go to America. I had another idea,” he said.
“We lost the war at the end because we lost support from America.
“America just wiped their hands and left us there to be defeated by Viet Cong.”
His first job in his new home was picking fruit on a farm and the next spraying cars at a factory.
“You had to do whatever you could do to survive, to find money to send back home for your wife, your kid,” he said.
“I came here to start a new life. To start a new life’s not easy.”
His wife and child made their way to Australia and he returned to university to study accounting.
“I knew that a successful lawyer could twist the words, twist the sentences,” he said.
“My English at the time, I didn’t think I could do it.”
He struggled to find employment, but one practice gave him a shot and he has now run his own for more than 20 years.
“When I established my life I looked back, remembered all my friends who still survived or passed away during the war,” he said.
“I think we have to have something to remember them.”
In 2001 he designed a memorial to also recognise the allied soldiers who fought alongside him.
“I admire them as heroes, because it’s not their country but they came to help and they died for us,” he said.
Finding a location was difficult because of official objection to flying the flag of South Vietnam – a country that no longer existed.
But Dandenong RSL president John Wells offered him space at the sub-branch and the tribute was opened on 30 April 2005.
“The day is a sad day for us, a day of mourning,” Mr Nguyen said.
“Australia has Anzac Day. And now we’re here as well, we join in the day. It’s a day for remembrance.”
