The Charlotte Observer
15 Jan, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C. For the 24 years he lived in Charlotte, Krong Krajan dreamed of bringing his wife and children here.
He came to the U.S. in 1986 as a young man full of hope, after fighting in the jungles of Vietnam for years against the communists. He was one of the first 201 Montagnard refugees brought to North Carolina.
Krajan spoke English so he helped others navigate their new country and find jobs.
But his passion, the goal that drove him all that time, was to bring his wife, Jong, and their children here. Years went by and Krajan grew older. While some of his friends made new lives in America, he never stopped trying to persuade the Vietnamese government to let his family immigrate.
His friend Don Hurst believes Krajan suffered a stroke in 2001 because he was heartbroken.
Once branded a war criminal, Krajan is now 65 and so frail, Hurst said, the Vietnamese government is allowing him to return to his village in the central highlands.
He boarded a plane Thursday for the long journey home. "His last hope," his friend Mien Pang said, "is to see his family before he dies."
In 1973, the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam. Around the same time, Pang said, Krajan, then 29, left his family to continue the fight against the communists of North Vietnam. Though the Montagnards lived in Vietnam, they were from mountain tribes and did not consider themselves Vietnamese; they fought the communists, hoping to reclaim their ancestral lands.
Krajan eventually fled Vietnam for Thailand with thousands of other Montagnard soldiers. By 1985, only 201 survived. U.S. Special Forces veterans, who had relied on the Montagnards, learned they were in a refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Cambodia and brought them to North Carolina with help from Lutheran Family Services and Catholic Social Services.
Fifty-one Montagnards, mostly men, settled in Charlotte at The Village, a community of duplexes off Morris Field Road near the airport. Now more than 1,000 Montagnards live here. About 7,000 live in North Carolina.
Krajan was hired at a metal finishing company where Hurst worked.
Every morning, Hurst recalled, Krajan would shake the hands of his co-workers. He had a gentle spirit. Hurst said Krajan had been police chief for his province in Vietnam. He spoke several languages, including French, Vietnamese, his Montagnard dialect and English. But what Krajan mostly talked about was Jong and their children.
Hurst said he and Krajan worked together about a year and a half. "He always had a big smile," Hurst said. "He was always helpful and so smart."
Hurst left in 1987 to form his own company, H&H Polishing, and Krajan took at job at Krispy Kreme. Hurst expected they would never see each other again.
But once a month or so, Krajan would stop by Hurst's company to visit. "Once you become friends with the Montagnard people," Hurst said, "they are really loyal."
Every so often, Krajan would bring with him a new refugee needing a job. Hurst estimates he hired 15 to 20 Montagnards at Krajan's recommendation.
Krajan regularly sent money to his family, Hurst said. He regularly filled out the paperwork required to bring his wife and children to Charlotte.
"It became an obsession. It caused him a lot of stress."
The stress led to hypertension and Hurst believes eventually to the stroke. It crippled his right side and robbed him of most of his speech.
Hurst became his guardian. He handled Krajan's $600 monthly Social Security check, paying his rent and utility bills, and taking him shopping.
Krajan has depression and dementia, Hurst said, and eventually was sent to Asheville to an assisted living center.
Hurst expected his friend would die without ever again seeing his wife and children.
But in 2008, one of Krajan's daughters immigrated to America with her husband. The husband's aunt in Texas sponsored them, something Krajan had never been able to accomplish. His daughter, Siam, was so impatient to see her father they drove from Texas to Charlotte. The day they arrived here, Hurst drove them to Asheville.
Father and daughter wept to see each other.
Siam's husband, Huynh Lieng, said he asked Krajan if he wanted to go home. Krajan said he did, but had no money to travel.
Finally, Lieng, who taught English at a university in Vietnam, has made it possible.
Lieng, 39, works as a metal finisher for Hurst's company. He borrowed $6,000 from Hurst to pay for the trip, agreeing to repay $59 a week. He got a visa for Krajan, and he asked Hurst to accompany them because Hurst has a way of calming Krajan when he's upset.
Krajan's friends gathered at The Village on Saturday to bid him farewell. In a haunting melody, they sang a refrain that roughly translates into "God be with you."
Krajan was scheduled to fly to Chicago Thursday, then to Hong Kong and on to Ho Chi Minh City. From there, he will travel by van to Dam Rong, where his family has been waiting 35 years to see him again.
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