Refugee in NY to reunite with son after 34 years

ROCHESTER, N.Y.?? A Vietnamese war refugee who survived a 1977 pirate attack that separated him from his wife and infant child is reuniting with his grown son in upstate New York after nearly 34 years apart.

1. Only on msnbc.com

   1. Former student: Sandusky he knew is not a 'monster'
   2. Charla Nash reveals ?beautiful? new face
   3. Retailers hope holiday shoppers defy economy
   4. Counting China's wild pandas
   5. Updated 34 minutes ago 11/22/2011 12:51:07 AM +00:00 Second nonprofit sent kids to Sandusky charity
   6. How Huguette Clark's millions were spent
   7. Telecommuting a bad option for stressed parents

Hao Truong was tossed into the South China Sea after pirates attacked a boat taking refugee families to Thailand in December 1977. He said he managed to stay afloat for 16 hours before being rescued by a fishing boat.

In a Thai refugee camp, Truong learned weeks later that his wife had died ? her body washed up on shore along with another female victim. But he said he'd long assumed that their 7-month-old baby, Kham, had survived and was raised by someone else.

Truong resettled in the United States in 1978, sponsored by an uncle living in Louisiana. On a trip to Thailand in June after hearing his son might be alive, a social worker helped him locate his son, now a 34-year-old father of two named Samart Khumkhaw and living in Surat Thani province.

Khumkhaw's flight to Rochester was expected to arrive Monday evening.

"Today's reunion was a long time coming, and it's the perfect way to celebrate Thanksgiving," said U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, who helped Truong obtain a visitor's visa for his son to travel alone to Rochester to meet his father's family.

Truong traveled to Rochester to meet his late wife's siblings and stayed. He remarried, raised four children and was a metalworker for 30 years before being laid off in 2009. At age 54, he's studying for a community college degree and retraining as a machinist.

During four days of captivity before being pushed overboard, Truong said the pirate boat crew seemed enthralled at how cute his child was. "That's why he never think for a moment that anybody would kill this little baby," said his sister, Hong Truong.

While the circumstances of the child's passage to safety remain murky, he was given to a bereft young couple in Thailand whose daughter had died two days after birth.

"A lady ? we don't know the relationship ? told the couple she had a little baby boy and asked if they would raise him," Truong's sister said. "The foster mom saw the baby and wanted to adopt him, but she can't ask where the baby come from."

More than 3 million people fled Communist-controlled Vietnam and neighboring Laos and Cambodia after the Vietnam War ended in 1975. Many sailed long distances in overcrowded small boats, at risk of shipwreck and pirate attacks.

The plight of the so-called "boat people" turned into a humanitarian crisis as they came under sometimes deadly assault. More than 125,000 refugees from Vietnam were resettled in the U.S. between 1975 and 1980, according to the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45392313/ns/us_news-life/

baby lisa paranormal activity west virginia football west virginia football wvu football meteor shower tonight district 9