Horizons Fall 2016

34 NSU HORIZONS D u Hua , Pharm.D., was born in war-ravaged Vietnam, to a family who had lost everything and with no means to escape. And yet, improb- ably, after 11 harrowing tries, he did escape. Once in the United States, strong will and determination propelled him to learn English, get an education, and join the U.S. Navy. His goal, from the moment he saw F-18 Hornets, was to become a fighter pilot. A serious back injury upended that aspiration. But, in the third seemingly impossible chapter of his life, Hua found his way to Nova Southeastern University and a career as a pharmacist. In his 2012 book about his life story, The Escapes and My Journey to Freedom , Hua tells of his excitement when his application to the NSU College of Pharmacy was accepted and his strong emotion when he graduated in 2001. “As I was putting on my graduation gown, a strange, inexplicable, special feeling welled up inside of me,” he wrote. “I was in disbelief that I could have this day.” Growing up in Vietnam in the 1960s, Hua, 54, never imagined such a moment. His earliest memories are of the war: His parents fleeing their village as it fell into commu- nist hands, the Tet Offensive, the fall of Saigon in 1975, and the order that the family return to their village. Bombs had destroyed their home and surrounding fields. They struggled to cultivate the bad piece of land assigned to them. Their lives were reduced to exhaustion and hunger. “It was worse than hell,” Hua said in an interview. Amazing news came one day. Hua’s oldest brother, who had been living with their sister in the seaside town Vung Tau, had managed to escape by boat and was now in the United States. His parents decided that he, too, should go to live with his sister and try to find his own way out. His sister made arrangements many times. But Hua met with failure repeatedly, as promised boats failed to show or government forces learned of the planned escapes and halted them, with Hua barely avoiding arrest or death. Hua came to realize that he and his sister were dealing with swindlers interested only in extracting money from the desperate. So they hit on a new plan. He would follow his brother’s example and become a mechanic who could keep a boat engine running during bona fide escape attempts. This approach wasn’t foolproof either. One attempt was thwarted by police. Another ended when a boat owner reneged, and later was arrested. Then, one day, everything fell into place. This boat owner had agreed to have Hua’s sister’s husband and their six-year-old son join the other 100 passengers. The ship moved into open waters. The journey soon grew desperate when it became appar- ent that the navigator had no idea what he was doing. They motored for five days with no sign of land. Heavy storms would have swamped the boat if Hua had not brought along water pumps. Food and water ran out, and the fuel would soon follow. “It was imminent death,” Hua said. With hope all but gone, they saw what appeared to be a small island on the horizon. It transformed into a large ship as they got closer. They assumed they would be cap- tured, but a man on deck speaking Vietnamese told them the Cap Anamur was a ship sent by a Germany-based humanitarian organization to rescue Vietnamese “boat A Veteran Helping Veterans BY MARY HLADKY ALUMNI PROFILE