Midwest Memoirs: You never know where life will lead [Life of an adopted mother of a Cambodian boy who became a commander of a USS Destroyer]

Photo by Stefanie Manley
Army Veteran Maryna Misiewicz of Freeport talks to the crowd after being honored with the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs June 2011 Veteran of the Month at Krape Park in Freeport on Saturday.

By Dave Manley
The Journal-Standard
Posted Jun 04, 2011

Freeport, Ill. —Maryna Misiewicz laughed when she thought where life had led her, about how the most important things are often discovered through random events. For Misiewicz, it was her decision to join the Army and serve in Vietnam and later in Cambodia that changed her life. It was because of those decisions that she found her son.

“You never know what twists and turns you will face, and where those different directions will lead you,” Misiewicz said.

Misiewicz, 64, is the superintendent of the Veterans’ Assistance Commission of Stephenson County and talked about her journey while inside of her office in Freeport on Thursday.

Misiewicz was busy helping to organize the “Stand Down and Picnic” event, which was held for veterans on Saturday in Krape Park in Freeport. During the event, Misiewicz was honored as the June 2011 Veteran of the Month by the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs. The award honors veterans in the state, “who provide inspiration to their communities and other veterans through their continued service.”

Misiewicz is a veteran of the Vietnam War. After Vietnam, she served at a few different bases in the U.S. before being offered a second tour overseas. She didn’t want another two-year tour, so she declined offers to go to Germany and Belgium. Then she was offered a one-year tour in Cambodia.
“It was that third request that really changed my life,” Misiewicz said. “It’s where I met my son and adopted him.”
Misiewicz met her son, Michael Vannak Misiewicz, through the housekeeper that looked after her apartment in Cambodia. Misiewicz was working long hours, and often relaxed by showing movies — “a reel-to-reel projector mind you” — at her apartment. Vannak (he took the name Michael when he came to the U.S.) was her housekeeper’s nephew, and the family would often come over to watch movies. Misiewicz built a rapport with Vannak and took him on several day trips around Cambodia. He was six years old at the time.
Soon, Vannak’s aunt got sick, and Misiewicz helped to pay for her hospital bills and gave her job back to her when she was well.
“The family had thought I had done a great thing,” Misiewicz said.
Soon after, Vannak’s family asked her to take him home to U.S. At first she declined, knowing that the Army frowned upon single mothers. But the second time they asked, she accepted. She said they all knew it was the best thing for the young boy.
“The goal was just for him to escape Cambodia, we knew how bad the situation was.”
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Misiewicz said she almost can’t believe the string of events in her life that led her to Michael.
She grew up in Lanark, graduating from Lanark High School in 1964. Her father worked at the Savanna Army Depot and her mother worked at Microswitch in Freeport.
After high school, she went to work at Rawleigh in Freeport and started to take classes at Freeport Community College (now Highland C.C.). She was engaged to be married to a man who joined the Air Force. It was then that she decided to serve her county, enlisting in the Army in 1966. The two went in different directions, but the decision to join the Army was one of the best of her life.
The Army sent her to stenographer’s school. After training, she was promoted to Private First Class and assigned to the Army Artillery School at Ft. Sill, Okla. in 1967.
While in Oklahoma she volunteered for service in Vietnam.
“Having been in the Army for a little time, I felt like it was my duty,” Misiewicz said. “In some ways I wanted to go where the action was.
“Though I didn’t think of the difficulties. When you are young you think you are invincible.”
Misiewicz was 21 when she went to Vietnam. She had been promoted to Specialist 4 and hoped to be promoted again. She flew into Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The plane flew at night and without lights to avoid enemy fire.
“I held my breath until we landed,” Misiewicz said.
Shortly after she was transferred to Army headquarters in Long Binh, northeast of Saigon.
“It was scarier at times than I thought, but other times it was just like going to a regular job,” Misiewicz said. She served in Vietnam from January 1968 to March 1970. They were always on guard from rocket strikes, she said. Once, the ammunition barracks was hit, it was next to the women’s barracks and there were injuries.
The women weren’t armed, Misiewicz said. Today, she said, women are trained in the same way as the men, but back then women weren’t trained to use weapons.
“I didn’t think it was right,” she said. “We should have been able to protect ourselves.”
Misiewicz said that there was around 10,000 women who served in Vietnam and about 90 percent were nurses, she was part of the other 10 percent.
After Vietnam and her time stateside, Misiewicz was sent Cambodia, where she met Michael and adopted him. The pair returned to the U.S. and they started their new lives together. When they returned, Misiewicz said, the situation in Cambodia deteriorated, Michael’s father was executed, and the young boy lost contact with his family until he had grown and joined the Navy (nearly 13 years later). Michael is now a commander in the U.S. Navy.
Misiewicz’s picture on her desktop computer is of Michael speaking on the deck of a Navy destroyer, the USS Muslin, when he commanded the ship. Above her desk she has pictures of her grandchildren. When they returned to the U.S., Misiewicz became a staff member serving the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. Soon though, she realized she needed to make a decision: her son or the Army.
“I loved being in the Army, but it was just a decision I needed to make and it was an easy one,” Misiewicz said. “I needed to fully focus on raising him.”
In 1976, she left the Army and moved back home to Lanark to raise her son. There, she worked for the Lanark telephone company for 26 years. She then spent three years as a secretary at Jones-Farrar school in Freeport.
In 2007, she was chosen for a newly-formed position of superintendent of the Veterans’ Assistance Commission of Stephenson County, which helps to aid area veterans in many ways.
“It’s a very rewarding job,” Misiewicz said. “I will always have a special place in my heart for all veterans.”