NEW CITIZEN: LAOTIAN REFUGEE RELISHES FREEDOM IN UNITED STATES

MARBLE HILL -- For Lee Mahasongkham, who soon will become an American citizen, the quiet pace of his new Bollinger County home suits him fine.

A refugee from Laos, Mahasongkham escaped from his communist-occupied country when he was just 13 years old.

Mahasongkham, now 28, recently passed the examination that qualifies him to become a citizen of the United States. He is waiting to take his official oath of citizenship.

Mahasongkham works as a custodian in the Woodland public schools here. On Friday the school will help celebrate Mahasongkham's accomplishment with a breakfast party.

"I was so proud to finally pass the test," he said. "I am so proud to be here in the United States. I have freedom and a better way of life here."

He said the citizenship test was difficult. "I had to learn a lot of history. I knew it was going to be tough, but I decided I wanted to do it."

Mahasongkham said several people at the school helped him study for the test.

"Lee worked really, really hard to achieve this," said Debbie Ebaugh, a teacher who is coordinating the party.

She said: "He's a very quiet, unassuming man. He does his job well and goes about his own business. We knew this was a very important accomplishment.

"He reminds us all of what we should be remembering every day," Ebaugh said. "He's proud to be in this country and he's proud to have his job, and works to do a good job."

His given name is Boualy Phrosauoth Mahasongkham, but everyone calls him Lee.

Mahasongkham said he's happy to live in the United States and enjoys the quiet pace of Marble Hill. Understandably so after his story as a youth:

Mahasongkham decided to leave his homeland in 1975 when he was just 13. He had served in the Laotian army about two years, entering the military when he was just 11.

"When the communists took over, if they knew you were in the army, you had two choices: you could make a deal with them (and become a communist) or they would take you away" to prison.

Neither choice was acceptable to Mahasongkham. So, one night about midnight he and two friends decided to escape by running toward the Mekong River, which separates Laos and Thailand.

"We had run about half way to the river when we heard them (communist soldiers) right behind us," Mahasongkham recalled. "We looked back and there they were. They were shooting at us. There was no way to go back, so we had to go ahead."

The river, Mahasongkham explained, was about twice as wide at the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau. "It was very swift; it was during the typhoon season," he explained.

"We had no boat and no time to decide what to do; so we just dove into the river and started swimming."

The three dove deep. When they came up for air, bullets buzzed past their heads, he said. The second time Mahasongkham surfaced, he heard a loud explosion. One of his friends was missing.

"After we were half way across the river, they quit shooting," he said, explaining they had outdistanced the range of the communists' weapons.

"But we couldn't see our friend. We decided he must have died or was hurt."

When Mahasongkham and his friend reached the Thailand shore, they were still far from safety. "We had to hide from the Thailand army. They didn't know who we were or what we were doing."

The pair made their way to a small town where they worked at odd jobs for about a year. They then traveled to a refugee camp in Ubon, Thailand.

"We stayed at the camp about a month, and then snuck out of the camp back to Laos," Mahasongkham said. "We wanted to find out if our friend was dead or alive. We found out he was dead."

Back in Laos, the pair had to escape again.

"This time we had a boat. We were near the bank of the river and everything looked clear. Then my friend took one step out and stepped on a mine."

The explosion ripped his friend's leg off at the knee. "There I was, by myself. He said, `Leave me here to die.'"

Soldiers of the Laotian army heard the explosion and were quickly closing in. Mahasongkham tied a towel over his friend's wounds and dragged him toward the boat.

"We couldn't get in the boat because the army was shooting at us," Mahasongkham said. "So I was holding his head out of the water and pushing the boat across the river."

On the other shore, they were met by the Thai army. "We told them our story, and they believed us." His friend was taken to a hospital at the refugee camp and Mahasongkham was returned to the camp.

"We stayed in the camp quite a while, until 1979. We had to stay until we could get a sponsor to come to the United States.

A missionary from Seattle, Wash., agreed to sponsor them. Half way through the process, plans changed and a man named Charles Bollinger in Marble Hill, along with the Marble Hill Bible Chapel Church, agreed to sponsor Mahasongkham and his friend. The church also helped sponsor two families from Laos, and all of the Laotians went to Marble Hill.

When he arrived in Marble Hill, Mahasongkham was just 17 years old. "I didn't know any English. I just knew `yes;' whatever people said to me I just answered yes."

He graduated from Woodland High School in 1982. "I was looking for a job. All the time I was going to school I worked part time here. So I started working here full time."

Mahasongkham also has been a member of the National Guard's 1140th Company out of Jackson for the past eight years. Mahasongkham discovered, if he was not a U.S. citizen, he could no longer serve in the National Guard. "That was what pushed me to finally study and take the test," he said.

Mahasongkham's father and three sisters still live in Laos. His mother and brother were both killed by the communists, he said. "If you do something they don't like, they just shoot you. They don't give you a second chance."

He said he never plans to return to Laos.

"If I go back to Laos, they will kill me," he said. "And there is no place like the United States. I have found a better life here."

Mahasongkham is married and has two children: a son, Robert Dale, 6, and a daughter, Jeannie Lee, 3.

"We gave them American names because they live in America," he said.

Mahasongkham's wife is also from Laos, and came to Marble Hill with her family at about the same time Mahasongkham did.

"My kids were born here," he said. "I'm going to live here. I knew if I became a citizen I would have all the freedoms this country offers. This is my life now."