Thursday, September 17, 2009
Douglas 'Pete' Peterson becomes Australian citizen
AAP Newsfeed
September 16, 2009 Wednesday 6:17 PM AEST
Vic: First US ambassador to Hanoi becomes Australian citizen
*BYLINE:* Edwina Scott
*DATELINE:* MELBOURNE Sept 16
It was a fitting place to become an Australian. Outside the 25th
floor
of a central Melbourne office, yachts sailed by on Port Phillip Bay, the
hallowed turf of the MCG gleamed, and to the north beckoned the bush of
the
Dandenong Ranges.
At 74, Douglas 'Pete' Peterson, resplendent in charcoal suit and
koala-print tie, stood proudly alongside wife Vi Le on the eve of
Australian
Citizenship Day. Mr Peterson's military career as a fighter pilot in
the
US Air Force took him on missions to Vietnam. He was shot down over
North
Vietnam in September 1966, ejected and landed in a tree. Stripped of
almost all his clothes and multiple broken bones, he was captured and
sent
to Hoa Lo prison, also known as the "Hanoi Hilton", where he remained in
horrific conditions as a prisoner-of-war for six-and-a-half years.
Apart
from occasional flashbacks, he eventually overcame the physical and
emotional trauma to later hold office as a Democrat congressman from
1991-97, until he accepted then president Bill Clinton's offer to become
the
first US Ambassador to Vietnam.
There as a political appointee, he helped broker the USA-Vietnam Trade
Agreement, by bringing the US administration on board to mend rifts
between the two nations and support the opening of Vietnam to the world.
"Having been a POW, the Vietnamese saw me at my very worst and I saw
them at their very worst, and so we had this almost bond of
knowing one another," Mr Peterson told reporters on Wednesday. "As a
result, there were efforts made to make sure that we were on the road to
reconciliation instead of putting up roadblocks. "I think you can look
at
history now and see that the two countries are very good friends, good
allies and that's even going to get better." It was in the first weeks
of
his appointment as ambassador that Mr Peterson met his wife Vi Le, a
Vietnamese-Australian member of the Australian embassy. The decision
to
live in Australia became "a natural choice" to be closer to Vi's family,
and
for commercial reasons, as much of the couple's consultancy business and
children's charity is based in Asia.
At the conclusion of the short ceremony, Mr Peterson was handed a wattle
plant, certificate of citizenship and a showbag containing items
including an Australian picture book, a poster of the citizenship pledge
and a flag. Mr Peterson was exempt from sitting the immigration
citizenship test as he is over 60 years of age but
is aware of the need to choose an AFL team as soon as possible. "I
need to
look at the rule book first, and see what they're doing out there," he
joked. More than 4,500 people from 120 countries are expected to
become
Australian citizens on Thursday as part of the annual Citizenship Day
celebrations marked since 2001.
