How did a Vietnamese refugee come to join the FBI?
I wanted to join the FBI first and foremost as a repayment to the American people for taking me into their country and giving me a new home. And by repaying the favour I also wanted to help my own people – the two million Vietnamese refugees who came to the States – if they got into trouble because of their limited command of English. So I applied to be an interpreter at the FBI, which back then had no idea of how to hire a Vietnamese person. But they took a leap of faith by hiring me. Now they have quite a few Vietnamese people in the bureau, including my younger brother, who’s an FBI agent. How tough was it to qualify as an FBI agent? Very tough. You have to go through a 16-week training programme at Quantico Marine base in Virginia. And to pass the training you have to score at least 85 percent in 10 exams. If you get 83 or 84 percent, they’ll pack your bags and ship you out within half a day. One of the tests was to fire 8,000 live rounds. As a woman it was hard for me to even hold
