Galen Scott
gscott@weatherforddemocrat.com
Sinh Tho Nguyen started walking west from Atlantic Beach, Fla., June 10, 2009. Six layers of skin and at least three toenails later, he made it to Weatherford.
There are several reasons Nguyen is walking across the nation. Foremost among them, he wants to honor the United States of America for all he has been blessed with.
“When you owe somebody so much, you have to do something to show your gratitude,” Nguyen, 40, said while stopping to rest along Fort Worth Highway. “I owe so much to America and to her troops.”
Nguyen’s journey, called Shore to Shore, is out of sync with modern, profit-driven motives. On his Web site, Nguyen explains what drove him to start walking.
“The Shore to Shore Project is a voice to reassure that America is always faithful to her citizens,” he writes. “However, each of us has to love her, devote to her, and to make her a strong nation which God has always blessed, still does, and will continue on forevermore.”
He is also walking to raise the profile of Vietnamese Americans, and to thank people along the way who showed him kindness.
Having earned a degree in educational psychology through the G.I. Bill, Nguyen said he is also hoping to use the experience to help teach his own students someday.
“I wanted to have some real-life experiences for later on when I am an instructor,” he said. “I need to have experienced all sides.”
According to David Dominguez, Nguyen’s mobile traveling companion and supply coordinator, Nguyen was averaging 28 or 29 miles per day until his feet began troubling him. The pair stopped at a Veterans Administration hospital in Fort Worth where Nguyen was ordered to exchange his Crocs for a pair of athletic shoes.
“It was an order,” he said of the pediatrist’s direction. “And in the Army, if you don’t follow orders, the mission fails.”
On his Web site, Nguyen compares himself to a cicada.
“I am a cicada,” he writes. “He is born to make some noise for once in his life. This is the time for him. All living organisms on earth having one life to live, so do I, and so does the cicada.”
Nguyen hopes to finish his walk at the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, Calif., some time around Thanksgiving.
