Eang Ung, an active member of the community and the owner of a martial arts school in Holland, has lived a life that few people would are survive. He talks openly of the horrors he and his family faced after the rebel Khmer Rouge forces took over Cambodia, forcing over 1 million inhabitants to leave their homes and live a life of poverty and starvation.

The horror of watching entire families carted away for execution seems remote to Ung's new life in Holland, where he runs his own business and volunteers to teach self defense programs to church youth groups. It began in the countryside of war-torn Cambodia. After surviving the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge rule, he and several members of his family have managed to carve out successful lives in the Holland area. But as a 9-year-old, living in a country where survival of the fittest was the motto, Ung could have no idea that he would one day live in a country free of constant warfare.

He was born in 1966 to a businessman and his wife in rural Cambodia. In 1968 his parents separated, and his father moved Ung and most of his seven siblings to Phnom Penh, to open a general store. "That was where I learned about business, from the time I was a little boy," Ung said.

Ung's brother, Keang, taught Judo classes. "I was thrilled because I was taking a class with my brother. I remember thinking then, at 8 years old, 'I want to be a teacher.'" Life in the capital may have provided more money for the family, but it was not easy. "People fought a lot. Kids fought. I remember one night watching 3 or 4 guys beat each other up with brass knuckles. I decided to learn a different style of fighting than Kung Fu or Judo." Ung started to learn Thai kickboxing behind a Catholic Church. "After Thai boxing I barely made it home because my shins hurt," Ung said.

In January 1975, Ung's father sold everything he owned and the children quit school in preparation for a move to Hong Kong. Before he had a chance to move the family, however, Ung's father had a stroke. "He was outside stacking wood. I watched him collapse," Ung said.

Ung's father was in the hospital when the rebel forces of the Khmer Rouge took over the capital In April of 1975. The invading army, which began pillaging the capital, evacuated the city, shouting with megaphones for people to leave their burning houses. "They were saying, 'Leave, now! Americans will drop bombs soon,'" Ung said. Ung, and six brothers and sisters left the city with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, accompanied by a neighbor family. (Ung's oldest brother, Bou, was working in a mine, and was spared the deportation). They could not get to their father because of road blocks. He was left behind. Ung has not seen him since. The siblings and their neighbors traveled on the road leading out of town for at least three weeks, with no idea where they were going. "The street was packed with people. Some people were dying. There was no food. We slept in the rain on the road. Everything stank because of the dead people," Ung said. His family and his neighbors finally stopped in Swi-masour, a small village of 300 Khmer Rouge families. There, Ung and his family member became accustomed to being referred to as the "April 17 people," the derogatory term used to describe the Cambodians who had been forced from the capital on that day. The "April 17 people," many of whom had dwelled in Cambodian cities such as Phnom Penh, were forced to fit into the less educated Khmer Rouge society or perish. Ung recalled the difficulties of living under the Khmer reign. At one point, Ung's neighbors became tired of sharing a 500-square-foot, one-room house, with the Ung children. The neighbor family began to tell the Khmer Rouge residents that the Ungs came from a professional family. The Khmer Rouge were distrustful of educated city dwellers. Former city residents were often singled out for mistreatment or execution. The Ungs insisted they came from an uneducated family. The Khmer Rouge believed them, and the neighbor family was killed for causing a disruption.

The Ung siblings may have arrived at the Khmer Rouge settlement together, but they soon found themselves split up on a regular basis to perform farm-related chores. At 9, Ung was sent to work in a stable along with several other boys. An older Khmer Rouge man ended up taking care of Ung, who began to refer to him as grandpa. In 1977, the Khmer Rouge decided to 'disassemble' the April 17 families. Big trucks came to Swi-masour and took away all but three of the families. Ung later found out that the people who left in the trucks had been dumped alive into deep wells, and left to die. Luckily, Ung's family was one of those that remained.

Living conditions worsened, however, for the Ung children. "We were starving. We ate corn stalks and potato leaves, even though they are not edible and made us very sick. We just wanted something in our stomachs." Ung recalled that he even heard tales of some families eating their children to stay alive.

Half-starved, the Ung siblings were spared once again when the Khmer Rouge swept through the village again, Killing the remaining "April 17 families. It was then that the Khmer Rouge decided to draft Ung, then 12, into their army. He escaped three times. The first escape was with a 15-year-old boy named Leng who had told Ung that the "17 April" boys were being sacrificed on the front lines. Ung and Leng hid in the waters or treetops of the jungle, eating leaves and bugs, until recaptured. The Khmer Rouge taught him to crawl, leap in trees, use a machine gun and throw a grenade. His job, at 13 years old, was to guard a bridge from midnight to 6 a.m.

On guard duty in 1979, Ung first heard news over the radio that the Vietnamese had taken Phnom Penh. He escaped the army for the third and final time and returned to his brothers and sisters. Within a week, Ung's family was back in the capital. During this time, they lived in an abandoned house. Later, they found their mother, whom they had not seen in 10 years, and reunited with her. Together the family decided to attempt to cross the border into Thailand to the refugee camps there. All but one family member made it through the war zone. Keang, who had taught Ung Judo, stayed behind with his new wife and baby.

It was while in the refugee camps that they discovered their oldest brother, Bou, had made it to America in 1976. They quickly contacted him in Clarksville, Indiana, and his Presbyterian Church sponsored the rest of the Ung family's journey to America. During the two years in refugee camps, Ung stared to learn English, and later became a Christian.

"I skipped English class to listen to a story about Noah and the Flood. I have had no doubt from the seond I heard this that I believed in God. I began to attend Bible school six days a week. The seventh day was church," Ung said.

Ung started high school a few months after arriving in Indiana, at age 15. He did not speak English very well, because he had chosen to attend church instead of the English classes while at the refugee camp. But, he graduated and then entered college at Indiana University in Bloomington, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1991. "It took me a while, but I didn't give up. School was tough, but not as tough as the Khmer Rouge experience," Ung said.

During college, Ung taught martial arts at the Boys Club in Bloominton, Ind. He also trained in Karate, Aikido, and became a certified black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

A brother's decision to relocate to Holland for employment prompted Ung, two sisters and his mother to move here. In 1991 he opened a martial arts school in Zeeland. With a rapidly increasing student enrollment, he moved his school to Holland. Now the owner of Ung's School of Marial Arts on S. Washington Ave, he tries to pass along his survival skills to the students he teaches.

"The idea behind teaching martial arts is to help people realize how special they are, to help bring out the best in them, and to use common sense before self-defense," Ung said. "I teach others to have confidence, that there is no such thing as a mistake or failure. Everything just adds experience. Surviving is winning. Going back to my life experience, I learned that you cannot wait for things to happen — if I had waited then, I'd have been dead."