Myo Myint မျိုးမြင့် • A Tribute

John Gevers and Myo Myint in 2011.

Myo Myint February 10, 1962 to February 9, 2026

I met a force of a man on July 7, 2009 at 11:00 am. I was 44; Myo Myint ('mē-oh 'mē-int) was 47.

Our connection at the Community Refugee Center in Fort Wayne was to be a meet & greet and not much more. I was in the beginning phase of documenting the influx of refugees being resettled in Fort Wayne. They, like Myo Myint, were largely from Burma.

Three hours after our meet & greet started, I got out of my chair, stunned and out of breath —  and out of ink in my pen. Myo Myint had just told me in detail the tale of his life and why he was in the U.S. The stern, determined force of nature, now physically disabled, went on to become my righthand man as I gathered stories of many refugees who now call Fort Wayne home. In journalism lingo, Myo Myint willingly became my “fixer.”

I’m not going to retell in detail what already exists online about Myo Myint, the former soldier turned political activist who became a naturalized citizen in the country that provided him political refugee status. His life material is so deep that photographer/writer Nic Dunlop and HBO Documentary Films made a film about him. Colin Farrell narrates the compelling, excruciating “Burma Solder.”

Instead, I simply want to wax on a bit about how two similar aged men from far flung reaches of the earth came together and quickly became more like brothers from different mothers than a journalist/photographer from cradle-warmed Indiana (me) and a “fixer” from Burma who had seen a peck of trouble.

The connection I felt with Myo Myint was immediate. He was fiercely determined to tell the story of his people and his land and, at the same time, he was gentle, working through many emotions as he tried to make sense of a most difficult past and having to make a new home where it snowed and where he was a minority.

Many refugees come to America not knowing the English language. Myo Myint, though, had learned enough English before becoming a political refugee that he was able to start telling his story right away. This meant that he could also translate what other people from Burma were telling me as their own troubling stories from their homeland.

Many refugees come to America fully able bodied with easy movement – as I, too, was blessed to know from birth. Myo Myint, on the other hand, was adjusting to a new life in our land while missing a good chunk of his body. A mortar shell landed near him in war-torn Burma where he worked as an engineer in the military, disabling land mines. Those of us who can walk from A to B without thinking, or have both hands to manipulate our way through daily living, or can see well out of both eyes don’t know how good we have it. My new friend was disabled while disabling land mines. And yet, he still moved with grace and didn’t let infirmities get in the way of accomplishing his important work.

After the miracle that was his survival and long recovery, he realized that he was on the wrong side of the Burma conflict and became an advocate for democracy in his ravaged homeland governed by an autocratic military junta. His endeavor to bring democracy to Burma got him 15 years in prison during which the junta further destroyed him with unspeakable torture. He eventually managed to escape to a camp in Thailand before gaining political refugee status in the U.S.

A movie hasn’t been made about my life. However, if you’ve ever read “The Best Little Boy in the World” by Andrew Tobias, you know something about my young life. In sum: a (gay) baby boy is born a bit early but grows up healthy, with two adoring parents in 1960s Indiana and two mostly adoring older siblings. Like Myo Myint, John gets a fine education, learning German as a second language, not Burmese. Although not totally harmonious years in the States during the 60s and 70s, John is of majority skin color and religion and there are no real political issues of life and death consequence, unless you count diving-under-school-desk drills in the event of nuclear disaster.

Like Myo Myint, John learned to love literature and writing. Both men learned to communicate their way into the hearts of others. Both learned at a young age to care for, and about, fellow human beings. Both grew convictions and did the things needed to live a good life and live out those convictions.

And then both life paths diverged dramatically — not caused by anything other than where the Universe had born each of us. I’ve often thought in recent years, what if I had been born in Ukraine? I consider myself exceedingly lucky to have been born during a fairly stable time in a safe country. We should all pause and reflect on this and conjure an immense amount of gratitude if you, too, enjoyed a childhood and young adulthood in a free, stable country. We need to do all we can to keep the U.S.A. this way for us and for generations to come.

Myo Myint worked tirelessly after coming to his country of asylum to help others resettle. He also worked to help our native-born people to understand the newest residents’ plight and their will to coexist peacefully and contribute to their new host land. Myo Myint could have breathed a huge, well-earned sigh of relief and lived out the rest of his life only gardening and enjoying his dogs and the love and admiration of his adoring wife, Karen, and family. He did those things, for sure, but he also kept fighting for others and for his country.

And I’m sure he dreamed. I worried about the nightmares my friend-turned-brother likely suffered during REM dream time.

By birthright, I largely have pleasant dreams. By birthright, Myo Myint rarely did, I presume.

Myo Myint sometimes, not often, got tickled and a twinkle appeared in his eyes. I didn’t get to see it often, but I remember that each time I got a glimpse, I did wonder at his resilient human spirit after all his life had forced upon him. It was as if a divine spark was glinting in his eyes.

In my younger years, while I was off to college, working jobs and maneuvering my career while traveling the world for pleasure, my future friend and brother in Burma was having his body wrecked and then wracked with cruelty. I was laughing in those years; Myo Myint couldn’t.

To say that Myo Myint endured despite all odds is not to give enough credit to the immense hurdles he surmounted to be able to show a twinkle in his eyes even for brief moments at any point in his adult life. I don’t want to diminish a man who was naturally humble by calling him a hero of mine. Rather, I shall settle on the word “inspiration.”

Myo Myint inspires me to help others wherever and whenever I can, no matter ethnicity, religion, or class.

Myo Myint inspires me to not complain about what ails me or my personal plight.

Myo Myint inspires me to fight for justice and the health of our democracy.

Myo Myint inspires me to be kind and gentle.

Myo Myint inspires me to not suffer fools.

Myo Myint inspires me to be lighthearted whenever possible. Because if he could do it, even occasionally, so can I.

Fly free, Myo Myint. May you finally know true peace and easy rest. I know few souls who deserve it more.