Joseph Nguyen Van Do was 1 of 8 children born on March 19, 1948, in Ha Dong district of Hanoi. In 1954, at the end of French colonialism and when Vietnam was divided into North and South Vietnam, the family moved and settled in Saigon, South Vietnam.
In 1967, he became a police officer. By 1970, he joined the South Vietnamese army and served until the fall of Saigon and end of the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975. He immigrated to the United States after the war and lived in Olympia. He worked at the Centralia Mining Company as a welder until his retirement.
