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GREENSBORO - They call him teacher, as in "TEEECH-er."

Three mornings a week, Eugene Washington stands in a church classroom and tells his students about Patrick Henry, Richard Burr and the symbolism behind the American flag.

But that's not all. He drives them to the dentist, the doctor and the DSS for food stamps. He drives them to and from class. And he drives them to Charlotte so they can try one more time to pass a test so they can become American citizens.

Washington's students? Montagnards, refugees from the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

In the past two years, at least 19 of his students have passed. Others have failed. Of those failures, many are elderly.

They grew up in a culture where education never took a front-row seat, and they get dizzy with our American maze of facts and language.

So, three mornings a week, Washington teaches for the test. He drills them over and over and over on what questions to expect, what facts to know, what tricks to foresee.

Many of his students are 65 and older. They are farmers and fathers, mothers and soldiers. Some fought in the Vietnam War, acting as interpreters for American soldiers and helping protect them from the enemy, the Viet Cong.

They want their citizenship so they can become a part of the American way. They want to vote and continue to receive Social Security - more than $600 a month - to buy food and pay the bills.

Here's a confounding twist: After seven years in America, their Social Security payments dry up - unless they become American citizens. But elderly Montagnards can't apply for citizenship for the first five years here.

That's where Washington comes in.

This 50-year-old from small-town North Carolina, an N.C. A&T grad, once earned nearly $49,000 a year as an operations manager in a local furniture component company.

He gave it up to become the Montagnards' teacher. And he makes nothing.

Why?

All because of a bullet.

It was a Friday five years ago when he drove into his apartment's parking lot and saw his roommate, a Montagnard named Yjhue Mlo who he had met at work in 1992. Walking around in only his briefs, Mlo was waving Washington's 9 mm pistol in front of a few kids across the street.

Washington knew Mlo was off his medication, in the grips of an epileptic seizure. Somehow, Mlo had pried the pistol out of a locked box.

"Get out!" Washington yelled to the kids from his gold Grand Am as he blew the horn.

Mlo stumbled toward the car and smashed the window. The gun went off. Washington felt a sting in his right side, and as the wailing sirens got closer, he kept thinking to himself, "If I don't get the gun out of his hand, the police are going to kill him!''

Bleeding and hurt, Washington managed to grab the gun and throw it. Then, as he watched his roommate, his friend, get carted away in handcuffs, he yelled to the police: "Take care of him! Don't hurt him!"

Three months later, after 15 days in the hospital and $42,560 in medical bills, Washington wrote a letter to the prosecutor and approached a judge in a Greensboro courtroom. He wanted the felony assault charge dismissed.

The judge didn't. He reduced it to a misdemeanor assault charge. Mlo had already spent 62 days in a jail cell. The judge released him into Washington's custody.

"Mr. Washington," the judge told him, "as long as I've been a judge, this is not something I've been asked to do."

Washington, one of 12 siblings, a farmer's son from Maxton, didn't have the desire to go back to work. He had the desire to help the Montagnards, people who taught him graciousness and respect.

Before the shooting, they were his friends. After the shooting, they were his students. Including Mlo. They're still roommates. Washington started teaching three years ago. Now, those students have become his family, part of who he is.

So three mornings a week, he teaches. And at least once a month, he drives them to Charlotte to see if his teaching has worked.

If so, great. If not, that's fine, too.

"Teacher, I'm so sad," they tell him when they fail. "I didn't win."

"It's not a matter of winning or losing," Washington responds. "You win because you participated. You didn't lose. You tried. And I'm not walking away. I'm there for you."

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com