A long life of triumphing against the odds

Next month, Elsie Seetoo, one of the estimated 20,000 Chinese-Americans who served in the US Army during World War II, will turn 99. And despite her age, some events from more than 70 years ago remain fresh in her memory.

"I was just finishing my final exams at the time when Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong were attacked on the morning of Dec 7, 1941 (Dec 8 in Hong Kong)," said Seetoo, speaking from a retirement home in Bowie, Maryland, where she has lived since the late 1990s.

The exams were part of her training as a nurse at a British hospital in Hong Kong.