By Michelle Tan, Army Times
Col. Viet Luong pinned on his first star during a ceremony Wednesday at Fort Hood, Texas, becoming the first Vietnamese-born general officer in the U.S. military.
Brig. Gen. Viet Luong’s family escaped Vietnam when he was 9, shortly before the fall of Saigon. He is the first Vietnamese-American general officer in the U.S. military’s history. (Army)
Luong, the 1st Cavalry Division’s deputy commanding general for maneuver, and his family escaped Vietnam in 1975 as political refugees. The infantry officer and 1987 graduate of the University of Southern California has commanded a battalion of 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers in Iraq and led the 101st Airborne Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, the storied Rakkasans, into combat in Afghanistan.
“It’s a personal honor for me to be promoted to the rank of general officer, but I don’t want the promotion to be too much about me,” Luong told Army Times. “It’s a tribute to my soldiers and [noncommissioned officers], the folks who’ve worked to get me where I am.”
Luong said he is grateful for the opportunities granted to him as a U.S. citizen.
“It’s a testament to what this nation stands for, and her ideals, and the opportunities my family has gotten,” he said.
Luong, the only son in a family of eight kids, was born right outside Saigon.
His father served in the Vietnamese Marine Corps, so “during a time of war, my dad was always away,” Luong said.
He was 2 during the 1968 Tet Offensive, one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War.
“I don’t remember much about it but images of explosions and bad things happening,” Luong said.
In 1975, when Luong was 9, his family escaped the chaos in Vietnam.
“My family made the escape the day before the fall of Saigon,” he said. “We barely escaped.”
They were taken to the USS Hancock, a now-decommissioned Navy aircraft carrier, and eventually to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, which was set up to receive refugees from Vietnam.
Read the full story Michelle Tan from Army Times.
