IN 1975 Hung Ba Lee was only 5 when he fled Vietnam in a fishing boat piloted by his father, a commander in the South Vietnamese Navy and the rest of his family and 400 other refugess. They were rescued at sea by the US navy, taken to a U.S. base in the Philippines, then a refugee camp in California and finally to Virginia where the family rebuilt their lives.
Last week, Le returned to Vietnam as commander of a Navy warship.
Unique homecoming to Vietnam for US commander.
Le returned on the Lassen, an $800 million, 509-foot destroyer equipped with Tomahawk missiles and a crew of 300. The ship and the USS Blue Ridge, the command vessel for the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet, are making the latest in a series of goodwill visits to Vietnam, which began in 2003 when the USS Vandergriff paid a port call to Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon.
"I thought that one day I would return but I really didn't expect to be returning as the commander of a Navy warship," Le said after stepping ashore Saturday. "It's an incredible personal honor."
"I'm proud to be an American, but I'm also very proud of my Vietnamese heritage," said Le, who spoke a few halting words in Vietnamese.
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Le has few memories of his three-day journey on the fishing trawler, which ended just as they were running out of food, water and fuel.
But he has vivid memories of the example set by his father, Thong Ba Le, who is now 69 and has never returned to Vietnam. After the family settled in northern Virginia, he took a job in a supermarket, where he worked his way up from bag boy to manager.
"I always wanted to be like my dad," Le said. "He persevered and overcame many challenges."