Commander Hung Ba Le

Hung Ba Le was five years old when he and his family left the country after the fall of the US-backed southern regime on a US naval ship.

Commander Hung Ba Le will be here on a goodwill visit on the guided missile destroyer USS Lassen with nearly 300 crew members.

“This will be an incredible experience for me personally, to return to the land of my birth for the first time since I was a child,” Le said in a report on the US Navy’s website.

Le’s family settled in Virginia and he became a US citizen in 1985. He graduated with merit from the US Naval Academy in 1992 and became the first Vietnamese-American to command a US naval ship in April, assuming control of the USS Lassen, which is part of the 7th Fleet based in Yokosuka, Japan.

“My memories of Vietnam are very few, yet I still feel very drawn to it, to its culture, and to its people,” Le said.

“My crew and I are proud to be able to represent our country to the people of Vietnam,” he said. “This visit is a symbol of the friendship between our two nations, and we are deeply honored to be a part of it.”

The precise location and dates of USS Lassen’s visit will be announced later, the Navy said.

Source: Thanh Nien