From Vietnam to Afghanistan: A General Makes History

Viet Xuan Luong, the U.S. Army’s newest general, was nine years old when his family fled Vietnam in 1975 — the year the U.S. also withdrew.

Today, the combat-tested Luong pinned his first star in a ceremony at Fort Hood, Texas — the first Vietnamese-born general in the U.S. military.

It’s a certain historical marker, nearly 40 years from the date when the U.S. military airlifted the last Americans from Saigon, not to mention a historic personal achievement for one of that nation’s children — Luong was one of eight kids in a family outside of Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. His father served in the Vietnamese military and “was always away.”