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Comment (DANANG, Vietnam —
On the day his side lost the Vietnam War, Hung Ba Le fled his homeland at the age of 5 in a fishing trawler crammed with 400 refugees. Thirty-four years later, he makes an unlikely homecoming - as the commander of a U.S. Navy destroyer.
Commander H.B. Le was scheduled Saturday to pilot the USS Lassen into Danang, home of China Beach, where U.S. troops frequently headed for R&R during the war, which ended on April 30, 1975, when the southern city of Saigon fell to communist troops from North Vietnam.
That was the day Le and his family embarked on an uncertain journey in a fishing boat piloted by Le's father, who was a commander in the South Vietnamese navy. They were rescued at sea by the USS Barbour County, taken to a U.S. base in the Philippines, a refugee camp in California and finally to northern Viriginia, where they rebuilt their lives.
Le will return on the Lassen, an $800,000 million, 509-foot, 9,145-ton destroyer equipped ...
