A US military officer who fled Vietnam as a boy and was picked up by an American ship will soon visit the country in command of a destroyer, the US Navy has announced.
Born in the Vietnamese city of Hue, Commander Hung Ba Le and his family were picked up at sea in 1975 by a US naval ship in the closing days of the Vietnam war, the Navy said on its Web site.
His family settled in Virginia and he later became a US citizen, graduating in 1992 from the US Naval Academy, before embarking on his climb up the career ladder.
He is due to return to Vietnam in November with his ship, the guided missile destroyer USS Lassen, on a goodwill visit, the Navy said.
“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 the Navy’s report.
“My memories of Vietnam are very few, yet I still feel very drawn to it, to its culture, and to its people,” he said.
It will be Le’s first visit back to Vietnam since he was five years old — when his family joined the wave of refugees fleeing after the fall of Saigon.
Le called the visit “a symbol of the friendship between our two nations.”
The first Vietnamese-American to command a US naval ship, Le in April took over the helm of the USS Lassen, which is part of the US 7th Fleet based in Yokosuka, Japan.(AFP)
美國海軍宣佈，一位幼年逃離越南時，被美國船隻救起的美國軍官，不久後將以美軍驅逐艦艦長的身份訪問越南。
美國海軍在其網站上表示，海軍中校黎宏巴（音譯）出生於越南順化市，一九七五年越戰進入尾聲之際，他和他的家人在海上漂流時被一艘美國海軍艦艇救起。
他們家在維吉尼亞州安頓下來，他後來也取得美國公民身份，一九九二年畢業於美國海軍官校，隨後便平步青雲。
海軍表示，他預計於十一月隨導彈驅逐艦「拉森號」重返越南，進行友好訪問。
黎在海軍發佈的新聞中說：「對我個人而言，這將是個難以置信的經驗，自小離開越南後，這是我第一次重回出生地。」
他說：「我對越南的記憶很少，但對越南的文化和人民，我仍心嚮往之。」
這是黎自五歲之後第一次回到越南──當時西貢淪陷，他的家人淪為難民逃難。
黎稱這次訪問是「美越兩國友好的象徵」。
今年四月接掌美軍軍艦拉森號的黎，是首位統率美國海軍戰艦的越南裔美國人；拉森號隸屬於駐守日本橫須賀的美國第七艦隊。（法新社╱翻譯：袁星塵）
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