Hmong Veterans honored

APPLETON — SaiLee Thao took the microphone at Foster Elementary Charter School’s Veterans Day tribute Tuesday with a deep sense of pride. 

To be asked to represent Hmong veterans’ service to the American cause as soldiers in the “Secret Army” during the Vietnam War was a “great honor,” Thao said.

To command respect as a role model in front of three of his own children who attend Foster, and their Hmong-American schoolmates — 33 percent of the student body — well, that was priceless.

The Hmong sacrificed a great deal. As teacher, translator and emcee Anne Vang-Lo somberly noted, every Hmong person in the gym Tuesday had family members who fought and/or died in the Vietnam War.

Thao, coordinator of the Appleton Chapter 26 of the Wisconsin Lao Veterans of America, and five other Hmong vets followed members of VFW Post 2778 into the gym for the assembly that included patriotic songs and lessons in Veterans Day history and how Hmong vets enriched that history.

Both groups retired the colors together.

“Thank you for serving our country,” music teacher Colleen Perrine said as pupils, staff and visitors applauded all the vets, including Emmet Erdmann of Appleton, a Korean War veteran. “This is wonderful,” he said of the tribute. “I think it’s great.”

Foster’s celebration was just one of many Fox Valley salutes to veterans this week, many of them at schools.

Before Foster’s program, Thao said people are still surprised to learn of the significant role Hmong soldiers played in the Vietnam War.

Recruited by the CIA, these mountain tribesmen from Laos rescued downed American pilots and cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the enemy’s main supply route between North and South Vietnam. As many as 35,000 Hmong soldiers died in the war.

As U.S. allies, they faced persecution at the hands of the communist Vietcong afterward and many came here as refugees at U.S. invitation.

Thao, now 63, was 15 years old when he joined Gen. Vang Pao’s Secret Army in 1961.

“We did it because Laos was a war-torn country, and if you didn’t take up arms to protect your border and your people, you wouldn’t survive,” he said.

Thao led more than 100 soldiers entrusted with protecting an American air base in northwestern Laos, along with farmers and villagers living within a four-day’s walk.

He never imagined that fighting with Americans would lead him to the U.S., where Hmong children learn alongside American children and grow up to fight in U.S. wars alongside their peers. “We’re willing to let our children fight alongside other Americans to protect our country — our new home,” he said.

Fifth-grader Lucy Thao, 10, is proud of their father’s service. “He was like a leader and did good things,” she said. “My dad fought for our freedom and peace and so people wouldn’t be mean to each other.”

Source:  http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20081112/APC0101/811120505/1003/APC01