Major Vang Kai Yang
SGU Veteran
Blaine, MN
File No.: 32/50
June 2024

Vang Kai Yang was born in 1943 in Mouang Nga, Xieng Khouang Province, Laos. His country was still under French colonial control until its independence in 1953. By 1960, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) began sending troops to Laos. Then Yang joined the civilian militia Auto Defense de Choc (ADC) in his hometown to resist the NVA invasions. He was receiving 800 kip per month as an ADC soldier. Soon, he and his peers from his town were recruited as Special Guerrilla Units soldiers, who were trained and paid by the CIA. Yang was eventually promoted as company commander and spent most of his life on the battlefields. Throughout the war, he lost relatives and friends to the NVA. By early 1975, the Secret War was ending, and the communist Pathet Lao and NVA seized the country. Yang and his family were forced into hiding remotely to avoid war persecution. They exited Laos in 1978 to the Refugee Camp Ban Vinai in Thailand. In 1987, they departed Southeast Asia to California before coming to Minnesota. ∆

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