Captain Vang Xiong
SGU Veteran
St. Paul, MN
File No.: 38/50
July 2024

Born in 1946, Vang Xiong was the 4th generation of his family to be born in Laos after his ancestors left China due to civil unrest. By the time Xiong attended school in 1961, the Secret War had already started. In 1964, he was recruited as a SGU soldier, and after military training he was placed at Zone 7B in Xieng Khouang Province. In an enemy encounter, Xiong was injured when a grenade exploded nearby. After he recovered, he went back to the frontlines. He provided ground support at the CIA airbase Long Cheng for the next 11 years, trying to prevent adversaries from encroaching on his home country. By 1975, the communists had seized Laos, and Xiong’s life was no longer safe. He and his family fled to Thailand. He stayed at Ban Vinai Refugee Camp for more than a decade, helping Hmong refugees from Laos to Thailand. He came to the US when the Thai government announced that all refugee centers throughout the country would be closed by the mid-1990s. ∆

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