PHAM-QUANG

FIRST  VIETNAMESE  AMERICAN  MARINE  CORPS  AVIATOR

Quang Pham was born in Saigon, South Vietnam, and was evacuated from Vietnam to the U.S. in 1975.  Following graduation from UCLA he joined the Marine Corps and became the second Vietnamese American to complete Marine Officer Candidate School, and the first Vietnamese American to earn naval aviator’s wings in the Marine Corps.  He served 7-years of active duty, including co-piloting CH-46 helicopter MedEvac missions in the Persian Gulf War, and then spent 8-years in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Excerpts from article published in AARP Bulletin in October 2022:

I had just finished the fifth grade when Saigon fell in 1975.  Me, my three sisters, and my mother were on the second evacuation flight but my father, a lieutenant colonel in the South Vietnamese Air Force remained behind and became a military prisoner.  My father was my hero, and I had dreams of becoming a military pilot like him.  At UCLA I saw a Marine recruiter who asked if I would like to go to Officer Candidate School.  I had just become an American citizen, but I had never seen an Asian American in the U.S. military.  I went through the school in 1986 in Quantico.  There were a lot of racial slurs, but there was no way I was not going to make it through.  I went to flight school, did well, and got to my squadron in 1990 as the Gulf War kicked off.  I was copilot aboard a Sea Knight helicopter, and I volunteered to go.  I was the second youngest pilot as far as experience and we flew the first medical evacuation out of Kuwait airport on February 27, 1991.

As I was getting ready for my second deployment, my father finally arrived in America.  The last time I had seen him, in 1975, he was wearing a flight suit.  Now, in May 1992, here he was in California, a free man.  I was a Marine pilot.  We were united and my life had come full circle.  I spent three very special days with him.  Then I went back to the Persian Gulf and later to Mogadishu, Somalia.  The whole time, people did not understand why I was so driven to serve and how proud I was to be a Marine.  It was a sense of duty.  The country gave me an opportunity, and it was my way to pay it back.  As a kid, I dreamed of following in my father’s footsteps – to become a military pilot.  I never imagined that America would trust me to fly U.S. Marines off a ship at night.  It was a tremendous experience and a way to honor my father and his sacrifice.  He died in 2000.  People ask me if I would do it again.  Yes --  without a doubt.