CaliToday (05/11/2025): When Colonel Hung Cao whispered those words at Noi Bai Airport, it is said the autumn wind itself paused, as if to listen.
“I came home.”
He did not say, "I am returning to Vietnam." He said, "I am coming home" (Về nhà). After 50 years, these two simple words, spoken by a man who once clung to an airplane to flee communism, landed with the weight of a lifetime. They were not the words of a tourist or a diplomat. They were the words of a long-lost son finally finding his hearth.
This is the spiritual portrait of Hung Cao's return a journey not measured in miles, but in the healing of decades.
The Philosophy of the Bridge
His message was a powerful, eloquent distillation of Eastern and Western philosophy.
“To build bridges” is a profound act of connection. It is a vow to span the voids that time, war, and politics have carved.
A bridge between America and Vietnam.
A bridge between the overseas diaspora and the homeland.
A bridge between a past of anguish and a future of hope.
“Not walls” is a deliberate act of rejection. It is the refusal to entertain hatred, to perpetuate the bitter, festering division of "winner versus loser" (bên thắng – bên thua). Cao’s statement understands what walls truly are: monuments to fear that only serve to imprison those who build them.
As the philosophy holds: bridges are built to connect human hearts; walls are built only to hold the wind.
The Heart of a Patriot, The Blood of a Fatherland
This homecoming is not merely a sentimental journey; it is a strategic one. Colonel Hung Cao is, by his own definition, an American who has served his adopted country with his whole heart. And yet, in his veins still flows the ancient blood of Lạc Việt.
He did not return to show off a uniform. He did not return to settle old scores or seek revenge.
He returned to build. He returned to make the U.S.-Vietnam relationship more than just a diplomatic handshake, but a deeply interwoven partnership. This "bridge" has a very real, tangible form: $430 million in cooperation, a strategic investment designed to forge a steel shield against the expansionist hand of Communist China.
His journey provides the shortest, most meaningful answer to the complex geopolitics of the region: America is the ally; Vietnam is the fatherland. Two shores, once separated by an ocean of pain, now require one steadfast bridge to stand united against a common threat.
The refugee boy who fled 50 years ago is gone. In his place stands a leader, a patriot, and a protector. His voice, speaking fluent Vietnamese, echoes the unspoken creed of two million overseas Vietnamese:
“We are no longer fleeing. We are returning to protect.”
Thế Anh
CaliToday.Net