Finding something that I found interesting

pknguyen44

USNA '13, NAPS '09
10-Year Member
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Nov 5, 2007
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I'm of Vietnamese decent. My dad earned a commission in the AF through this school (Class of 1970). I never knew South Vietnam had a military academy so I thought I'd share it here. It was part of the South Vietnamese military until its fall in 1975. It doesn't exist anymore because the communists turned it into a reeducation camp after the war. The Vietnamese called it Trường Võ Bị Quốc Gia Da Lat.

http://vnafmamn.com/dalat_military_academy.html
 
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Very interesting article! I liked the part "...appointment was based upon the results of a two-day competitive academic examination and a complete physical examination..." No long drawn-out process, they culled it to basics.

"At graduation cadets were assigned to the three services..." Can't imagine having to wait till graduation to find out not only your career path, but what branch you'd be in.

The last line amazed me though, that in 1970 they had a cadet (in his 2nd yr) be the "first Vietnamese to be accepted for entrance to the USMA, West Point." Wow. I'm curious if he went on to graduate, and what it was like for him there.

Were you able to share the article/pics with your dad? Kudos to him for serving and being a grad. Good stuff!
I love reading, especially historical tidbits, thanks for posting pknguyen.
 
We aren't the only country with Service Academies. South Korea has a Naval Academy (a Midshipman from which was my roommate my Plebe Year). England has Sandhurst. Cuba used to have a Naval Academy at Mariel. Russia had (and I imagine continues to have) its own. Etc., etc...

They are just as prestigious in their own countries as ours are here, if not moreso, but the roommate I mentioned above explained to me that the crowning glory (at least in the ROK at the time) was to achieve an appointment to one of the U.S. Service Academies. In his case, his commitment upon graduation was TWENTY years.

In other words, my old roomie is STILL on active duty in the ROK Navy, and STILL has three years left on his commitment. :eek:
 
Same deal for the 40 or so international cadets here at USAFA from those I've talked to (Singapore, Algeria, Lithuania, Costa Rica, and Belize).
 
When I found this, I told my dad about it and we sat on the computer for almost 2 hours looking at it. He retold stories of the training, academics, and life basically. He had somewhat of a reunion on April 30th of this year (the 33rd year since the fall of Saigon). It was neat to see all these grads talking about their time in the service.
 
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