As America celebrates its 250th birthday, I find myself reflecting on a simple question: What does it mean to be an American? For me, the answer begins not on American soil, but in the middle of the South China Sea. 

In May 1975, just weeks after the fall of Saigon, my parents fled Vietnam with five young children. My father had served in the South Vietnamese military alongside U.S. forces during the war. Like many others, he faced a terrible choice: Stay and fight, risking imprisonment or worse, or leave everything behind in search of freedom. 

My family chose freedom. 

Packed aboard an overcrowded fishing boat with limited food and water, they drifted at sea for four days. Eventually, a U.S. military vessel rescued them. Shortly thereafter, my mother gave birth to me. I was named Asan after Camp Asan, Guam, the refugee processing center where our journey to the United States of America began. 

Fifty-one years later, I now serve as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force as the director for cyberspace and technology at Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command. I have had the honor to serve alongside warriors from all branches: as a flight commander within the 920th Rescue Wing, Patrick Space Force Base, Florida; and then as the commander for the Mission Support Group in the 927th Air Refueling Wing, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. I’ve deployed seven times to the Middle East in........

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