Early Life
Vang Pao was born on December 8, 1929, in a Hmong village named Nonghet, located in Central Xiangkhuang Province, in the northeastern region of Laos, where his father, Neng Chu Vang, was a county leader. He began his early life as a farmer until Japanese forces invaded and occupied French Indochina in World War II. His father sent him away to school from the age of 10 to 15 before he launched his military career, joining the French Military to protect fellow Hmong during the Japanese invasion.
When Vang Pao was taking an entrance examination, the captain who was the proctor realized that Vang Pao knew almost no written French. The captain dictated the answers to Vang so that he could join the army. Vang Pao insisted that the captain told him the answers, and that the captain did not actually guide his hand on the paper. Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, said that Vang Pao did not express any embarrassment for his cheating. Fadiman added that "it is worth noting that in this incident, far from tarnishing Vang Pao's reputation—as, for example Ted Kennedy's fudged Spanish exam at Harvard tarnished his—merely added to his mythology: this was the sort of man who could never be held back by such petty impediments as rules."
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