American Tragedy : Survivor of 2 Wars Buried After He Is Shot Down on City Street

Va Lee was a Hmong born in a Southeast Asian village. Hecame to the United States as a child, arriving with his family, whose men had been fierce warriors in their native Laos, fighting as the CIA’s secret army against communist forces.

Two weeks after graduating from Kearny High School in 1987, Lee enlisted in the Marine Corps. He survived unscathed the pitched battle for Kuwait International Airport during the Persian Gulf War. Now 22, he was looking forward to the end of his four-year enlistment this Friday.

Instead, Lee was buried Monday under gray, overcast skies, four days after he was gunned down in East San Diego, an innocent victim of street violence.

Police investigators said six unidentified persons, possibly Asian gang members, calmly stood across the street and fired more than 30 shots at Lee and a group of young people who were attending a birthday party.

Lee, who was at the party with several of his brothers and friends, was shot once in the back. The bullet punctured his heart, and he died about 30 minutes later at Mercy Hospital. Koua Moua, 16, was wounded in the back and neck and is in serious condition at the same hospital.

Sadly, Lee’s violent death has become an all too common occurrence among returning Operation Desert Storm veterans. He was one of at least four servicemen who survived the Persian Gulf War only to be gunned down on the streets of American cities upon their return home.

Although Lee’s killers are suspected gang members, homicide Lt. Paul Ybarrando said that Lee was not. The gunmen are still at large, and investigators have no suspects, Ybarrando said.

Police believe the shooting was prompted by a territorial dispute. The party, which was held in the City Heights section of East San Diego, was attended by several young people, mostly Hmongs, from Linda Vista.

On Monday, about 300 members of San Diego’s close-knit Hmong community gathered at Lee’s funeral at Greenwood Memorial Park to console his grieving parents and surviving 11 brothers and sisters.

Va’s older brother, Xue, remembered Va as a quiet and caring person.

“My brother was a very quiet kid. . . . He hardly talked. That’s why he didn’t have a girlfriend,” Xue said.

The family is still in shock over Va’s death, Xue added.

“He was very humble and never had any enemies or arguments with anybody. He gave you whatever you wanted. My brother was very gentle. Everybody loved and cared for him. I want the police to look very hard for the people who killed him,” Xue said.

“I want to ask them (gunmen) why they want to shoot innocent people in the street. Was it for fun, or did somebody pay them to do that? That’s what I want to know,” he added.

Lor Lee, 47, and his wife, Shing, 37, were vainly trying to hold back their tears, as they clutched a picture of their dead son in his Marine uniform while sitting next to his grave. The couple were unable to keep their emotions in check and broke down when Marine Lt. Phil Simmons presented them with the U.S. flag that covered their son’s oak casket.

“Cpl. Lee was a fine Marine. He served his nation in time of peace and in time of war. He served courageously under fire. . . . It was a tragedy that he was gunned down the way he was,” Simmons told the mourners.

Lee, who earned a combat action ribbon while serving as a member of the weapons platoon, B Co., 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. The regiment, an element of the 1st Marine Division, returned to Camp Pendleton from the Persian Gulf on April 8.

His son’s death was a particularly bitter blow to the elder Lee. Like thousands of other anxious American parents who had sons or daughters serving in Operation Desert Shield/Storm, Lor Lee spent much of his time during the Persian Gulf War fixated on his television set, wondering and worrying about his son.

Lor Lee had good reason for being concerned. Before immigrating to the United States with other persecuted Hmongs, he served as a lieutenant in the CIA’s secret army against communist forces in Laos and was wounded in action. The Hmongs’ loyalty to their U.S. military advisers was legendary. Experts estimated that 30,000 Hmong, out of a population of about 300,000, died during the time the U.S. was involved in the Vietnam War.

Hmong warriors fought in the jungles of Indochina for almost 30 years straight, from 1945 to 1975, with the French Army, Laotian Army and later for the CIA. In past wars that involved the Hmong, it was not unusual for father and son to fight together in the same unit.

The horror of war was very real and personal for Lor Lee, but he was also proud that his son was serving his adopted country.

One evening in February, while watching an air attack against Baghdad on CNN, an anxious Lor Lee asked a visitor to his family’s modest but tidy Linda Vista apartment if the Marine Corps would allow him to change places with his son, whose unit was getting ready to invade Kuwait.

If the Marines would not allow him to change roles with his son, perhaps they would allow him to fight side by side with him, said the old warrior.

“If they think that I am too old to fight, perhaps they will let me help my son and the other Marines by bringing them ammunition or water. If I am near Va, I can protect him,” said the worried father.

After the military ceremony on Monday, the family opened Va Lee’s casket as dozens of mourners filed by and viewed his body for the last time. Then, in Hmong tradition, family members began cutting the brass buttons from his dress uniform and removing other inorganic items from his body.

It is a Hmong custom to remove items that do not decompose naturally from a body before burial.

Lor and Vang Lee stood next to their son’s casket, surrounded by friends and relatives who attempted to soften the couple’s hurt.

“Even with all these people around him,” a mourner said, “Lor Lee is right now a very lonely man.”