A naval captain turned Senate candidate claims he bears the scars of being “exploited” in combat, but his service record calls this into question.
Hung Cao, 52, is running to unseat Tim Kaine, a Democrat, in the Virginia Senate race after claiming victory in the Republican primary.
Much of his campaign is based on his status as a war hero, claiming that he faced so much enemy fire in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia that he is disabled.
“I’m 100 percent disabled just from being blown up in combat so many times and everything else, you know, knees, shoulders,” he said on April 22, 2022, during an unsuccessful run for Congress.
“I have more surgeries than you can imagine.”
Hung Cao, 52, is running to unseat Tim Kaine, a Democrat, in the Virginia Senate race after claiming victory in the Republican primary.
Cao is endorsed by Donald Trump for the Senate and spouts much of the same rhetoric as the former president.
Cao frequently claimed that he had horrible scars from his naval career, as a direct result of having been in combat, and that this made him a better man than the career politician Kaine.
‘Are you telling me that your air-conditioned office, where the worst thing that can happen to you is getting a paper cut, is the same as me, you know, getting blown up and shot in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia?’ he said on a podcast last week.
However, Cao’s military records do not show that he received the Purple Heart for being wounded or injured in combat, according to USA Today.
They also do not display a Navy Combat Action Ribbon, awarded for “presenting satisfactory performance under enemy fire while actively engaged in ground or surface combat.”
He has never claimed to have won either medal.
Cao has a Bronze Star, which is awarded for heroic or meritorious actions, but the U.S. Navy said there was no citation attached to explain what he did to earn it.
Cao (pictured with his son, who also joined the military) retired with the rank of captain in 2021 after a 25-year career.
Cao frequently claimed that he had horrible scars from his naval career, as a direct result of being in combat.
He retired with the rank of captain in 2021 after his 25-year career as a “special operations explosive ordnance disposal/diving officer.”
Four retired U.S. Army and Navy doctors reviewed Cao’s record and told USA Today that a severely wounded sailor, as Cao claimed to be, should not be awarded the Purple Heart or the Combat Action Ribbon.
Cao did not respond well to questions about his military record and falsely claimed that “the left-wing media” was in cahoots with Kaine to make him look bad.
“I want to give everyone a taste of what it’s like to be a war veteran who had the nerve to run for public office against a career politician,” he wrote in a long speech on Facebook.
‘Any veteran will read this with the same disgust. Imagine being asked to provide documentation of the dates and times you were shot by Al Qaeda.
‘Imagine being asked, if you’re a disabled veteran, why don’t you have a Purple Heart?’
Cao later claimed that anyone who questioned him “hates our military and veterans.” There is no other explanation for his behavior.
Much of his campaign is based on his status as a war hero, claiming that he faced so much enemy fire in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia that he is disabled.
Cao joined the Naval Academy after graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.
His campaign said only that Cao was a retired navy captain with 25 years of “honorable service to his country.”
“His service is a matter of public record under his DD 214, as is the case with any retired member of our armed forces,” it said of his service history.
The US Naval Submarine Museum offered a summary of Cao’s experience in 2021 when he was chief of the J3X branch at the Pentagon, shortly before his retirement.
“Captain Cao has distinguished himself in his Navy career, qualifying as an explosive ordnance disposal officer and diving officer,” it said.
‘As an EOD officer, he was deployed several times to Iraq to evaluate IEDs and recommend countermeasures.
‘From 2013 to 2016 he commanded the Naval Diving and Rescue Training Center.’
The US Naval Submarine Museum summarized Cao’s experience in 2021, using this photo, when he was head of the J3X branch at the Pentagon, shortly before his retirement.
Cao talks about his military background in this campaign video
Cao fled Vietnam with his family when he was four years old 14 hours before the fall of Saigon at the end of the war.
They escaped to West Africa, where they lived for seven years while their father worked for an American international development agency, securing their passage to the United States.
Cao then joined the Naval Academy after graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.
He also earned a master’s degree in physics and attended fellowships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
He lives in Purcellville, Northern Virginia, with his wife April and their five children.
Cao fled Vietnam with his family when he was four years old 14 hours before the fall of Saigon at the end of the war.
Cao is endorsed by Donald Trump for the Senate and spouts much of the same rhetoric as the former president.
‘We are losing our country. You know it. But you also know that you can’t say it. We are forced to say that wrong is right,” he stated last July.
Kaine, who was Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential running mate in 2016, has held public office for nearly three decades.
He served as mayor of Richmond and later as lieutenant governor and governor of Virginia. He was first elected to the Senate in 2012 and handily defeated a far-right rival in 2018.
The Virginia Senate race is one of a handful of key races that will decide who will have the majority in the upper chamber over the next two years.