A U.S. Army veteran is preparing for his next tour of duty

From Laos to Kansas to California

Lo’s path to HKS started 8,500 miles away when he was a child in Laos, where his family fled the Secret War—a covert, U.S.-backed bombing campaign during the Vietnam War. His father was chief of a Hmong village that worked alongside U.S. Special Forces and CIA advisers to disrupt supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and rescue downed American pilots. 

When North Vietnamese forces learned what the villagers were doing, the Americans advised Lo’s father to head for Thailand with as many people as possible. The entire village left that night. 

“We started with about 800 people,” Lo recalls. “By the time we reached the Thai border, crossed the Mekong River, and arrived at the refugee camps, fewer than 600 of us were left.” 

He remembers being carried by his older brother and passing an elderly couple who could no longer make the journey. 

“The group built them a temporary shelter and left them behind while everyone else continued,” he says. “That was an early childhood trauma for me.”

Lo, his parents, and his siblings were in a Thai refugee camp where Catholic Charities helped resettle displaced families. They were among the first waves of Hmong refugees sent to the United States, arriving in Goodland, Kansas, in August 1976, where they lived with a Korean War veteran Lo called Grandpa Hill. Lo was about 6 years old when he started kindergarten at the local school. He didn’t speak English and his family was the only Asian one in the small, largely white town.

“But that was America to me,” he says. “It was an experience of being welcomed into a community.”

The family later moved to Denver and then Stockton, California, where Lo finished high school and went to University of California, Santa Barbara. His father, however, already had plans for him.

“My father told me that I would go into the military because we needed to repay this great country that had brought us here,” Lo says. “At that age, you didn’t argue with your parents.”

An evolution from debt to duty

Lo initially explored the U.S. Military Academy at West Point but ultimately commissioned through the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at University of California, Santa Barbara. He spent his 20-year military career as a military police officer, serving in the United States and overseas, in Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Germany, Italy, and Guatemala. His combat service in Iraq earned him the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. He was also recognized with the Legion of Merit.

Over time, his understanding of service evolved.

“I stopped seeing it as a debt and began to see it as my duty as a citizen,” he says.

This understanding is central to Lo’s family life. He and his wife—who was born in Vietnam and also came to the United States as a refugee—have passed that commitment to their four children.

“I’ve told them they don’t have to serve in the military as I did,” Lo says, “but they do have a responsibility as citizens of the United States.”

After retiring from the Army, Lo continued his public service as a federal civilian—most recently, as a senior industrial security representative with the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency in San Diego. His work involved protecting classified information across the defense industrial base. 

The role required him to wear “two hats.” As an auditor and quality-control inspector, he ensured that contractors with classified government contracts were safeguarding national security information. As a trainer, mentor, and coach, he helped companies understand and implement federal requirements.

“The government can’t do it alone,” Lo says. “We need our industrial capacity, which is one of our greatest strengths. It takes people like me and other industrial security representatives to make sure industry is complying with government protocols to protect national security secrets.”

Connecting implementation and policy

For Lo, his experiences on the ground reinforced an important lesson that policies are only as effective as the systems and people responsible for carrying them out. 

“Sometimes policymakers forget that, or they don’t receive honest feedback from the people responsible for implementation,” he says. “I’ve spent my career at the ground level, in the implementation phase,” he says. “There were times I was given policies and thought, ‘What were they thinking?’”

At HKS, Lo is studying leadership, negotiation, and national security policy with the goal of becoming a bridge between executive-level policy design and real-world execution—the ASF is helping him make that transition. Lo says his cohort is expanding his understanding of leadership beyond the military and government environments.

“Leadership isn’t only about accomplishing a mission,” he says. “You can lead by listening to people and to your community and by providing the resources and policies people need to make things happen.”

Lo has been listening intently to his classmates since the start of the Mid-Career Master in Public Administration (MC/MPA) Program and continues to be struck by their candor. 

“The majority of the ASF cohort—and the broader MC/MPA cohort—are genuine and willing to be vulnerable,” he says. 

For Lo, the fellowship is a form of validation: a signal that experienced public servants belong in policymaking spaces. The support gives them room to focus fully on learning and preparation.

“This time gives me the space to reflect on why I’m here, to pursue that purpose, and to prepare for the next level of service,” he explains. “The ASF has given me space because I’m not constantly balancing academic with financial responsibilities.”

Preparing for the next tour of duty

“In the military, we talk about the fog of war—once the first round is fired, everything can become uncertain,” Lo says. “But if you’re prepared, you’re better equipped to deal with that uncertainty.”

Lo hopes to use this year at HKS to prepare for a future role in the Senior Executive Service, where he can influence policy, lead programs, manage people and budgets, and remain accountable to the American people.

This is the opportunity that ASF—the “golden ticket”—represents for Lo. It’s not an escape from public service, but a way to continue it at a higher level. When he learned he’d been selected for the fellowship after being on the alternate list, the rarity of the opportunity made it meaningful.

And for public servants who are unsure whether HKS is the right place for them, Lo offers a direct invitation.

“I would say HKS is exactly where they belong,” he says. “I’m a Hmong refugee who went from the jungles of Laos to the wheat fields of Kansas and now walks the halls of Harvard Kennedy School. Where else but America could that happen?”

Lo’s life journey has taken him across continents and oceans, institutions and sectors. At HKS, he’s preparing for what comes next.

“This is not the end of my tour of duty,” he says. “It’s preparation for the next one.”

Portraits by Steph Stephens. Personal photos courtesy of Chuepheng “Ping” Lo MC/MPA 2027.