Ngô Quang Trưởng (13 December 1929 — 22 January 2007) was an officer in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Trưởng gained his commission in the Vietnamese National Army in 1954 and moved up the ranks over the next decade, mostly in the Airborne Brigade. In 1966, Trưởng commanded a division for the first time after he was given command of the 1st Division after helping to quell the Buddhist Uprising. He rebuilt the unit after this divisive period and used it to repel the communists and reclaimed the imperial citadel of Huế after weeks of bitter street fighting during the Tết Offensive. In 1970, Trưởng was given command of IV Corps in the Mekong Delta and improved the situation there to such an extent that he allowed some of his forces to be redeployed to other parts of the country that were finding the communist pressure difficult. In 1972, he was made the commander of I Corps after incompetent leadership by General Hoàng Xuân Lãm resulted in a South Vietnamese collapse in the face of the Easter Offensive, a massive conventional invasion by North Vietnam. He stabilized the ARVN forces before turning back the communists. In 1975, the communists attacked again. This time, President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu gave contradictory orders to Trưởng as to whether he should stand and fight or give up some territory and consolidate. This led to the demoralization of I Corps and its collapse, allowing the communists to gather momentum and overrun South Vietnam within two months. Trưởng fled South Vietnam during the fall of Saigon and settled in Virginia in the United States. Early years and military beginnings Trưởng was born in 1929 to a wealthy family in the Mekong Delta province of Kiến Hòa (now Bến Tre Province). At the time, Vietnam was part of French Indochina. After graduating from Mỹ Tho College, a French colonial-run school in the Mekong Delta provincial town of Mỹ Tho, Trưởng attended the reserve officer school at Thủ Đức in Saigon, and was commissioned as an infantry officer in the Vietnamese National Army in 1954. Upon graduation from Thủ Đức, Trưởng went immediately on to airborne school at the Command and Staff School of the Vietnamese National Military Academy at Đà Lạt. He served in the elite airborne brigade the next 12 years. His first posting was as commander of 1st Company, 5th Airborne Battalion.