Veteran Action released an ad encouraging voters to urge their senators to confirm current Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao as Secretary of the Navy.

The organization “advocates for America First policies that strengthen national security and provide unwavering support” to United States veterans, according to its website.

“As a boy, Hung Cao escaped communist Vietnam with his family,” the ad, which was provided exclusively to Breitbart News, begins, quoting Cao as saying, “America saved my life.”

The ad continues, stating Cao “spent 25 years in Navy Special Operations as a Bomb Disposal Officer, diver, and parachutist, with combat tours in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. As Acting Secretary, he leads the fleet while America’s adversaries race to build naval power. Tell your senators to confirm Hung Cao as Secretary of the Navy.”

In a statement, Mark Lucas, the founder of Veteran Action, said, “Hung Cao is a proven warfighter who knows what it takes to win. China is expanding its navy at a rapid pace. Cao has the combat experience and leadership our Navy needs to stay ahead of that threat. Congress should pass his waiver and confirm him without delay.”

Cao and his family left Vietnam and came to the United States in 1975. After leaving and moving to West Africa, Cao returned to the United States several years later where he “graduated with the inaugural class of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology,” according to his biography on the United States Marine Corps website.

Cao went on to join the U.S. Navy “as a Seaman Recruit in 1989 and was later commissioned as a Special Operations Officer from the United States Naval Academy in 1996.”

The website continues:

As a Navy Diver, Cao led underwater missions around the world. As an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer, he led counter improvised threat missions for Special Warfare and Special Forces around the world with multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. In his final tour of duty, he led sensitive activities, exploitation, counter-messaging and counter-drone operations in support of the Geographic Combatant Commanders and Special Operations Command. He retired from active duty in October 2021 as a Captain.

In this May 27, 2015, photo, Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus, right, listens as Cmdr. Hung Cao, commanding officer of Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center (NDSTC) explains the daily training regimen that the students go through. NDSTC is the largest diving training facility in the world and is home of the military diver. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Fred Gray IV/Released)

In April, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced that former Secretary of the Navy John Phelan was leaving his role, and that Cao would be the “Acting Secretary of the Navy.”

In a post on X from September 1, Veteran Action said it supported Cao’s nomination to be Secretary of the Navy.

“Cao has a remarkable American story,” Veteran Action wrote. “His family escaped Saigon before the city fell to the Communists. He was four years old. Cao says America gave him a new life in the most generous country on earth. He spent his career paying it back.”