Death
Vang Pao, who battled diabetes and heart problems, died aged 81 of pneumonia with heart complications on January 6, 2011, at Clovis Community Medical Center His eldest son, Chao Francois Vang, said he had been admitted to the hospital on December 26, 2010, after attending Hmong New Year celebrations in Fresno. A hospital spokesman said his family had been at the hospital at the time of his death.
Traditional Hmong funeral services for Vang Pao were scheduled to be held for six days, starting February 4, 2011, at the Fresno Convention Center. More than 10,000 Hmong mourned the leader on the first day of the funeral. A committee unanimously voted against a request to bury Vang Pao at Arlington National Cemetery; he was subsequently buried near Los Angeles at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. In lieu of a burial at Arlington a memorial service was held in May 2011 at the Laos Memorial within Arlington.
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Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“I’m afraid of needles.
I’m tired of rubber sheets and tubes.
I’m tired of faces that I don’t know
and now I think that death is starting.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Because you live, O Christ,
the spirit bird of hope is freed for flying,
our cages of despair no longer keep us closed and life-denying.
The stone has rolled away and death cannot imprison!
O sing this Easter Day, for Jesus Christ has risen!”
—Shirley Erena Murray (20th century)