Lowell Bruce Laingen (Bruce Laingen) was born in 1922 on a small farm near Odin Township and Butterfield in southern Minnesota in Watonwan County. He is married to Penelope "Penne" Laingen (Penelope Lippitt Babcock), the founder of the yellow ribbon movement. These yellow ribbons are still used today to show support for U.S. troops. Bruce and Penne have three sons: Bill, Chip, and Jim. His mother was Mabel Eng, who taught the Holly Township district number 6 class. He had a brother, Kenneth Laingen, and a sister. His brother was killed in a farming accident in the 1960s or 1970s.

Laingen went to Butterfield High School, and St. Olaf College from 1940-1943, graduating in 1947 after serving in the Navy during World War II from 1943-1946. He went to the University of Minnesota from 1946-1948, earning a masters degree in international relations. In 1949 he took night classes at American University.

Laingen saw three and a half years of active service during World War II from 1943-1946 in the Philippines campaign. He saw combat in the invasion of Luzon at Lingayen Gulf in January, 1945 at 22 years of age. During his naval career he served as a supply and disbursing officer for a group of landing craft that were used in beach invasions during the war. He received his officer training at Wellesley College in 1943, and general Naval training at the University of Dubuque in Iowa from July to November of 1943. One of his shipmates in training was William Laird, who would later become secretary of defense. After World War II Laingen finished at St. Olaf College, graduating in 1947.

After graduating from St. Olaf College Laingen went to the University of Minnesota from 1946-1948, where he became a charter member of Student Project for Amity Among Nations and went abroad to Sweden and Norway.

Laingen applied to the Foreign Service for the first time in 1947 and after a few tries, passed the application exams in 1949. He would go on to have a 38 year foreign service career, from late 1949 to 1987. In 1949 he trained as a junior officer at the Foreign Service Institute and was assigned on February, 21 1950 to Frankfurt, Germany, where he worked on the Displaced Persons Program.

When the program ended, his next assignment was in Hamburg, Germany from 1951-1953. In 1953 he received assignment orders for Kobe, Japan but they were cancelled at the last moment and instead he was assigned to Tehran, Iran on October 7, 1953 as an economic officer. He was at this position for a year, and was assigned to Meshed, Iran on September 24, 1954 as the acting principal officer. In 1955 he returned to Tehran as an economic officer. In 1956 he was the assistant officer to the Greek desk in Washington, D.C. He went on a three-week tour of Greece in 1957. From 1960-1965 he was stationed at Karachi, Pakistan, with home leave in 1962.

Laingen was on assignment in Washington, D.C. from 1965-1968 and attended the National War College from 1966-1968, graduating in 1968. From 1968-1974 he was in Kabul, Afghanistan on assignment. From 1975-1977 he was on assignment as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of European Affairs in Washington, D.C. He became the Ambassador to Malta in 1977 and served in this capacity until 1979, when he received orders to return to Tehran, Iran as Charge d'Affaires.

In 1979, as the U.S. Charge d'Affaires to Iran, he was taken hostage along with 52 other Americans by student militants protesting the current government and Iran's relations with the United States. He was held hostage from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, a total of 444 days. As the senior U.S. official held hostage, Laingen tried to influence the situation and to improve conditions for his fellow hostages. He appealed to both the United States and to Iranian government officials to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and to improve the health of his fellow hostages. While a hostage he kept a journal and notes that would later be used in various reports and papers on the crisis and U.S.-Iranian relationships. He also wrote numerous letters and received lots of correspondence from the American public including letters from school children.

After the hostage release, Bruce Laingen became the vice president of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. in 1982 and was the executive director of the Volcker Commission (officially the National Commission on Public Service) from 1987 until 1990, when the Commission finished its assignment. He was also President of the American Academy of Diplomacy from 1991-2006.

Laingen has served on the boards of No Greater Love, A Presidential Classroom for Young Americans, the Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, and the National Defense University Foundation. In 1998 Laingen held the Sol Linowitz Chair in International Relations at Hamilton College in New York, where he taught a seminar on the Iranian Revolution in the fall semester.

He holds the Award for Valor from the U.S. Department of State, the Distinguished Public Service Medal from the Department of Defense, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from St. Olaf College, the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement, a Presidential Meritorious Award, and the Foreign Service Cup.

He is the author of "Yellow Ribbon: The Secret Journal of Bruce Laingen" published in 1992.