The CIA's Secret Army

In 1961, CIA officer Bill Lair of Texas sold the promise of Democracy to the mountain tribes of Laos. The CIA recruited, trained, and directed guerrilla forces comprised primarily of the Hmong people against the communist forces. They were America's "Secret Army" and were organized under the highest ranking Hmong in the royal Laos army, General Vang Pao. These allies unequivocally bore the brunt of the war in Laos; their casualties far outnumbered those suffered by Americans, who primarily served as pilots and which rained bombs upon areas given up to the advancing Soviet-backed communist army. Hmong casualties were so devastating that even boys were called to serve as infantry. The war raged on for a decade and while America coaxed the General Vang Pao to continue to fight, the CIA watched its Hmong allies be decimated. The USA quit the war in 1975 but the CIA never provided an adequate evacuation plan for their doomed comrades. The royal Lao family was quickly overthrown by the communist regime and perhaps 300,000 of America's former allies and their families were left behind to hide in the jungles. Shortly after the American withdrawal, the Communist party in Laos vowed to kill every last one of the "American collaborators... to the last root" and for three decades, the Laotian army has hunted the defeated American-allied Hmongs, whom have nowhere to flee and have been unable to reintegrate with mainstream Laotian society.

Image: General Vang Pao in the early 1960s