From the early 1960s through 1973, the U.S. was engaged in a secret way in Laos. While President Kennedy and Khrushchev signed accords in Geneva to ensure the neutrality of Laos, the accords were immediately violated by the North Vietnamese. The Ho Chi Minh Trail ran the length of Laos and was key to supplying their forces in South Vietnam and Cambodia. The government of Laos requested help and the result was a group of air force flyers who volunteered for a secret and dangerous mission. Their goal was to help the Hmong tribesmen (aka Meo which was a Chinese term meaning barbarian) in their fight against the NVA. The Hmong army led by General Vang Pao was outnumbered, out gunned and poorly supplied. It suffered huge casualties, and, in the end, the army consisted of boys as young as thirteen who carried M-16s almost as long as they were tall.
The Americans who volunteered for the missions were supposed to be forward air observers, but they were often involved in direct confrontations with the NVA. At the end of a long chain, the pilots flew small spotter planes and developed a code of their own. Freed from the usual military spit and polish, they were looked down on and mistrusted by the traditional officer corp. of the Air Force. Flying in all kinds of weather, trying to do a job given rules of engagement which were unrealistic, they fought beside the Hmong until the very end when the U.S. broke faith and abandoned Laos to the Communists.
The book is a tale of bravery and dedication of the U.S. pilots. They often few 10-12 missions a day in support of the Hmong, directing artillery and air strikes. Their bases were often attacked by enemy sappers and artillery and if shot down, were often killed or captured. The tours were for a year and despite the poor support and almost primitive conditions, many pilots went back for multiple tours. Time after time they supported the evacuations of the Hmong as the relentless NVA forces supported by tanks and heavy artillery routed the poorly armed Hmong boy soldiers and as the last U.S. pilots left after the U.S. withdrawal from Viet Nam, they felt a sense of shame at the way the Hmong were all but written off by the U.S. government.
Although officially separate from the CIA, the pilots often worked closely with the agents on the ground. The CIA effort known as Air America was covered by Robbins in another book, but the CIA operatives come through this work in a positive manner. Often living with the Hmong in their mountain villages, they fought beside the tribesmen throughout the war. While retreating, it was often the CIA operatives who lingered in order to transmit information on the enemy’s movements and as Robbins writes, it was often “a death sentence”.
Excellently researched, Robbins tells not only a story of personal bravery, but also diplomatic and personal double dealing reaching all the way up to Secretary Kissinger’s office. While there have been many stories and documentaries regarding the View Nam war, this theater of operations has been all but forgotten by historians. The book does not inspire despite the heroics of the pilots and it may very well leave a feeling of emptiness but it is a tribute to those young men who developed a code of loyalty and duty in a theater of operations that was all but ignored.
