Land of Elephants
Laos is a land locked, poor country that was a springboard for CIA operations during the Vietnam War. The Agency built the largest private airline in the world to support the “Secret War”. That airline was called Air America (AA). It predecessor was Civil Air Transport (CAT) Airlines. The Agency also hired and supplied a mercenary army of about 30,000 troops and used them to attack and harass the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail (HCMT) and the Communist troops that used Laos and Cambodia as a sanctuary. The Communists recruited indigenous people of Laos and they were called Pathet Lao (PL). The country of Laos is approximated the size of Utah and is mostly mountains and plateaus. The climate is tropical, with a rainy season from May to November and the dry season from December to April. It floods about 6 feet every seven years, so the local villagers build their huts on 9-10 foot stilts.
We were stationed in Vientiane, the capital, for two long years, from 1968-1969. This time period was the height of the battles, B-52 bombings, and misery in Southeast Asia (SEA).
For an excellent article about Air America (AA) in Laos, please click on this link Supporting the "Secret War": CIA Air Operations in Laos, 1955-1974. This article on the CIA web site by William M. Leary, in the Studies in Intelligence section, gives an informative history of Air America (AA) and its predecessor Civil Air Transport (CAT).
Map of Laos pre 1974
Two other interesting web sites are Secret War in Laos and Air America Homepage
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