The CIA's Forgotten Soldiers

Tomas van Houtryve

Freelance

The CIA's Forgotten Soldiers - Four decades ago, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency hired thousands of jungle warriors, mostly from the hill-dwelling Hmong ethnic group, to fight communists on the fringes of the Vietnam War. Veterans of that covert operation and their families are still living isolated in the jungles of Laos. They are ragged, hungry and regularly hunted by the Lao People's Army.

Ethnic Hmong descendants of CIA Secret War veterans walk through the jungle in the Vientiane province of Laos on 28 November 2007.

Tomas van Houtryve, "The CIA's Forgotten Soldiers," in POYi Archive, Item #41594, http://archive.poy.org/items/show/41594 (accessed April 21, 2025).