SECTION I - MEMORIAL DAY 2026

THEY SERVED WITHOUT NAMES

The Forgotten Warriors of America's Secret Air War

A Theme Setting Piece for Memorial Day Observance

Prepared by the Coalition of Allied Afghan & Vietnam War Veterans (CAVWV) • St. Paul, MN

Campaign Endorsers and Advisors

Colonel Philip J. Conran, USAF (Ret.) — Air Force Cross recipient. Air Commando Hall of Fame inductee. Six valor awards in eleven months of combat, 21st Special Operations Squadron, 56th Special Operations Wing. Campaign Leader.

Sergeant Major Justin D. LeHew, USMC (Ret.) — 31-year career, one of America’s most highly decorated service members. Navy Cross recipient. Past National Commander, Legion of Valor of the United States of America — founded 1890, oldest and most prestigious veterans service organization in America, whose membership comprises recipients of the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, and Air Force Cross. Campaign Endorser.

Colonel Craig Duehring, USAF (Ret.) — Raven 27, Raven Forward Air Controller at Long Tieng, Laos, 1970–71. One of fewer than 161 men who flew as Ravens during the Secret War. Former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force. Has reviewed and validated the research findings of this campaign. Research Advisor and Campaign Endorser.

Major General Larry Taylor, USMCR (Ret.) / Captain, Air America (1967–68) — 38-year career unusual in its breadth: Marine combat aviator, covert Air America pilot during the most intense years of the Secret War in Laos, senior Marine Corps Reserve commander, and wide-body airline captain. His Air America service (1967–68) is well-documented and central to his operational legacy. Campaign Endorser.

The first American military aircraft lost in combat in the entire Southeast Asia conflict was not shot down over Vietnam. It was not lost over the Gulf of Tonkin. It went down over Laos, on March 23, 1961, a C-47 was destroyed by Pathet Lao ground fire over Vientiane, killing seven of its eight crew. That date, two years before most Americans believe the war began, is where the story of America’s forgotten air warriors starts.

For the next fourteen years, the United States Air Force fought a sustained, ferocious, and largely secret air campaign across Laos and Cambodia, two countries it was legally prohibited from entering, while simultaneously supporting covert ground operations throughout Southeast Asia. The men who flew and fought in these campaigns served under varying degrees of a common condition: operations that the United States officially did not acknowledge. Some flew in uniform on missions the government would not confirm. Some flew in unmarked aircraft into neutral territory where American forces were legally prohibited. A handful, the Raven Forward Air Controllers of Project 404 and the technicians of Heavy Green, shed their uniforms entirely, assumed civilian identities, and served under the direct authority of the U.S. Ambassador rather than any military chain of command. What all of them shared was this: when the mission was over, and the citations were written, the geography was removed, the country was unnamed, and the full story of what they had done was sealed away where neither their families nor their country could read it.

The War That Wasn’t

In July 1962, the major powers signed the International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos in Geneva. Under its terms, all foreign military forces were required to withdraw from the country. North Vietnam signed the agreement. Then it ignored it, keeping thousands of troops in Laos and using its territory as the logistical spine of the entire war, the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The United States, bound by the same accords, faced a choice: abandon Laos to North Vietnamese control, or fight back in a way the agreement technically forbade.

President Kennedy chose to fight covertly. The CIA organized and armed a coalition of Special Guerrilla Unit forces, comprising lowland Lao, Lao tribesmen of many tribes, and Hmong, under commanders including General Vang Pao in Military Region 2 and General Soutchay Vongsavanh commanding CIA SGU forces in the south. The Air Force provided the air power, but it had to do so invisibly. The most extreme cases, the Raven FACs of Project 404, were required to resign their commissions on paper, shed their uniforms, carry false identification, and operate under civilian cover directed by the Ambassador in Vientiane. But the entire 56th Special Operations Wing at Nakhon Phanom flew missions into Laos that the United States officially denied, in aircraft bearing no national markings, with citations sanitized before presentation to remove any geographic identification. A firsthand published account from a 56th Air Commando Wing officer at NKP describes a medal presentation ceremony where citations were edited, in his words, “sanitized,” to ensure that “Laos or any words that would identify the mission as being there were expunged” before the awards were presented.

The same pattern extended into Cambodia, where the Rustic FACs, French-speaking OV-10 and O-2 pilots, and nearly fifty enlisted interpreters flying classified missions over the Khmer Republic in support of Cambodian ground forces, spent nearly a year in combat with no official recognition before the Air Force Chief of Staff finally acknowledged their service in 1971. The covert air war was not a Laos story alone. It was a Southeast Asia story. The recognition gap ran wherever the missions went.

When the last bombs finally fell on August 14, 1973, American pilots had flown 580,000 bombing sorties over Laos alone, the equivalent of a full planeload of bombs every eight minutes, twenty-four hours a day, for nearly a decade. It remains the most heavily bombed nation in history, per capita. Almost none of the men who flew those missions were ever publicly recognized for doing so.

The Wing

From a single base on the west bank of the Mekong River at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, eight kilometers from Laos, the 56th Special Operations Wing assembled the most operationally diverse special operations force the United States Air Force has ever concentrated in one place. Its squadrons flew every mission the covert air war in Laos demanded: the A-1 Skyraider pilots of the 1st, 22nd, and 602nd Special Operations Squadrons flew as Hobos, Zorros, and Fireflies, strike aircraft and Sandy escort for search and rescue operations deep into Laos, sustaining combat loss rates matched in the theater only by F-105 Thunderchief squadrons striking Hanoi and the F-100 Misty FACs flying into North Vietnam.

Those Misty FACs, a classified Seventh Air Force program operating from South Vietnam under conventional military command, absorbed a 22 percent loss rate and had a quarter of their number shot down. They flew in secret. They were recognized openly. Their Medal of Honor recipients, their Air Force Cross recipients, and their valor awards at every tier went through the normal system and were publicly acknowledged. The men of the 56th flew in comparable danger, absorbed comparable losses, and served under a veil of deniability that the Mistys never faced, and their recognition reflected that difference in ways that have never been fully accounted for.

The A-26 Nimrods of the 609th SOS hunted truck traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail by night, earning the Presidential Unit Citation for gallantry before attrition finally grounded the last of their aircraft. The Candlesticks of the 606th SOS flew C-123 flare and night reconnaissance missions over the Steel Tiger and Barrel Roll areas of Laos, while the Lucky Tigers’ T-28D section and U-10 liaison aircraft worked directly with Lao ground forces. The CH-3E Knives of the 21st SOS flew covert infiltration and extraction missions, inserting and recovering SGU forces, lowland Lao, Lao tribesmen, and Hmong, throughout the Lao panhandle and beyond. In January 1969 alone, the Pony Express H-3s of the 20th SOS flew 539 sorties to evacuate more than 5,000 of those Lao allies and their families trapped behind communist forces in Laos, hauling their own fuel in drums to a forward pickup point at 4,700 feet elevation, through morning fog and hazardous terrain, completing the evacuation without loss of life. The Green Hornets of the same squadron flew UH-1 helicopters in support of MACV-SOG cross-border operations, losing their first man, Major Robert Lanoue Baldwin, the first Green Hornet killed in action, on March 31, 1967, hovering on a rescue hoist above a MACV-SOG Project Omega recon team in contact, shot down by 12.7mm fire that fatally wounded him. He received the Air Force Cross posthumously. The Green Hornets had originally been assigned to CIA clandestine operations in Laos; when MACV-SOG needed dedicated helicopter support for cross-border operations, they were the natural choice. In 1967 and 1968 alone, six Green Hornet crewmen received the Air Force Cross, their citations reading “Southeast Asia” or “Republic of Vietnam,” with the operational context removed.

The AC-47 Spookys, AC-119 Shadows and Stingers, and AC-130 Spectres of the attached gunship squadrons brought devastating fire to the Trail by night, and answered the calls of SGU ground commanders, lowland Lao, Lao tribesmen, and Hmong, when their units were in contact with enemy forces or in danger of being overrun, providing sustained, precise aerial firepower that often meant the difference between a unit’s survival and its destruction. The 16th SOS Spectres lost fifty-two men killed in action during the Vietnam War. The AC-119 community of the 17th and 18th SOS is today fighting its own recognition battle, the “Valor Delayed is Justice Denied” campaign for the crew of Stinger 41, lost at An Loc on May 2, 1972, whose valor was not disputed but whose award packages were lost in the chaos of deactivation and drawdown. Their fight rests on the same structural argument as every case in this document: heroism not disputed, recognition denied by process rather than merit.

And at the center of it all, Detachment 1 housed three distinct programs that defined the most covert dimension of the 56th SOW mission. Water Pump trained Lao pilots from scratch for the Royal Lao Air Force, Lao Loum pilots for MR3 and MR4 operations from Savannakhet and Pakse, trained to reinforce RLAF capabilities in southern Laos; and Lao Sung (Hmong) pilots for MR2, trained at General Vang Pao’s personal request as a matter of alliance and Hmong pride, all serving as RLAF regulars. By war’s end, the Air Commandos of Water Pump had grown the RLAF from 20 to 75 T-28 strike aircraft, and sixteen of the nineteen Hmong pilots they trained were dead.

The Combat Control Team detachment, whose enlisted predecessors, the Butterflies, had pioneered covert forward air control in Laos before the program had a name. Master Sergeant Charlie Jones, “Butterfly 44,” flew 413 combat missions in six months from civilian aircraft in civilian clothes, controlling strikes by U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, Lao, and Thai pilots who never knew they were being directed by an enlisted sergeant. When General Momyer learned the FACs in Laos were enlisted men and ordered the program ended, the Butterflies were replaced immediately by officer pilots who carried on the same mission, and who honored their predecessors by naming Charlie Jones “Raven One.”

Project 404, the program under which volunteer USAF fighter pilots shed their uniforms, assumed civilian identities, and flew unarmed observation aircraft over the most hostile terrain in Southeast Asia as Raven Forward Air Controllers, directing the strikes that held the line for the Royal Lao Government and its SGU allies for eight years.

And from Detachment 1 came one more program that has never been publicly acknowledged: trained by 56th SOW Combat Control Team instructors at Udorn, Thai civilian Forward Air Guides, recruited as volunteers, given ten days of instruction, and deployed to the Lao battlefield embedded with SGU units as English-speaking coordinators for American air strikes. Eleven of them were killed in action. One was held prisoner by the Pathet Lao for four years. Their call signs, BLUE BOY, DRAGON FLY, MOUSE TRAP, EASY RIDER, WAR EAGLE, appear in no official history and no memorial. Dr. Paul Carter has documented their story. It has not yet been told in America.

Operating in parallel but under separate classified channels, the airmen of Heavy Green, formally the detachment of the 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron at Lima Site 85, had already demonstrated in March 1968 what service in this theater ultimately asked of every man who answered its call.

The wing’s official organizational chart shows command and liaison relationships that extended well beyond the conventional Air Force structure, to the Air Attaché in Vientiane, to higher Air Force headquarters, and to other U.S. government entities whose operational partnership with the 56th made the Secret War possible. It was that architecture, military authority, and covert enterprise working in close coordination, that gave the wing its unique character, and that same architecture that made the honest accounting of its members’ valor so difficult for so long.

Together, these units and the men who flew and maintained them comprised the full cast of America’s covert air war in Laos and Cambodia: known to each other, unknown to their country, and long overdue for the recognition their service earned.

The Men

They were, by every measure, among the finest aviators the Air Force produced. To be selected for the Raven program, a pilot needed a minimum of six months of combat duty, at least sixty days as a forward air controller, at least one hundred hours as a fighter pilot or FAC, and a reputation, informal but well understood, for being the kind of man who would fly toward trouble rather than away from it. They flew unarmed observation aircraft at low altitude over terrain crawling with anti-aircraft guns, marking targets with white phosphorus smoke rockets so that fast jets could roll in behind them. Their aircraft were repeatedly peppered with ground fire. Tape was slapped over the bullet holes until the aircraft could no longer fly. Then they flew the next mission.

The casualty numbers tell the story plainly. Of the roughly 161 men identified as having served in the Raven program, 22 were killed in action, a rate that meant a Raven pilot had roughly a one-in-three chance of being killed. Ninety percent of their aircraft were hit by ground fire at some point. Sixty percent were downed by enemy action. They were hopelessly overworked, the need for secrecy kept their numbers permanently low, and the desperate pace of operations in the highlands sometimes demanded twelve-hour flying days. Some completed six-month tours with more than five hundred combat missions.

They were not anonymous in the ways that matter to warriors. Among the Lao and Hmong fighters they served alongside, at the forward sites across the country, they were known and celebrated. But back home, in the country they served, they were ghosts. Their names did not appear in the 1988 official directory of Vietnam Veterans Memorial names, though they appear on the Wall itself. Their operations were classified. Their awards were sanitized. The medals were real. The citations were fiction. The warriors stood at attention and accepted both.

The Accounting

What valor recognition reached these men came late, came sparingly, and in every documented case of the highest honors, came only because it could no longer be avoided.

Chief Master Sergeant Richard Etchberger was recommended for the Medal of Honor within days of his death at Lima Site 85 on March 11, 1968. He was a ground-based radar technician, a specialist commanding a covert TSQ-81 bombing system installation on a 5,800-foot Lao mountain, who found himself in a ground combat situation when the site was overrun and who displayed extraordinary valor that had nothing to do with his technical specialty. He held off North Vietnamese assault troops with an M-16 while calling in air strikes and directing the evacuation of three wounded comrades into rescue slings hanging from a hovering helicopter. He held that ground until every surviving member of his team was safely aboard. Then he climbed into a sling himself and was killed by an armor-piercing round as the helicopter lifted him away. His commanding general downgraded the Medal of Honor recommendation to the Air Force Cross because acknowledging it would have required acknowledging that American military personnel were in Laos. The award was presented in a classified Pentagon ceremony. His sons were told their father died in a helicopter accident. They would not learn the truth for fourteen years. The full medal he had earned waited forty-two years, until 2010, when President Obama finally presented it.

Compare Etchberger’s timeline to that of Airman First Class John Levitow, a loadmaster aboard an AC-47 Spooky who threw himself on an activated magnesium flare inside a combat-damaged gunship, saving his aircraft and crew over Long Binh in 1969. Levitow received the Medal of Honor as an enlisted airman in the acknowledged theater, within the normal awards timeline. Both were enlisted men. Both performed extraordinary acts. The difference between a prompt Medal of Honor and a forty-two-year delay was a matter of geography, and of what the United States government was willing to acknowledge.

Colonel Philip J. Conran leads the campaign to bring these warriors home from obscurity with the same instinct that led him into the jungle at Moung Phine. In eleven months of combat flying in 1969, he earned six valor awards, the Airman’s Medal for running back into a burning aircraft at NKP to carry an immobile crewmember to safety; four Distinguished Flying Crosses including one with Combat “V” for leading formations deep into hostile territory, completing infiltration missions under devastating fire, and returning through the same fire to rescue teams in contact; and the Air Force Cross for crash-landing his CH-3E at Moung Phine in Savannakhet Province, Laos, on October 6, 1969, organizing the defense of the crash site against an overwhelming North Vietnamese force, directing air strikes with a pocket compass while wounded, and holding the perimeter for six hours until all fifty-four survivors, eight American airmen and forty-six Lao allies, were safely extracted. It was the largest successful rescue of the Secret War. His commanding officer recommended him for the Medal of Honor. The Vice Commander of Pacific Air Forces told him personally why he would not receive it: President Nixon had publicly stated that no American military operations were ongoing in Laos. The Air Force Cross was presented instead, its citation reading “classified location in Southeast Asia.” Laos was not mentioned.

First Lieutenant Charles “Chuck” Engle, Raven 26, received the Air Force Cross for a SAR support mission on June 20, 1970, in which his fuel line was severed by ground fire, drenching both himself and his O-1 aircraft, and he continued suppressing enemy positions until a downed pilot was located. He is the only Raven FAC confirmed to have received the Air Force Cross for airborne FAC duties over Laos. He is posthumous. He was killed on February 22, 1971, eight months after the action for which he was decorated. Vietnam’s most decorated Raven. His citation reads “Southeast Asia.”

Major John Leonard Carroll, Raven 20, died on November 7, 1972, in Xiangkhoang Province, Laos. Shot down over the Plain of Jars, he fought two North Vietnamese companies on foot with a rifle, a revolver, and hand grenades, and was fatally wounded. His body was not recovered. He was listed as missing in action for thirty-five years, until forensic analysis of remains recovered between 1993 and 2007 finally brought him home. He received the Air Force Cross posthumously, one of the very few Raven valor citations that names Laos explicitly. A fellow Raven who was there, flying as Raven 25, later named Carroll alongside two others, Hal Mischler and Skip Jackson, as men lost during his time in the program. Carroll is essentially unknown even within the Raven community.

Major Robert Lanoue Baldwin, the first Green Hornet killed in action, died March 31, 1967, hovering his UH-1F on a rescue hoist above a MACV-SOG Project Omega recon team in contact, shot down by 12.7mm fire that fatally wounded him while he was lowering ammunition to the beleaguered team. He continued trying to help the wounded until he lost consciousness. Air Force Cross, posthumous. His citation reads “Republic of Vietnam.” The operational context, a SOG cross-border mission, a unit originally assigned to CIA Laos operations, is absent.

There were others. Captain John Lackey of the 1st Special Operations Squadron received the Air Force Cross for a multi-day search and rescue mission over Laos in March 1972. Major James Harding, also of the 1st SOS, received the Air Force Cross for extraordinary heroism near Tchepone, Laos, that same spring. Captain Jackson Hudson, flying an A-1E Skyraider as Sandy 07 alongside Colonel Conran at Moung Phine, received the Air Force Cross for directing the air campaign that saved all fifty-four survivors. Captain Steven L. Bennett of the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron, 56th Special Operations Wing, received the Medal of Honor for sacrificing his life to save his Marine observer over Quang Tri Province in June 1972, the only 56th SOW Medal of Honor for a South Vietnam action. These men’s Laos-theater citations say “Southeast Asia.” They mean Laos.

What Was Given and What Was Not

The Air Force awarded 180 Air Force Crosses during the Vietnam War. Fifty of them, twenty-eight percent, were posthumous. Across the confirmed Laos and Cambodia covert theater cases, a consistent pattern emerges: geographic identification was removed from citations for living recipients while appearing more frequently in posthumous ones. The classified narrative that documented the full action went to the review board and was never released publicly. The full evidentiary record of what these men did exists in sealed files at the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base; it was not destroyed, it was sealed. That is a more tractable problem than erasure, and one that remains open.

The two USAF FAC Medal of Honor recipients of the Vietnam War, Captain Bennett over South Vietnam in 1972, and Captain Hilliard Wilbanks over South Vietnam in 1967, flew structurally identical missions to what Ravens flew over Laos daily: unarmed or lightly armed light aircraft, hostile fire, and personal weapons used to protect ground forces from being overrun. The only variable that differs in the awards outcome is the country over which they flew and died. No criticism of the Air Force or of the men who made decisions under extraordinary political constraints is intended or required. The audience will reach its own conclusions.

The recognition gap is not confined to the covert theater alone. The AC-119 Gunship Association’s active campaign for Stinger 41, Captain Terrence Courtney, Captain David Slagle, and Staff Sergeant Kenneth Brown, killed at An Loc on May 2, 1972, during the Easter Offensive, whose award packages were lost in the 18th SOS deactivation, demonstrates that the same institutional failure persists in the acknowledged theater, in peacetime, with full documentation, with 24 general officers and a former Secretary of the Air Force endorsing a reconstructed package. The problem is not solely a product of the Secret War’s political constraints. It is structural. And it is ongoing.

The Measure of the Sacrifice

• Twenty-two Raven FACs killed in action out of 161 who served.
• Twelve Americans killed at Lima Site 85, the largest single ground combat loss suffered by the Air Force in the entire war, in a country the United States officially was not in.
• Sixteen of the nineteen Hmong T-28 pilots trained by Water Pump, RLAF regulars, not irregulars, killed in action.
• Eleven Thai civilian Forward Air Guides killed in action, trained by 56th SOW Combat Control Teams, fighting on a Lao battlefield that no official history records their presence on.
• Six Green Hornet crewmen receiving Air Force Crosses in 1967–68, their citations stripped of operational context, the full accounting of their actions still incomplete.
• The very first USAF aircraft lost in Southeast Asia, on March 23, 1961, shot down over Laos.
• The very last A-1 Skyraider lost in combat during the Vietnam War, shot down over Laos on September 22, 1972.
• Nearly six hundred Americans lost over Laos in total, killed or missing, across all services, in a war that had no official name until long after it was over.
• Seven Raven FACs who may have survived shootdowns and were captured by the Pathet Lao, from whom, unlike from North Vietnam, not a single American prisoner was ever released.
• And still living: Colonel Philip J. Conran, born in Hartford, Connecticut, 1937. Air Commando Hall of Fame. Six valor awards. The man who brought fifty-four warriors home from a Lao jungle in 1969. Leading the campaign to bring the rest home from obscurity now.

The Promise of Memory

America has a tradition of returning, however late, to honor those it forgot. Richard Etchberger received his Medal of Honor forty-two years after he earned it, because a community of survivors and families and advocates, including the Lao Veterans of America, refused to allow his name to be lost. The pathway is established. The precedent exists. The sealed files can be opened. The Etchberger upgrade proved that political classification, not merit, drove the original downgrade decisions. That precedent applies to every case in this document.

America did not forget these warriors. America never knew them. There is a difference, and it means there is still time to do something about it.

The airmen of the Secret War in Laos and Cambodia are not asking for grievance. They are not asking for apology. They served with their eyes open, understanding the terms of the mission they accepted. What they are asking, what their families are asking, what the men who flew alongside them and watched them die are asking, is only for memory. For names spoken. For stories told. For a nation to look up from its Memorial Day observance and say: We know who you were. We know what you did. We are grateful, and we will not forget.

They went to war without names so that America could be safe.

It is time America learned their names.

Personnel and Units Referenced

• CMSgt Richard L. Etchberger, Det.1 / 1043rd Radar Evaluation Squadron, Lima Site 85, 11 Mar 1968, MOH (upgraded from AFC, 2010). KIA
• Col. Philip J. Conran, 21st SOS, 56th SOW, 6 Oct 1969, Air Force Cross (MOH recommended). Six valor awards total; Air Commando Hall of Fame
• Capt. Jackson L. Hudson, 602nd SOS, 56th SOW, 6 Oct 1969, Air Force Cross. Same mission as Conran, Moung Phine
• Capt. R.W. Brower, 37th ARRS, 9 Nov 1967, Air Force Cross. KIA, Jolly Green 26
• SSgt E.L. Clay, 37th ARRS, 9 Nov 1967, Air Force Cross. KIA, Jolly Green 26
• Sgt L.W. Maysey, 37th ARRS, 9 Nov 1967, Air Force Cross. KIA, Jolly Green 26
• Capt. John E. Lackey, 1st SOS, 56th SOW, Mar 1972, Air Force Cross. Laos SAR mission
• Maj. James C. Harding, 1st SOS, 56th SOW, Apr 1972, Air Force Cross. Tchepone, Laos
• 1Lt. Charles E. (“Chuck”) Engle, Raven 26, Det.1 / 56th SOW, 20 Jun 1970, Air Force Cross (posthumous). Vietnam’s most decorated Raven; KIA 22 Feb 1971
• Maj. John Leonard Carroll, Raven 20, 20th TASS / 56th SOW TDY, 7 Nov 1972, Air Force Cross (posthumous). KIA Xiangkhoang Province, Laos; MIA 35 years
• Maj. Robert Lanoue Baldwin, 20th SOS (Green Hornets), 31 Mar 1967, Air Force Cross (posthumous). First Green Hornet KIA; Project Omega / MACV-SOG
• Capt. Steven L. Bennett, 20th TASS, 56th SOW, 29 Jun 1972, Medal of Honor (posthumous). South Vietnam action; only 56th SOW MOH for RVN

Plus: the 22 Air Force Ravens killed in action, 1967–1975; the 12 Americans killed at Lima Site 85; the 16 Hmong RLAF T-28 pilots killed in action; the 11 Thai Forward Air Guides killed in action; and the hundreds of airmen of the 56th Special Operations Wing, the Rustic FAC community, and the covert air forces of the Secret War whose names remain sealed in classified files or lost in the chaos of drawdown.

Primary Sources

• Celeski, Joseph D. Special Air Warfare and the Secret War in Laos: Air Commandos 1964–1975. Air University Press, 2019.
• Haas, Michael E. Air Commando! 1950–1975: Twenty-five Years at the Tip of the Spear. AFSOC, 1994.
• Carter, Paul. CIA Secret Warriors: Thai Forward Air Guides in the US War in Laos. Bangkok, 2020.
• Robbins, Christopher. The Ravens. Crown Publishers, 1987.

SECTION II - FORGOTTEN WARRIORS STORIES

FORGOTTEN WARRIOR STORIES

Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos

These are stories of Americans who served in some of the most dangerous conditions of the Vietnam War era — in acknowledged combat zones and in secret ones. Their valor was real. Their recognition was not always equal to what they gave. On this Memorial Day, we bring their names forward.

Stories on this page:

1. Stinger 41 — The Crew Over An Lộc
2. Maj. John Leonard Carroll, Raven 20
3. Capt. Charles “Chuck” Engle, Raven 26
4. Maj. Frank M. Kricker, Raven 40
5. Jolly Green 26: Young, Brower, Clay & Maysey
6. The Last Two Ravens: Mischler & Jackson
7. Maj. James C. Harding — The Citation That Named Laos
8. A1C Michael A. Curtis — Sixteen Days
9. Lt. Col. Byron Hukee — The Record That Should Have Been a Medal of Honor
10. Capt. Fred “Magnet Ass” Platt, Raven 47
11. Eugene Henry DeBruin — Still Missing

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Stinger 41 — Forgotten Heroes

A Story from the Skies Over An Lộc

In the spring of 1972, North Vietnam launched the Easter Offensive, the largest conventional assault of the Vietnam War. At the center of that attack stood the town of An Lộc, just north of Saigon.

If An Lộc fell, the road to Saigon could open, South Vietnam’s ability to stand on its own would be thrown into doubt, and the outcome of the war could shift at a critical moment. For nearly three months, An Lộc was surrounded, bombarded, and under constant attack. Resupply came by air, if it came at all. Every drop of ammunition mattered. Every mission carried weight.

It was into this battle that one aircraft was sent, on a mission few were designed to survive.

A Mission That Could Not Be Ignored

On May 2, 1972, an American gunship, call sign Stinger 41, was ordered into the daylight over enemy-controlled territory. The aircraft, an AC-119K gunship from the 18th Special Operations Squadron, was built for night warfare, painted black, and designed to strike unseen. But there was no darkness that day.

Somewhere below, a U.S. aircraft had accidentally dropped a pallet of ammunition into enemy-held ground. If captured, it would become immediate combat power — ammunition that could be turned against the defenders of An Lộc. This was not just lost cargo. It was a battlefield advantage, waiting to be claimed. Stinger 41 was sent to destroy it.

Flying Into the Kill Zone

To find the pallet, the crew had to fly low over dense jungle, again and again. Each pass brought them deeper into danger. The sky erupted with 37mm anti-aircraft fire, heavy weapons designed to destroy aircraft in seconds. Unlike the missions they trained for, this was daylight. They were fully visible. There was nowhere to hide. Still, they pressed on.

Fire in the Wing

Then the enemy found their mark. Anti-aircraft fire struck the aircraft, destroying engines and setting the wing ablaze. The gunship began to fail in the sky. Inside, there was no panic — only discipline. The order came: “Prepare to abandon the aircraft.”

A Crew That Refused to Break

As the aircraft burned and lost control, the crew did something extraordinary. They did not rush for themselves. They helped each other. One by one, they made sure their teammates could get out, parachuting into hostile territory below — some under enemy fire, some into dense jungle, alone.

When it was over, three men were lost. Seven survived, evading the enemy until rescue.

What They Gave

Stinger 41 never completed the mission. But their actions mattered. At An Lộc, where every round of ammunition could mean the difference between holding and falling, denying the enemy even a single advantage was worth the risk. Every delay mattered. Every act of resistance mattered.

What Was Lost Beyond the Aircraft

In the aftermath, something else was lost. The squadron’s awards officer, who wrote the original recommendations in 1972, later confirmed that the crew’s valor awards were formally prepared, approved at squadron and wing level, and sent up the chain of command. And then, somewhere in the final months of the war, the record disappeared. No final decision. No approval. No denial.

They Served Without Names

More than 50 years later, the story of Stinger 41 remains largely unknown. No headlines. No widespread recognition. No full accounting of their courage. And yet, their story lives on — in the quiet history of a battle that helped hold the line when it mattered most.

On this Memorial Day, we remember the fallen. But we also remember the forgotten. The crews who flew into danger without hesitation. The men who did their duty, whether history recorded it or not. Stinger 41 was one of them.

They served. They fought. They sacrificed. And for too long, they have gone without names.

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Maj. John Leonard Carroll, Raven 20 — They Served Without Names

A Story from the Secret War in Laos

In 1972, while the Vietnam War filled the headlines, another war was being fought in the mountains and valleys of Laos. It was a hidden war — fought over supply routes, remote villages, and mountain strongholds. American pilots flew there under dangerous conditions, often beyond public view, directing airpower in support of forces on the ground. They were known as Ravens.

On November 7, 1972, Major John Leonard Carroll, U.S. Air Force, was flying as a Raven Forward Air Controller over Xiangkhoang Province, Laos, near the Plain of Jars. His aircraft was an O-1G Bird Dog, a small observation plane built not for protection, but for visibility, control, and courage.

A Raven’s mission required him to fly low enough to see the battlefield, identify enemy positions, and direct airstrikes where they were needed. That also meant flying close enough for enemy guns to find him. That day, they did.

Major Carroll’s aircraft was struck by hostile ground fire and forced down. From the ground, he radioed Search and Rescue helicopters and intended to remain with the aircraft. Rescue crews tried to reach him, but intense enemy fire forced them back. A later attempt found that he had been fatally wounded, but enemy forces again prevented recovery.

For decades, his body was not recovered. His status was recorded as Killed / Body Not Recovered — one of the painful categories of a war where many families waited years for certainty.

In 2007, after 35 years, Major Carroll’s remains were identified and returned home for burial with full military honors.

Major Carroll was awarded the Air Force Cross posthumously for extraordinary heroism. But even with that high honor, his story remains largely unknown outside those who remember the Ravens and the secret war in Laos.

On this Memorial Day, we remember not only those whose names became famous, but also those who served in places America barely acknowledged. Major John Leonard Carroll was one of them.

He flew into the hidden war. He stayed when rescue was impossible. He gave his life in Laos. And his story deserves to be known.

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Captain Charles “Chuck” Engle, Raven 26 — They Served Without Names

A Story from the Secret War in Laos

The Most Decorated Raven of the Vietnam War

Of the roughly 161 men who flew as Ravens over Laos during the Secret War, none accumulated a more complete record of documented heroism than Captain Charles Edwin “Chuck” Engle. He flew under a civilian identity in an unarmed Cessna O-1 Bird Dog over some of the most heavily defended terrain in Southeast Asia. He was shot at constantly, shot down, shot up, and came back. He saved downed pilots when no one else could reach them. He put his aircraft between enemy guns and rescue helicopters to draw fire onto himself. He was awarded the Air Force Cross, the Silver Star, and multiple Distinguished Flying Crosses. His citations read “Southeast Asia.” Laos was not mentioned in any of them.

He was 25 years old when he was killed. He has been largely unknown outside the Raven community ever since.

The Program

The Raven Forward Air Controllers were USAF fighter pilots who volunteered for the Steve Canyon Program knowing almost nothing about where they were going or what they would be asked to do. To qualify, a pilot needed a minimum of four months of combat duty, at least sixty days as a forward air controller, at least one hundred hours of flight time as a fighter pilot or FAC, and a reputation — informal but clearly understood — for flying toward trouble rather than away from it.

Once selected, they were stripped of their uniforms and military identification, issued USAID civilian credentials, and deployed to Laos under the operational authority of the U.S. Ambassador. They flew unarmed O-1 Bird Dogs at low altitude over enemy-controlled territory, marking targets with white phosphorus smoke rockets so that fast jets could roll in behind them. Their aircraft were repeatedly hit by ground fire. Ninety percent of Raven aircraft were struck by enemy fire at some point. Sixty percent were downed by enemy action. Nearly one in three Ravens was killed.

They served in a war the United States officially did not acknowledge. Their awards were sanitized before presentation. The word “Laos” appeared in none of their citations.

Chuck Engle

Charles Edwin Engle was born February 8, 1945, in Lynn, Indiana. He graduated from Purdue University through the ROTC program and entered the Air Force. He completed his first combat tour as a forward air controller and volunteered immediately for Steve Canyon. He arrived in Laos as Raven 26, assigned to the 56th Special Operations Wing at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, flying covert missions into Laos.

He was, by every account, a pilot of extraordinary ability and instinct. He routinely flew his O-1 Bird Dog at altitudes beyond the aircraft’s recommended ceiling, meeting inbound strike aircraft at 12,000 feet — 2,000 feet above the Cessna’s design limit — then putting the aircraft into a deliberate stall and plummeting toward the ground, pulling out at 1,500 feet to fire his target-marking rockets. The Skyraider pilots who flew with him expected to see a Raven below them when they arrived on station. Engle would appear suddenly out of the clouds above them instead.

The Raven and Hmong communities at Long Tieng and across Military Region II knew him as one of the finest and most daring pilots flying the Secret War. He never lost that reputation.

June 20, 1970

On June 20, 1970, a U.S. pilot was down in hostile territory in Laos. Chuck Engle was the Raven on scene, flying his O-1 in an attempt to pinpoint the downed pilot’s location so that a rescue helicopter could be brought in.

Enemy ground fire found his aircraft. A burst of fire severed his fuel line, drenching both the cockpit and the pilot in aviation fuel. The aircraft was now a flying fire hazard. One spark — from the engine, from a tracer round, from anything — and the aircraft and pilot would ignite.

Engle continued the mission.

With his aircraft soaked in fuel and enemy guns still active below, he kept flying over the search area, suppressing enemy ground fire positions, working to locate the downed pilot. When the pilot was finally found and a rescue helicopter moved in for the pickup, the helicopter immediately came under fire from an enemy gun position that threatened to shoot it down before it could complete the extraction.

Engle dove his O-1 between the gun position and the helicopter, placing his fuel-soaked aircraft directly in the line of fire to draw the guns onto himself and allow the helicopter to break away safely. After the ground fire was suppressed, other aircraft moved in and completed a successful pickup.

The downed pilot came home. Chuck Engle flew his burning-fuel-soaked aircraft back to base.

For this action he was recommended for the Air Force Cross. His citation records the severed fuel line, the continued suppression of enemy positions, and the deliberate interposition of his aircraft between the enemy gun and the rescue helicopter. The citation reads “Southeast Asia.” The word “Laos” does not appear.

What Followed

Eight months after the action that earned him the Air Force Cross, Chuck Engle was still flying. In the intervening months he had added a Distinguished Flying Cross for continuing to fly a severely damaged aircraft back to base rather than land in unsecured enemy territory and risk other Americans in a rescue attempt, and a Silver Star for a January 1971 troops-in-contact mission in which he flew repeated low passes through heavy anti-aircraft and small arms fire to accurately mark enemy positions for allied ground forces.

On February 22, 1971, on his second tour in Laos, he was killed in the crash of his O-1. He was 26 years old. He was posthumously promoted to Captain.

The Air Force Cross was presented posthumously. The National Museum of the United States Air Force later dedicated an exhibit to his memory — one of very few Ravens to receive that recognition. His record stands as the most decorated of any Raven FAC of the Vietnam War.

His citation reads “Southeast Asia.”

The Gap

Compare Chuck Engle’s record to that of any forward air controller who flew in acknowledged airspace over South Vietnam during the same period. The missions were structurally identical: unarmed or lightly armed light aircraft, low altitude, hostile fire, personal courage applied to protect ground forces and downed pilots. The difference between a prompt, publicly acknowledged Air Force Cross and a posthumous citation stripped of its geography was a single variable: the country over which the pilot flew and died.

The Ravens knew this. They flew anyway. Engle flew eight months past the action that earned his highest decoration, in a war that would not say his name, and was killed before he turned 27.

Dr. Paul Carter's documentary coverage of Chuck Engle's service, including his Air Force Cross action and his record as Vietnam's most decorated Raven FAC, is available at @CarterOnConflict on YouTube

He flew into the hidden war on his second tour, knowing what it asked of him. He put his aircraft between the guns and the helicopter so another man could come home. His citation does not say where. It was Laos. His name was Chuck Engle. It is time his country knew both.

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Major Frank M. Kricker, Raven 40 — They Served Without Names

A Story from the Secret War in Laos

A note from CAVWV President Thomas Leo Briggs: I served at Pakse, Laos, as a CIA paramilitary case officer during the Secret War. Frank Kricker was the Chief Raven at Pakse during the period described below. The targeting innovation at the center of this story was my own. What follows is drawn from my published memoir, Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos (Rosebank Press, 2009), and from my direct personal knowledge of Frank Kricker and the operations we ran together. Frank was one of the bravest and most gifted aviators I ever worked with. I did not know the full extent of his decorations until decades later. That is precisely the point.

The Problem

In the early 1970s, the CIA’s paramilitary case officers at Pakse in southern Laos were running small indigenous teams — three to six Lao soldiers — into enemy-controlled territory to collect intelligence on North Vietnamese Army positions, supply routes, and troop concentrations. The teams were skilled. The intelligence they brought back was real. But without a way to act on it quickly, it was going to waste. The irregular Lao guerrilla forces were not the kind of unit you could load into helicopters and send after a moving target. The intelligence moldered. The enemy moved on.

The Raven Forward Air Controllers, flying low and slow in unarmed O-1 Bird Dogs over the jungles and karst formations of the Bolovens Plateau, were the most lethal asset available. But finding the enemy from the air, alone, over a rolling sea of green jungle with no landmarks, was its own problem. They roamed. They searched. Sometimes they found something. More often they didn’t.

What was needed was a way to connect the teams on the ground to the Ravens in the air — to turn raw intelligence into a precise targeting solution, delivered in real time, in the middle of denied territory.

The Innovation

The solution came from training. Indigenous team leaders were taught to use mirrors to flash their position to aircraft flying overhead — a technique already in use for basic location reporting. To that foundation was added compass azimuths and distance estimates: once a team had located an enemy position, the team leader would determine the compass bearing from his observation post to the enemy and estimate the distance. When the Raven arrived overhead, the team leader would flash his mirror to mark his own position, then radio the bearing to the Raven’s Lao-speaking backseater. The Raven would fly over the mirror flash in the indicated direction. If enemy were there, the Raven would see them. He would then mark the target with a white phosphorus rocket and call in strike aircraft.

It was elegant in its simplicity. It required no technology beyond a mirror, a compass, and a radio. It required trust — a Raven willing to fly treetop-level over enemy-controlled jungle based on a bearing from an indigenous soldier hidden in the bush. And it required the right team, and the right pilot.

Team 316 and Raven 40

The first team selected for the new mission was Team Cranberry/316, led by Thao Sengchanh — one of the finest indigenous team leaders at Pakse. The first Raven selected was Frank Kricker, Raven 40, the Chief Raven at Pakse. A 1963 graduate of The Citadel, Kricker was a career Air Force officer who had volunteered for the Steve Canyon Program with no knowledge of where he was going or what he would be asked to do. He had shed his uniform, assumed a civilian identity, and flown unarmed observation aircraft over the most hostile terrain in Southeast Asia in support of forces the United States officially had no presence among.

When briefed on the new concept, Kricker did not hesitate. He flew out on the first mission, picked up Team 316’s mirror flash from the jungle below, listened to Sengchanh’s bearing through his backseater, and flew in the indicated direction at treetop level. What he found was an enemy bivouac of approximately 100 North Vietnamese soldiers. He called in strikes immediately. The results were confirmed: secondary explosions, secondary fires. The enemy had been found, fixed, and destroyed by a team of Lao soldiers hidden in the jungle and a single American pilot flying an unarmed propeller aircraft.

Kricker became, in the words recorded in the after-action memoir, “addicted to Team 316.” Over the next 60 days he flew mission after mission, each time trusting the mirror flash and the compass bearing, each time finding the enemy where Sengchanh said they would be. The team, originally deployed for 30 days, requested and received permission to stay in the field. The results kept coming.

The Cave

The climactic mission of the Team 316 campaign began with a report that seemed almost too good to believe. Sengchanh learned from a source that the North Vietnamese had concealed a large supply depot inside a cave, halfway up the face of a karst formation on the Bolovens Plateau. The karst — a sheer limestone outcrop rising roughly 3,000 feet — was the kind of terrain that made aerial observation nearly impossible. Sengchanh was skeptical. He spent extra time scouting the area before reporting. What changed his mind was what he found on the ground: tank tracks, leading toward the karst.

He reported to the Pakse operations center. Kricker was briefed. Flying just above the treetops, as Ravens routinely did, he approached the karst as closely as the terrain allowed and spotted what appeared to be a cave mouth. He saw no movement, no obvious signs of activity. But Team 316’s record was unbroken. He called for strike aircraft equipped with Paveway laser-guided bombs.

When the F-4 Phantoms arrived — one carrying a weapons officer with a hand-held laser designator, the second carrying the bomb — Kricker fired a white phosphorus rocket at the cave mouth to mark the target, then radioed a correction to the strike aircraft. The laser-guided bomb flew directly into the cave entrance.

What followed was unlike anything Kricker had seen in his time over Laos. The top of the karst was blown off. Secondary explosions continued for an extended period. Bomb damage assessment later confirmed what the secondaries had announced: the cave concealed a major North Vietnamese tank park, fuel depot, and ammunition storage facility. The North Vietnamese had apparently concluded that no one would ever think to look for armor and supplies halfway up the face of a 3,000-foot limestone cliff. They were almost right.

That evening, at the daily operations meeting at Pakse Unit headquarters, Kricker described what he had seen. He said it was the most amazing thing he had ever witnessed in the air.

What It Meant

For roughly three months in 1971, the combination of Team 316’s intelligence collection, Sengchanh’s fieldcraft, and Frank Kricker’s courage and skill in the air produced a sustained campaign of confirmed precision strikes against North Vietnamese forces in southern Laos — in a country the United States officially had no military presence in, using techniques the United States military would not formally adopt for another thirty years.

In 2001, American special operations forces in Afghanistan used GPS, laser guidance, and indigenous ground partners to locate, fix, and destroy enemy positions in denied terrain — a combination of elements that a CIA case officer and a Raven FAC had actually field-tested at Pakse in 1971. The techniques were not directly inherited. But the concept was the same: trust the man on the ground, fly to where he tells you, and put the bomb exactly where it needs to go.

For his actions over southern Laos, Frank Kricker was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and numerous other air medals. His citations read “Southeast Asia.” Laos was not mentioned. He came home, continued his Air Force career, retired as a Major, flew Boeing 737s for Continental Airlines for another two decades, and died in Lewes, Delaware, on June 6, 2022, at the age of 81. Outside the Raven community, he was essentially unknown.

He flew where the maps said there was nothing. He trusted what no one else could see. He put the bomb in the cave. And for fifty years, almost no one knew his name.

Source: Briggs, Thomas Leo. Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos. Rosebank Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0984105922. The author served as the CIA paramilitary case officer at Pakse, Laos, and is the originator of the targeting innovation described in this account. He serves as President of the Coalition of Allied Afghan & Vietnam War Veterans (CAVWV), St. Paul, MN.

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Jolly Green 26 — They Served Without Names

A Story from the Secret War in Laos

One man from this mission is remembered. Three are not. All four deserved the same.

The Mission

On the night of November 8–9, 1967, two HH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopters of the 37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron launched from Da Nang Air Force Base on a night rescue mission into Laos. Their objective was five survivors of a U.S. Army Special Forces reconnaissance team surrounded by a well-disciplined North Vietnamese Army battalion on a steep hillside in the Laotian Panhandle, near the border with South Vietnam.

The site was known before takeoff to be extremely dangerous. Two helicopters — a Vietnamese Air Force aircraft and a U.S. Army helicopter — had already been shot down and destroyed attempting to reach these men. A North Vietnamese battalion was dug in around the survivors, waiting. The crews of both Jolly Greens knew this when they lifted off.

A C-130 Hercules flare ship illuminated the hillside with LUU-2 parachute flares, turning the jungle below into harsh white light. Under that light, the enemy gunners could see everything. So could the crews.

Jolly 29 went in first. Under intense automatic weapons fire, it reached three of the survivors and pulled them aboard before the volume of enemy fire became unsurvivable. Jolly 29 broke off, battle-damaged and leaking, and limped to the Marine base at Khe Sanh. Its pilot recommended to the crew of Jolly 26 that further rescue attempts be abandoned. The enemy fire could not be suppressed. The gunships escorting them were low on fuel and ordnance.

Two survivors remained on the ground. Both were wounded. No one was coming for them except the men of Jolly 26.

The Crew of Jolly Green 26

Captain Gerald O. Young, Senior Pilot, born May 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois. A seventeen-year veteran who had enlisted in the Navy as a teenager, transferred to the Air Force, and volunteered for Southeast Asia in August 1967. This was his 60th combat mission.

Captain Ralph Wayne Brower, Co-Pilot. He had already watched two helicopters go down over this hillside. He stayed.

Staff Sergeant Eugene Lunsford Clay, Flight Engineer. His remains were never recovered.

Sergeant Larry Wayne Maysey, Pararescueman, born February 20, 1939. His job was to go outside the aircraft. That night, he went down a steep slope under enemy fire to bring two wounded men home.

What Maysey Did

As Young maneuvered Jolly 26 into position on the hillside — a hover requiring extraordinary skill on a steep slope, under fire, in flare-lit darkness — Maysey did not wait for the survivors to reach the helicopter. He jumped from the aircraft and ran down the slope toward the two wounded men. Under small arms fire from a North Vietnamese battalion at close range, he reached both survivors, and helped them up the slope and aboard the helicopter.

At the moment the last man cleared the door, a rocket-propelled grenade struck the number one engine. The explosion inverted the helicopter. Jolly 26 rolled and skidded down a deep ravine and burst into flames.

Larry Maysey was killed in the crash. He was 28 years old. Ralph Brower was killed in the crash. Eugene Clay was killed in the crash. His remains were never recovered. He is listed on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Gerald Young and one other man survived. Young, severely burned, declined rescue for more than 17 hours after observing North Vietnamese forces setting up weapons positions to ambush any rescue aircraft. When the area was finally secure, both survivors were extracted.

What Each Man Received

Gerald Young received the Medal of Honor, presented by President Lyndon Johnson on May 14, 1968 — the first helicopter pilot in history to receive that decoration. He survived, retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, and died June 6, 1990.

The three men who did not survive received the Air Force Cross, posthumously. Their citations are worth reading carefully, because what they say — and what they do not say — is the point.

Sergeant Larry Wayne Maysey’s citation records that he “unhesitatingly exposed himself to the hail of hostile fire to assist wounded survivors into the helicopter.” It does not describe him jumping from the aircraft and running down a steep slope under enemy fire — the specific act that distinguished his actions from those of any other crew member. The citation reads: “Southeast Asia.”

Staff Sergeant Eugene Lunsford Clay’s citation is nearly identical in language to Maysey’s. His remains were never recovered. The citation reads: “Southeast Asia.”

Captain Ralph Wayne Brower’s citation records that despite full knowledge of two helicopters already shot down and a third severely damaged, he “established a hover on a steep slope within one hundred yards of hostile weapons positions and brought the wounded survivors aboard.” One hundred yards. From guns that had already destroyed three aircraft. The citation reads: “Southeast Asia.”

The Geometry of Recognition

Read those three citations alongside Gerald Young’s Medal of Honor and a single question emerges: what is the difference? The mission was identical. The danger was identical. The hillside, the battalion, the burning ravine were the same. Young performed extraordinary acts of valor after the crash that his crewmates could not perform because they were dead. That is the variable. Survival determined the award level — not the courage required to stay on station when Jolly 29 had already broken off, not the act of jumping from a damaged helicopter and running downhill into enemy fire to bring two wounded men home.

These are not oversights. They are the standard operating procedure of a classification system applied to three men who could not contest it, in a country the United States was not supposed to be in, on a mission that officially did not happen in the place where it happened.

Larry Maysey. Ralph Brower. Eugene Clay. They went down in Laos on the night of November 9, 1967. Their citations do not say so. Their country did not say so. We say so now.

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The Last Two Ravens — They Served Without Names

Captain Harold “Hal” Mischler, Raven 40 • Captain Paul Vernon “Skip” Jackson III, Raven 21

December 23 and December 24, 1972 — Laos

Two Ravens died on consecutive days in the final days of 1972. One rode his burning aircraft into the ground defending a besieged town. The other had no parachute when his wing was clipped by a jet he was directing. Both died in a war the United States officially was not fighting, in a country the United States officially was not in, five weeks before the peace agreement that would end American military involvement in Vietnam.

The War at the End

By late 1972, the Secret War in Laos had been grinding for more than a decade. In December 1972, Nixon’s Christmas bombing campaign — Operation Linebacker II — diverted virtually all available fighter-bomber assets to strikes against North Vietnam. For Laos, this meant the Ravens were flying with no fast air support available. When a town came under attack, there was only whatever aircraft the Raven had, and whatever he could do with it.

December 23, 1972: Hal Mischler, Raven 40

Captain Harold Louis “Hal” Mischler was 26 years old, from Osborne, Kansas. He was finishing his Raven tour at Pakse in southern Laos. He had already shipped his personal effects home.

On the morning of December 23, the town of Saravane, near Pakse, was under siege. No fighter-bombers were available — they were all committed to Linebacker II over North Vietnam. Mischler took to the air in his O-1 Bird Dog with a Lao backseater to defend the town by himself. His tactic was to fly low and draw enemy fire — “trolling for guns,” as a ground commander would later describe it — to locate anti-aircraft positions so that whatever support could eventually be called in would know where to strike.

The O-1 was hit by flak. Flames entered the cockpit. The backseater escaped by jumping from the aircraft, only to be killed on impact with a brick wall below. Mischler rode the plane in. His Silver Star citation, for a mission three weeks earlier, reads “Southeast Asia.” His name is on Panel 01W, Line 104 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

December 24, 1972: Skip Jackson, Raven 21

Captain Paul Vernon “Skip” Jackson III was 26 years old, from Hampton, Virginia. A 1968 USAFA graduate, he flew as Raven 21 out of Long Tieng in Military Region II. On Christmas Eve, he spotted North Vietnamese Army supplies cached on the Plain of Jars and called in a flight of four A-7 Corsair IIs. Like many Ravens, he did not wear a parachute — a rational calculation in an environment where low-altitude flight made parachute deployment impractical. He sat on a flak vest instead.

SLAM Four, rolling in on a bombing run, clipped the left wing strut of Jackson’s O-1. The left wing separated. The A-7 pilot ejected. Jackson’s O-1 went into a flat spin and impacted the ground, bursting into flames. Another Raven arrived minutes later, made a low pass, and reported from personal observation that Jackson was dead in the wreckage. His remains were never recovered. He is listed on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Thirty-Four Days

The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973 — 34 days after Mischler died, 34 days after Jackson died. Mischler had already shipped his personal effects home. He went up anyway, alone, because the town needed someone and he was what was available. Jackson was doing the job on Christmas Eve when the collision happened. There was nothing he could have done differently.

Their citations say “Southeast Asia.” The country where they died was Laos. Outside the Raven community, they are essentially unknown.

Hal Mischler. Skip Jackson. They flew into the hidden war until the hidden war was almost over. They did not make it out by thirty-four days. Laos was where they died. It is time their country said so.

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Major James C. Harding — The Citation That Named Laos

A Case Study in Citation Sanitization

Most of the stories on this page are about valor that went unrecognized. This one is different. It is about valor that was recognized — and what the paperwork reveals when you read it carefully.

Major James C. Harding flew 596 combat missions in Southeast Asia across two tours, all in propeller aircraft, all in the A-1 Skyraider. He commanded the 1st Special Operations Squadron at Nakhon Phanom — the same wing, the same base, the same covert air war described throughout these pages. He is one of the top 25 most decorated American veterans. He is not a forgotten warrior. His name is in the books. His citation record, however, tells a story worth reading.

Five DFCs in a Single Year — None of Them in Laos

On December 18, 1971, Harding flew an A-1 Skyraider over northern Laos directing search and rescue forces attempting to recover two downed American crew members. Enemy search parties were confirmed on the ground below. Hostile aircraft were a continuous threat. He stayed on station until his fuel would carry him no further, and the two men were brought home. His citation reads: “Southeast Asia.”

On April 23, 1972, he flew a strike mission supporting friendly forces defending An Lộc, remaining on target past sunset making low-level passes against troops, armor, and active anti-aircraft positions through what his citation describes as an unprecedented volume of accurate anti-aircraft fire. His citation reads: “Southeast Asia.”

On June 27, 1972, he served as on-scene commander of a search and rescue effort to recover an injured American crewmember downed 75 miles southwest of Hanoi. Against extreme weather, critical fuel shortage, and withering ground fire, he made repeated low-altitude ordnance passes to protect the rescue helicopters until the man was safely extracted. His citation reads: “Southeast Asia.”

Then Something Changed

Between April 10 and 13, 1972 — sandwiched between the sanitized citations above — Harding was the on-scene commander of a search and rescue mission attempting to recover a downed American pilot in Laos. He made repeated passes at low altitude directly over a hostile gun position to draw anti-aircraft fire onto himself and pinpoint the enemy location. The pilot was recovered. His Air Force Cross citation for this action reads: “near Tchepone, Laos.”

Laos is named. Explicitly. In the same man’s record. In the same year. On a mission of the same type, in the same theater, by the same squadron, under the same command.

What This Tells Us

The sanitization of Laos from American valor citations was not a blanket policy applied uniformly to every document. It was inconsistent, politically contingent, and driven by what the U.S. government was willing to acknowledge at a given moment. The citation that named Laos proves that naming Laos was possible. The citations that did not name Laos prove that the choice not to name it was a choice — made by someone in the chain, for reasons that had nothing to do with what the men in the aircraft had done.

The courage was the same in every citation. The geography was selectively removed. James Harding’s record shows us both halves of that fact in a single file.

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Airman First Class Michael A. Curtis — They Served Without Names

A Story from the Secret War in Laos

There is almost nothing publicly known about Michael A. Curtis. No Wikipedia entry. No biography. No photograph in any archive. He was an Airman First Class — an enlisted man, young, in one of the most dangerous specialties the Air Force fielded in Southeast Asia. He flew into Laos twice in sixteen days in the spring of 1971, was wounded in action, and received two Silver Stars. Then he came home, and history moved on without him. What remains is the paperwork. Two citations, sixteen days apart. They are enough to tell the story.

The Pararescuemen

The Pararescue Specialists — PJs — were the men at the end of the rope. When a pilot went down in hostile territory, the Jolly Green Giants flew in, and the PJs went outside. Their creed: “These things I do, that others may live.” It was not a slogan. It was a job description. To become a PJ required medical and scuba training, combat survival school, jump school, Army Ranger school, and specialized rescue training. Michael Curtis was one of them.

February 26, 1971 — Near Khe Sanh

On February 26, 1971, Curtis was a Pararescue Specialist aboard an HH-53 Super Jolly Green Giant attempting the rescue of two downed U.S. Air Force aircrewmen. His helicopter received numerous hits from ground fire. Curtis exposed himself throughout the rescue effort to provide suppressive fire, keeping fire on the enemy long enough for the pilots to hold position and bring the two men up. Both aircrewmen were recovered safely. His citation reads: “near Khe Sanh, Republic of Vietnam.” He received the Silver Star.

March 13, 1971 — Near Tchepone, Laos

Sixteen days later, Curtis was on another HH-53 attempting to rescue a wounded U.S. Navy pilot near Tchepone, Laos — deep in the Ho Chi Minh Trail corridor, one of the most heavily defended stretches of airspace in Southeast Asia. The helicopter made two attempts. During these attempts, Curtis was wounded. His citation records what he did next: he continued to expose himself, manning his gun position after being wounded, until the ground fire crippled the helicopter and wounded another crew member, making further attempts impossible. His citation reads: “near Tchepone, Laos.” He received a second Silver Star.

What the Two Citations Show

Sixteen days. Two Silver Stars. A wound. The first citation names Khe Sanh in South Vietnam. The second names Tchepone in Laos. The second citation names Laos because by March 1971 — in the middle of Operation Lam Son 719, the ARVN’s invasion of Laos with American air support — the geography could not be entirely suppressed. American aircrews were dying over Laos in numbers that made deniability impractical for a brief window. The citations from that window sometimes named the country. Before and after that window, they did not.

Curtis’s two citations sit on either side of that line. Together they document in a single man’s record what the sanitization policy looked like in practice: the same airman, the same mission type, the same danger — and two different geographies determined not by where he flew but by what the U.S. government was willing to acknowledge in the month he flew there.

Two Silver Stars. A wound. A failed rescue and a successful one. A name in two citation databases and nowhere else. Airman First Class Michael A. Curtis flew into Laos wounded and kept his gun on the enemy. He deserves to be known by more than his service number.

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A Note on the Documentary Record

The two stories above — Major Harding’s record and Airman Curtis’s sixteen days — are presented not as isolated cases but as exhibits in a specific argument. Together they document that the removal of Laos from American valor citations was not a blanket policy applied uniformly across all awards. It was inconsistent, politically contingent, and driven by what the U.S. government was willing to acknowledge at a given moment rather than by the nature of the actions being recognized.

Harding’s record shows the inconsistency within a single man’s file across a single year. Curtis’s record shows it within sixteen days, on either side of a specific political event — the Lam Son 719 invasion of Laos, during which the geography could not be suppressed because it was already in the headlines. The citations that named Laos during that window, and the citations that did not, were written by the same officers, reviewed by the same chain of command, and processed through the same awards system. The variable was not the courage of the men. The variable was a political calendar.

That distinction matters because it is the foundation of the Medal of Honor upgrade argument for Colonel Philip J. Conran, whose story is told in the Memorial Day 2026 section of this site. If the downgrade of his Medal of Honor recommendation was driven by political geography rather than merit — and the record above demonstrates that political geography drove awards outcomes throughout the theater — then the case for restoring the original recommendation is not sentimental. It is evidentiary.

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Lieutenant Colonel Byron “Hook” Hukee — The Record That Should Have Been a Medal of Honor Recommendation

A Case Study in Award Level Suppression

The previous case study on this page examined what happens when a citation removes the geography of a man’s service. This one examines what happens when the awards system looks at a year of sustained extraordinary valor and systematically undervalues it — not through falsification, but through compression, through the routine processing of heroism as though it were paperwork, and through the application of a political filter that determined what the record was allowed to say about where the missions took place.

Byron Hukee is not a forgotten warrior. He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel who has written extensively about his combat tour, published an Osprey history of the A-1 Skyraider units in Vietnam, and maintained a detailed online archive of his 138 combat sorties. His record is documented. His name is in the books. What his record shows, read against the awards system that processed it, is the structural argument at the heart of this campaign stated in its most measurable form.

The Pilot and the Aircraft

Byron Hukee arrived at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base in October 1971 as a First Lieutenant assigned to the 1st Special Operations Squadron — the Hobos — to fly the Douglas A-1 Skyraider in combat. The A-1 was slow, loud, and unmistakable, which made it irreplaceable for Search and Rescue escort and also made it the primary target of every gun the enemy could bring to bear the moment it appeared. Hukee flew 138 combat sorties in one year. The following is a selected accounting of what those sorties produced in the official record.

The Citations: One Year Over Southeast Asia and Laos

March 19, 1972 — Silver Star (First Award). Hukee flew in support of a search and rescue mission attempting to recover two American crewmembers located in “one of the most heavily defended segments of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos.” Against “an unprecedented volume of hostile ground fire,” he continued to attack anti-aircraft emplacements until they fell silent. Both crewmembers were recovered. The citation names Laos. It awards the Silver Star.

May 12, 1972 — Distinguished Flying Cross with Combat “V” (Fifth Award). Hukee flew in support of a SAR mission for a downed crewmember located 40 miles southwest of Hanoi. He repeatedly exposed his slow-moving Skyraider to hostile aircraft and gun positions. The citation reads “Southeast Asia.”

May 17, 1972 — Distinguished Flying Cross. Hukee flew as wingman attacking enemy positions in northern Laos beneath low clouds hiding nearby hilltops, making numerous low-level ordnance deliveries that resulted in the complete rout of hostile forces. The citation reads “Southeast Asia.”

May 20, 1972 — Distinguished Flying Cross with Combat “V” (Second Award). Hukee flew in support of a SAR mission deep in North Vietnam against intense ground fire, the constant threat of hostile aircraft, and surface-to-air missiles, locating the survivor and providing protective fire and smoke screen for rescue helicopters. The citation reads “Southeast Asia.”

June 13, 1972 — Distinguished Flying Cross (Third Award). As on-scene commander, Hukee made repeated treetop-level passes through anti-aircraft missile and ground fire to direct the successful rescue of a downed U.S. Army crewmember. The citation reads “Southeast Asia.”

June 20–21, 1972 — Silver Star (Second Award). Over two days in the heavily defended A Shầu Valley, Hukee located a survivor, marked gun emplacements for supporting strikes, and directed rescue helicopters to the successful recovery of two downed airmen. The citation reads “Southeast Asia.”

June 27, 1972 — Distinguished Flying Cross with Combat “V” (Fourth Award). Hukee flew 60 miles southwest of Hanoi to lead a SAR effort, finding and protecting one crewmember and providing information leading to the recovery of a second. The citation reads “Southeast Asia.”

What the Record Shows

Seven valor decorations. Five Distinguished Flying Crosses, two Silver Stars. All in one year. The March 19 Silver Star citation describes “an unprecedented volume of hostile ground fire” and a sustained attack on anti-aircraft emplacements until they fell silent. That language appears in Air Force Cross citations elsewhere in this collection. In Hukee’s record, it produced a Silver Star.

The Comparison That Cannot Be Avoided

On October 6, 1969, Colonel Philip J. Conran — the leader of this campaign — flew his CH-3E helicopter into Moung Phine in Savannakhet Province, Laos, crash-landed under fire, organized the defense of the crash site, directed air strikes for six hours while wounded, and held the perimeter until all 54 survivors were extracted. His commanding officer recommended him for the Medal of Honor. He received the Air Force Cross. The Vice Commander of Pacific Air Forces told him personally that the downgrade was required because President Nixon had publicly stated that no American military operations were ongoing in Laos.

On March 19, 1972 — two and a half years later, same theater, same war — Byron Hukee flew a slow propeller aircraft into one of the most heavily defended segments of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos, attacked anti-aircraft emplacements until they stopped firing, and brought two men home. He received the Silver Star. His citation named Laos. The question the Conran upgrade campaign asks is not whether the Air Force Cross was honorable. It was. The question is whether the downgrade from the recommended Medal of Honor was driven by merit or by politics. Byron Hukee’s record answers that question by showing what the awards system routinely did with extraordinary valor in denied airspace across the full arc of the war: it compressed it, sanitized the geography, and awarded the Silver Star where the citation language described an Air Force Cross action, and the Air Force Cross where the commanding general had written Medal of Honor.

Hook Hukee came home. He told his story. The record is there for anyone who looks. What the record shows is that the accounting was never finished — not for him, not for the men whose stories appear on this page, and not for Colonel Philip Conran, who is still waiting for it to be completed.

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Captain Alfred “Fred” Platt, Raven 47 — They Served Without Names

A Story from the Secret War in Laos

Most of the men on this page are unknown. Fred Platt was famous — at least among the people who knew what he had done and where he had done it. Christopher Robbins devoted some of the most vivid pages of The Ravens to him. General Vang Pao treated him as a personal emblem of American commitment. The Ravens called him “Magnet Ass” because of his aircraft’s preternatural ability to attract enemy fire. He crashed eleven aircraft in one year, was shot down eleven times, flew 745 combat missions, received 48 decorations, and came home alive. He is on this page not because he was forgotten by the people who were there, but because he was never known by the country he served — and because what happened to his awards record after the war is one of the clearest examples in this collection of an institutional system failing a man it should have honored.

The Texan Who Went Looking for the War

Alfred Gerald Platt was born February 4, 1941, in Houston, Texas. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1963, went into Air Force Officer Candidate School, earned his wings, and was commissioned on his 23rd birthday. Assigned to fly B-52s, he knew he would not be sent to combat. That was not acceptable. He volunteered for Forward Air Controller duty, completed the six-month course in ten days, and went directly from B-52s to O-1 Bird Dogs. On his 28th birthday, February 4, 1969, he was shot down for the first time over Laos. He would be shot down ten more times before the year was out.

745 Missions, 11 Crashes, 1 Nickname

Fred Platt brought back planes so riddled with bullet holes they looked like Swiss cheese. Ground crews patched them with typhoon tape and sent them back into the air. In Vang Pao’s eyes, those patches might as well have been stripes on the pilot’s uniform. A fellow Raven, Ed Gunter, would later say: “Fred would hang it out. He wasn’t one to always take the safe route or always climb to higher altitudes. He did not have as much of a sense of self-preservation as some other pilots.” Among the Ravens, that was a form of the highest regard.

Platt carried a Bowie knife strapped to one leg and a gold bar on the other — the knife for the jungle, the gold to buy assistance if he went down. He flew 745 combat missions. He was shot down 11 times and rescued from behind enemy lines three times. He was awarded the Silver Star, three DFCs, three Purple Hearts, and 48 decorations total.

What Happened to His Awards

Platt was recommended for a significant additional collection of valor decorations beyond what he had already received. Those recommendations were moving through the awards pipeline when something intervened that had nothing to do with what he had done over Laos.

During his recovery from combat injuries — still on crutches, still in a neck brace — Platt took issue with a colonel, fending off a punch the man threw at him and responding by kicking the superior officer in the chin. The incident threatened a court-martial. At the 432nd Central Base Personnel Office, Platt was told that a large awards and decorations file had been held back, and a court-martial was being considered. Platt responded: “If they court-martial me, I’ll scream holy hell and demand a civilian trial.” The recommended medals were variously downgraded or dropped. The court-martial was never brought. The awards were gone anyway.

A Raven who had flown 745 combat missions, been shot down 11 times, and earned a “large” recommendations file had that file frozen and its contents suppressed — not because his actions were disputed, but because he defended himself against a superior officer’s physical assault while recovering from combat wounds. None of his citations named Laos. The ceiling of what he had earned was never made public.

After the War

Fred Platt served as Commander of China Post 1, the American Legion’s International Post. He remained connected to the Raven community until his death. A fellow veteran made the ride to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and distributed Platt’s ashes alongside the names of his fallen brothers.

Seven hundred and forty-five missions. Eleven crashes. Forty-eight decorations, and a file of recommended awards that disappeared into the bureaucracy of a war that officially was not happening where he was flying it. Fred “Magnet Ass” Platt gave everything the Secret War asked of him. The accounting was never completed. His country never knew his name.

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Eugene Henry DeBruin — They Served Without Names

A Story from the Secret War in Laos

A note from CAVWV President Thomas Leo Briggs: Eugene DeBruin’s story intersects directly with my own service as a CIA paramilitary case officer at Pakse, Laos, 1970–1972. In 1971, at the request of Continental Air Services pilot Lee Gossett, I ran an intelligence collection operation specifically to locate DeBruin, deploying Team Papaya/305 into Moung Nong with a detailed questionnaire and materials prepared by DeBruin’s brother Jerry. The team produced a credible intelligence report placing DeBruin alive in Laos as late as early January 1968. That report was suppressed by CIA and DIA bureaucrats who lacked the operational understanding to evaluate it correctly. I have been in contact with Jerry DeBruin since 1991, helping him navigate the institutional obstruction that has kept his brother’s fate unresolved for more than sixty years. This is Eugene DeBruin’s story. It is also the story of what the United States government did with the intelligence that could have answered Jerry’s question — and what it chose not to do.

The Man

Eugene Henry DeBruin was born April 1, 1933, in Kaukauna, Wisconsin, the second eldest of ten children on a farm family. He served four years in the U.S. Air Force as an aircraft mechanic, earned a forestry degree from the University of Montana, and spent three years as a smokejumper in Alaska — parachuting into remote wilderness fires, a job that selects for physical courage, self-reliance, and the willingness to go into places other people were leaving. He moved to Mexico to learn Spanish, intending to become a writer. He declined an offer from the Peace Corps. In July 1963 he joined Air America as a kicker. He had been with Air America for less than two months when his aircraft was shot down.

September 5, 1963

On September 5, 1963, DeBruin was aboard an Air America C-46 on a rice-dropping mission over Savannakhet Province, Laos, when the aircraft was struck by enemy ground fire and went down near Ban Nassong. Two American crew members were killed in the crash. DeBruin, three Thai crew members, and a Chinese crew member parachuted out and were immediately captured by the Pathet Lao. He was 30 years old. He had been in Laos for one month.

The men the CIA employed through Air America, its civilian proprietary airline, existed in a legal and institutional gray zone that would define DeBruin’s fate for the rest of his life and, for his family, for decades after.

The Prison Years

DeBruin was held in a series of Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese Army prison camps. In May 1964, he and his fellow prisoners escaped for three days before being recaptured. In June 1966, DeBruin was imprisoned alongside U.S. Air Force pilot Duane W. Martin and U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler. On June 29, 1966, all seven prisoners slipped their restraints, seized weapons, and escaped. Dengler was rescued after 23 days; Martin was killed by a Lao villager. One Thai prisoner was eventually rescued. The others were not. The last confirmed sighting of DeBruin alive, until Team Papaya/305, was Intharathat’s report of seeing him attempting to reach high ground. Dengler’s own 1979 account described DeBruin as kind, inventive, and intelligent — integral to planning the escape.

What Team Papaya/305 Found

In early 1971, Continental Air Services pilot Lee Gossett — who had known DeBruin as a fellow smokejumper in Alaska — asked if a CIA case officer could task intelligence assets to locate him. The case officer worked with Gossett and DeBruin’s brother Jerry to develop a detailed questionnaire, and deployed Team Papaya/305 — a Lao Theung irregular team — into the area of Moung Nong with specific requirements to collect information on DeBruin’s whereabouts.

In March 1971, Team Papaya/305 reported back. A villager, shown DeBruin’s photograph, provided the following information, which was cabled to Vientiane and Udorn:

Eugene Henry DeBruin arrived at Muong Phine in late 1966. On or about 3 January 1967, DeBruin was taken from Muong Phine and arrived at Moung Nong on or about 5 January 1967. The Moung Nong prison contained only eight other Americans at this time. DeBruin was strictly guarded by the North Vietnamese Army. He was allowed to eat his meals with, and talk to, the other Americans. In early January 1968, DeBruin and eight other Americans were taken away by North Vietnamese Army soldiers. The villagers were told only that DeBruin and the others were being taken away for training.

This intelligence placed DeBruin alive in NVA custody in Laos as late as January 1968 — a year and a half after the escape attempt from which he was presumed dead or unaccounted for, and in the company of eight other American prisoners whose identities remain unknown.

What the CIA and DIA Did With It

CIA and DIA personnel who reviewed the report subsequently dismissed it. Their stated grounds: that an uneducated Lao Theung team leader would not have provided specific dates; that the report was not independently disseminated; that the source reliability was uncertain. Each objection reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how CIA irregular teams in Laos actually operated. The specific dates — phrased as “on or about” — were the Thai operations assistants’ standard translation of team timing into Western dating. The report’s failure to answer questions the source could not answer, and its inclusion of negative information, are hallmarks of a credible report; fabricators answer everything. Bounlert was a trusted, experienced team leader. None of the reviewing officials had the operational background in southern Laos to evaluate any of this correctly.

The intelligence about eight Americans taken north in January 1968 was never adequately pursued. When Lee Gossett later met with a CIA officer in Vientiane who had the report in his hand across the table, the officer denied having any information on the subject. Gossett, who had a copy of the report himself, knew the man was lying.

No American prisoners were released from Laos at the end of the war. The Paris Peace Accords did not cover Laos. The communist government of Laos has never admitted what became of Eugene DeBruin. The communist government of Vietnam, which controlled the Pathet Lao from top to bottom and kept meticulous records of everything that moved through its operational area, has offered no assistance.

What the Film Got Wrong

In 2007, Werner Herzog’s film Rescue Dawn portrayed DeBruin as selfish, unstable, and potentially treacherous. The DeBruin family and fellow prisoner Phisit Intharathat both objected publicly. Dengler’s own 1979 autobiography described DeBruin in terms directly opposite to the film: kind, inventive, and intelligent, and integral to planning the escape. The film reached millions. The book reached thousands. The version of Eugene DeBruin that most Americans have encountered is a fiction.

Sixty-Two Years

Eugene DeBruin has been missing since September 5, 1963. His brother Jerry has been seeking answers for all of those sixty-two years. The CIA sent representatives to DeBruin’s parents asking them to accept a paltry settlement and sign a quitclaim, rather than acknowledge the employee status that would have entitled Eugene or his family to back pay and benefits for his years of captivity. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency lists his case as Active Pursuit. He has been missing for longer than most Americans have been alive.

Eugene DeBruin went to Laos in 1963. Team Papaya/305 placed him alive in NVA custody in January 1968. Eight other Americans were taken north with him. No one has ever been held accountable for what happened to any of them. His brother Jerry is still asking. His country owes him an answer.

Primary source: Briggs, Thomas Leo. Cash on Delivery: CIA Special Operations During the Secret War in Laos. Rosebank Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0984105922. Chapter 14: “His Brother’s Keeper.” The author served as the CIA paramilitary case officer at Pakse who ran Team Papaya/305 and personally briefed the mission to locate Eugene DeBruin. He is President of the Coalition of Allied Afghan & Vietnam War Veterans (CAVWV), St. Paul, MN.

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If you have a story to share or a name to put forward, contact CAVWV.

SECTION III - ENDORSERS & SUPPORTERS

Campaign Endorsers, Supporters & Partners

They Served Without Names — Memorial Day 2026

This Campaign Is Led and Endorsed By:

Colonel Philip J. Conran, USAF (Ret.)

Air Force Cross recipient. Air Commando Hall of Fame inductee. Six valor awards in eleven months of combat, 21st Special Operations Squadron, 56th Special Operations Wing. Campaign Leader.

For more information on Colonel Conran’s record and campaign acknowledgments, visit: www.philipconran.com/acknowledgments

Sergeant Major Justin D. LeHew, USMC (Ret.)

31-year career, one of America’s most highly decorated service members. Navy Cross recipient. Past National Commander, Legion of Valor of the United States of America — founded 1890, oldest and most prestigious veterans service organization in America, whose membership comprises recipients of the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Navy Cross, and Air Force Cross. Campaign Endorser.

Colonel Craig Duehring, USAF (Ret.)

Raven 27, Raven Forward Air Controller at Long Tieng, Laos, 1970–71. One of fewer than 161 men who flew as Ravens during the Secret War. Former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force. Has reviewed and validated the research findings of this campaign. Research Advisor and Campaign Endorser.

Major General Larry Taylor, USMCR (Ret.) / Captain, Air America (1967–68)

38-year career unusual in its breadth: Marine combat aviator, covert Air America pilot during the most intense years of the Secret War in Laos, senior Marine Corps Reserve commander, and wide‑body airline captain. His Air America service (1967–68) is well‑documented and central to his operational legacy.

Supporting Organizations

The following veteran organizations and allied groups stand in support of this campaign and the recognition of all Forgotten Warriors of America’s Secret Air War. For a full listing of CAVWV Coalition Partners, visit: www.cavwv.org/coalition-partners.html

US-SGU, United States Special Guerrilla Unit Inc.

Nelson Pao Hang, President

Help Our Vets (H.O.V.)

Manousack “Jimmy” Athakhanh, SGU Veteran — Founder

Vilaysack “Victor” Athakhanh, USMC Veteran — Executive Director

The United Royal Laos Armed Forces & Special Guerrilla Units Veterans of the Vietnam War

Khao Insixiegmay, President

KV&A – Khmer Veterans & Allies

Peter Savuth Prak, President

US SGUVV – United States Special Guerrilla Units Vietnam Veterans

Charles Moua, President

The Fellowship of The Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces Servicemen in Minnesota – USA

Hoc Nguyen, President

ANZAC – Australia New Zealand Army Corps

Woodhy Chamron, United States Representative

KHMER SEREI “FREE KHMER” Veterans

5th Special Forces – Mike Force
III Corps, Kampuchea Krom – B40

Sarinh Chau, Director

Special Forces Association

Mike Goodrich, Executive Director

Special Forces Association, Chapter XX

Ron Lachelt, President

Royal Lao Airborne Association

Khambang Sibounheuang, President

Khmer Kampuchea Krom – White Scarves

Civilian Irregular Defence Group, IV Corps Veterans

Lam Yem, President

Add Your Name or Organization

To endorse this campaign, add your name or organization to the list of supporters, or share it with others, contact CAVWV here.

Contact Us

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SECTION IV - PRESS RELEASES

MAY 15, 2026

  

    

CAVWV Calls on America to Remember the Forgotten Warriors of the Secret Air War

    

The Sandys, Hobos, Ravens, and their brothers fought America’s longest covert air war and came home to a country that never knew their names.

    

ST. PAUL, MN, UNITED STATES, May 14, 2026 / EINPresswire.com /

  

  

    

This Memorial Day, the Coalition of Allied Afghan & Vietnam War Veterans (CAVWV) calls on the American public to remember a community of warriors whose service has been largely unknown and unacknowledged for more than fifty years: the airmen of the 56th Special Operations Wing and the covert air forces who fought America’s Secret War in Laos from 1961 to 1973.

    

They flew under call signs that their country did not know: the Sandys and Hobos of the 1st and 602nd Special Operations Squadrons, the Knives of the 21st SOS, the Nimrods of the 609th, the Fireflies and Zorros of the 602nd and 22nd, the Lucky Tigers, the Candlesticks, the Green Hornets and Pony Express crews, and the gunship warriors of the Spooky, Shadow, Stinger, and Spectre. And at the most dangerous end of the mission spectrum: the Ravens, volunteer fighter pilots who shed their uniforms, assumed false identities, and flew unarmed propeller aircraft over the most heavily defended ground in Southeast Asia as covert Forward Air Controllers directing strikes that held the line for America’s Lao allies. Before the Ravens came the Butterflies, enlisted Combat Control Team members who pioneered covert FAC operations in Laos before the program had a name. And alongside them all, the American advisors and CIA officers whose operational partnership made the Secret War possible.

    

These men flew in Laos, a neutral country, where the United States was legally prohibited from entering under the 1962 Geneva Accords. Their missions were classified. Their awards were sanitized, the country’s name removed from their citations before presentation. When they were killed, their families were sometimes told they died in accidents. For decades, they were not listed in the official directory of Vietnam Veterans Memorial names, though their names appear on the Wall itself.

    

The scale of what they did is staggering. American pilots flew 580,000 bombing sorties over Laos, the equivalent of a full planeload of bombs every eight minutes, twenty-four hours a day, for nearly a decade, divided between the 7/13th air war against the Ho Chi Minh Trail in the Annamite Mountains, and close air support for Special Guerrilla Units fighting the NVA invaders of the Kingdom of Laos and MACVSOG teams operating in Laos from Vietnam. The very first USAF aircraft lost in the entire Southeast Asia conflict went down not over Vietnam but over Laos, on March 23, 1961, two years before most Americans believe the war began. Of the 161 men identified as having flown as Ravens, 22 were killed in action. Seven Raven FACs captured by the Pathet Lao were never released; not a single American prisoner held by the Pathet Lao was ever returned.

    

Their Lao allies, the Special Guerrilla Units comprising lowland Lao, Lao tribesmen, and Hmong fighters directed by the CIA under commanders including General Vang Pao in the north and General Soutchay Vongsavanh commanding SGU forces in the south, fought and died alongside them in numbers that dwarfed American casualties, their service still largely unrecognized in American law and public memory.

    

America did not forget these warriors. America never knew them. CAVWV is committed to changing that, beginning this Memorial Day.

    

      

“These men accepted anonymity as the price of their mission. The mission is long over. The anonymity should end with it.”

      — Thomas Leo Briggs, President, Coalition of Allied Afghan & Vietnam War Veterans (CAVWV)     

    

CAVWV invites veterans’ organizations, military historians, journalists, and the American public to join in remembering the Forgotten Warriors of America’s Secret Air War this Memorial Day. A full research summary, unit history, and valor award accounting is available at cavwv.org.

    

The organization also calls on the Gary Sinise Foundation, the National Memorial Day Concert producers, and veteran-focused media to consider giving voice to this untold chapter of American military history.

  

  

    

      

About CAVWV

      

The Coalition of Allied Afghan & Vietnam War Veterans (CAVWV) is a veteran advocacy organization dedicated to recognition of the service and sacrifice of American veterans and the Southeast Asian allies who fought alongside them during the Vietnam War era, including the citizens of the Republic of Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos, the Kingdom of Cambodia, and the Khmer Republic who served as surrogates for American policy. CAVWV advocates on behalf of the full range of allied communities — Vietnamese (Kinh), Montagnards, Lao Loum, Lao Theung, Lao Sung, Nung, Khmer, and others — whose contributions have been systematically overlooked in federal and state recognition programs. cavwv.org

    

    

      

Media Contact: Thomas Leo Briggs — [email protected]

      

Originally distributed via EIN Presswire: View original release