Hmong History and Pilots Talk

Guest Speaker: Chia Youyee Vang

During the Vietnam War, The US Air Force secretly trained pilots from Laos, skirting Lao neutrality in order to bolster the Royal Lao Air Force and their own war efforts. Beginning in 1964, this covert project, "Water Pump," operated out of Udorn Airbase in Thailand with the support of the CIA. A few dozen ethnic minority men from the clandestine army participated. Those who survived mostly sought refuge in the United States after the war. Drawing from numerous oral history interviews, Fly Until You Die brings their stories to light for the first time-in the words of those who lived it.