Interviewer: What did your dad do in the war exactly? Was he just a soldier or did he work for the CIA or something?
Interviewee: Yea, it’s really blurry, but…that’s a very good question. He was a rebel more than anything because whenever he… when the fall of Laos to communism 1975 one year before he would have been able to graduate and become an officer, like a military officer, so it was kinda like he was in this liminal space like, “I’m almost there but I’m not” and so I think he does identify as just like a rebel and he basically said that he is just fighting and I think that’s whenever… I’m not sure how they get connected, but he did talk to US officials, and government officials, military officials, and I do remember that he, I think he would like collect information for the US Embassy like okay these people are here like the communists are like here communists are here now, but basically just collecting information for them so he was just like be very, very secretive like his life… he lived in a lot of secrecy because he’s, “I want to you know help my country out by helping the US because the US can help me in the end.” But he did travel to all these countries… I don’t know. I’m honestly working on a time line, I need to do better but he has been to Cambodia, he’s been to Burma, he’s been to China and Thailand obviously, so like the bordering countries and Vietnam.
Interviewer: And he was a rebel fighting in all those places…?
Interviewee: Yea, so he was like, he would like strategize; like he said that he basically carried a bag with a lot of maps and strategies of how to… he led 250 people to fight against the communists. He basically was teaching them how to kill you know. Like how to, you know, strategize and be like okay take these people out but I think I remember him saying 250 people who he led until he was like, “I can’t do this anymore”. But yea, through these different areas of Southeast Asia basically and so umm yea not many people know about the secret war obviously because being like the secret war but is was happening at the same time as the Vietnam war was happening and at the same time Pol Pot was happening and the Khmer rouge and so umm… yea… its very I mean kind of like our history is like deleted within like cold war politics; kind of umm and so like, back to where you asked like you know what’s the relationship to Laos to the overall…? Vietnam War should be called the Indo-China war or something because obviously like the United States isCambodia, United States are in Laos, and you know of course Vietnam, but it is just coined the Vietnam War because I guess that’s where Communists kind of leaked out to other countries.