Chia Youyee Vang

This is not your typical "fly boy" type narrative, as the survivors of the four-dozen or so Hmong pilots who fought in the CIA's secret war in Laos were as much interested in talking about their motivations and people as they were in talking about their combat experiences, and the author approached this whole exercise as a participant observer and an ethnographer. As for what I found most striking about this story, is that I greatly appreciate hearing the pilots' own understanding of what they were attempting to do, as they went into this adventure with considerably more education and linguistic skills than the typical Hmong. Was it worth it? From their perspective it's six of one and half a dozen of the other; while their combat sacrifices were basically in the service of a lost cause, the survivors tend to believe that they did save their people by enabling them to come to the United States.… (meer)