The CIA had several sites within the Kingdom of Laos, but Long Tieng (also known as Long Cheng or LS20A) was a super Top Secret and by far had to be the most treacherous base to fly into or fly out of. Long Tieng was located high up in the mountains where the only level area was converted to a CIA sponsored landing strip. Flying into the airstrip was something out of an Indiana Jones movie. You’d see nothing but mountains when all of a sudden a bowl-like area appeared. The pilot would abruptly drop into the bowl as close to the start of the runway as he could then reverse engines and apply full stop measures immediately upon touch down. I flew there often to install or support communications and on occasion even flew on the only flight available, a C-130 delivering fuel to the site. Sitting in the cabin behind the pilots was daunting and somewhat unnerving watching the limestone karst walls come closer and closer as the pilots fought to stop the aircraft before crashing into the limestone karst walls which rose up sharply at the end of the runway. I kept thinking we’d have a double whammy here if we ran out of runway and hit the limestone karst walls. We faced not only a cruel death by collision but an even more brutal fiery death by the several thousand gallons of aviation fuel in a fuel bladder strapped down in the cargo area of the C-130 Hercules. Flying there in other aircraft was not as dramatic.
Takeoff was no less treacherous as the aircraft had to start at the very edge of the runway, go full power and takeoff in time to clear the mountain walls. There were at least two T-28 Laotian aircraft and at least two other unmarked aircraft carcasses as testament to failed efforts of less experienced pilots.
I flew into Long Tieng on several missions, and each succeeding mission was just as daunting as the first. I never had a dedicated flight going into or out of Long Tieng. Leaving Vientiane for Long Tieng required that I take whichever was the first available flight already booked for Long Tieng. Once I completed my mission, I would stop by the Air America flight operations and ask for a flight to Vientiane then wait at the local cafeteria which was an informally managed snack bar run by locals with varying degrees of cooking experience. The beer was cold, though, so it was a popular place to spend a few hours.
Once, when leaving the cafeteria for the airstrip, I passed by what looked like a large sharpening stone with a crank handle on a metal stand. As I walked past it, it really piqued my curiosity, so I walked back to investigate. It was clearly not a sharpening stone. I grabbed the handle, cranked it a whole revolution, and was stunned at the piercing shrill it made with just one revolution! “Dammit!” I thought to myself, “It’s a hand cranked alarm siren !” A couple of Americans and a Laotian ran out of the cafeteria to verify it wasn’t an actual alert. One of them noticed I looked red-faced and embarrassed. “It’s okay, buddy. You’re not the first to be overtaken by curiosity,” one of them said with a wry smile. They walked back to the cafeteria. Embarrassed, I quickly walked away from the siren and on down to the airstrip to catch my flight.
Only rarely was there a flight to Vientiane, so I would go site hopping until I reached Vientiane. If I got stranded along the way, the pilots would always point me to a some Project safe house to spend the night.
Matt and I flew to Long Tieng to install an HF transceiver. The only suitable area for the antenna was just under a hundred feet from the communications center, and there was a caged black bear named Floyd between the antenna and the communications center. Floyd was a mascot kept by the Raven pilots working out of Long Tieng and lived in a cement cage with prison-type bars on sides and front. A rubber tire swing was provided for Floyd to entertain himself. Floyd had an onerous smell once you approached his cage despite his fifty five gallon drum filled with water which Floyd jumped into feet first whenever he needed to cool himself down.
Matt and I erected the long wire antenna and ran the antenna coax feed cable to the communications center. Matt jumped on the roof of Floyd’s cage and tied the feed cable as close to the top of several of the cage’s bars. We went to the HF transceiver and began tuning it, but whatever we tried, the transceiver was not tuning properly, an indication that the antenna might be cut to the wrong length or the cable itself was defective. I walked outside to inspect the antenna cable and was stunned to see our antenna and its poles on the ground. I followed the coax cable and learned that Floyd had somehow reached up to pull our antenna cable down and was now chewing on it. I went back to tell Matt that we had some huge problem. Matt ran out to verify I was not just joking.
Time was running short, but we had brought sufficient coax cable to fabricate another antenna lead. We re-erected the antenna in record time, ran the coax cable away from Floyd’s reach and tuned the radio properly. I always dropped by and checked on Floyd and our cable installation on subsequent flights there. He seemed to love visitors and would often put on a show swinging on the tire then casually walk over to dip himself in his barrel of water. I felt sorry for Floyd whom I understand had been captured as a cub and knew nothing but a life of captivity.
I was always apprehensive whenever I was assigned a task for LS 20A. When the mission was clearly more than one man could handle, I would take my air force counterpart, Matt to accompany me. Matt loved to fly to the field sites, but Long Tieng was not something he cared for. But we made a good team and always managed to handle any task given to us.
General Van Pao1 was a Hmong who had trained with the French prior to the fall of Dien Been Phu and with the Americans from the early sixties. He was an exceptional soldier and protected his Hmong people assiduously. It was common knowledge among all Americans that “If you touch a Hmong girl, you will marry her!” That was supposedly handed down by order of General Van Pao.
General Van Pao left Laos and came to the United States upon the fall of Laos in 1975. He continued to support and assist his Hmong people until his death in California sometime in 2011. He was buried in a private cemetery in Los Angeles with full military honors and with an American flag draped on his coffin. The American color guard saluted, bagpipes sounded and a flight team flew overhead as his coffin was being lowered. He had requested to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. The Obama administration denied him the honor saying Arlington National Cemetery is reserved for US combat veterans. This is a classic example of yet another of the Bozo’s cruel and thoughtless policies dishonoring the services of a military man without whom the CIA would never have been able to retrieve American pilots downed over Laotian airspace nor control the enemy's incursions into Laos. We OWED General Vang Pao that honor.
1 From 1960 to 1975 the CIA ran a clandestine sideshow to the Vietnam War within Laos. Long Cheng (also known as Long Tieng and as LS-20A) was a secret air base built by the CIA during the Vietnam war. This base was so secretive that not even Congress was aware of its existence. Long Cheng was unmarked, un-mapped and known only by a select few. Reference: 'CIA activities in Laos', Wikipedia
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