Word: laotians
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...forlorn little Laotian government garrison defending the key Xieng Khouang airstrip on the strategic Plain of Jars, the end came at 3 a.m. Two hours earlier, an estimated six North Vietnamese battalions supported by outmoded but still effective Soviet PT-76 tanks had begun their final attack, smashing through the camp's barbed-wire perimeter and crushing all resistance. In his last message, a wounded Laotian radio operator called in air strikes on his own position. The surviving defenders fled west, but were unable to regroup. By noon, the entire plain and its important road network were...
Last fall, in a surprising reversal of form, Laotian troops backed by heavy American air support swept Communist forces off the strategically located Plain of Jars in north-central Laos. It was the first time in five years that the government had controlled the area. Last week the pro-Communist Pathet Lao and their North Vietnamese allies launched a long-awaited attempt to regain the plain...
...America Caribous, C-123s and two four-engined C-130s borrowed from U.S. Air Force bases in Thailand. On some, their markings were painted over in an attempt to maintain the fiction that there is no U.S. military involvement in Laos. The engines never stopped. As doors opened, Laotian and American officials herded refugees aboard, many clutching terrified children as they leaned into the blast of the prop wash...
...Vientiane's Wattay Airport, the refugees were met by Laotian government officials, loaded onto trucks and taken to reception centers. After processing, they were trucked to riverside villages, where hastily built bamboo-and-straw buildings awaited them. There seemed to be enough food but not much else. Even so, they seemed happy to be away from the guns; some of them had been living in caves on and off for two years to escape frequent bombing and shelling. As one old woman summed it up: "It was terrible. First one side came and then the other side, and they...