Posted on 01/06/2011 7:07:06 PM PST by markomalley
Gen. Vang Pao, an iconic figure in the Hmong community and a key U.S. ally during the Vietnam War, died today in Clovis.
Vang, 81, was admitted to Clovis Community Medical Center on Dec. 26. Vang apparently was admitted shortly after making his annual appearance at the Hmong International New Year event at the Fresno Fairgrounds.
Charlie Waters, a friend and veterans advocate in Fresno, said Vang was suffering from pneumonia and an ongoing heart problem.
Vang is revered by many as a father figure and leader who helped bring and settle the Hmong community into American life.
But he also has been controversial -- federal authorities in 2007 charged him and 10 others with conspiring to violently overthrow communist Laos. Charges against Vang were dropped in 2009.
(snip)
Born in December 1929 to farmers in a Laotian village, he became a teenage translator for French paratroopers fighting the Japanese in Laos during World War II.
Vang was selected to train at a French officers' school in Vietnam and became a commissioned officer in the French army. Laotian leaders made Vang a general, even though the Hmong were a small ethnic minority in the country.
In 1961, Vang was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to lead a secret army of Hmong soldiers against Laotian communists and their North Vietnamese counterparts using routes through Laos to supply their troops.
When the war ended and U.S. forces pulled out of Vietnam, communists in Laos persecuted the Hmong. More than 300,000 Laotian refugees -- most of them Hmong -- began a treacherous journey to reach Thai refugee camps.
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
Oh, crap....
It’ll be a day of mourning at work, tomorrow.
The phone should be ringing in a couple of minutes to ask me to cover for those related to the dearly departed.
Phone. Disconnected.
Vang Pao and his people fought for the United States, and to our great shame we abandoned them to the Communist.
Some survived the ordeal. Most died.
Yes, rest in peace General.
The guy fought the Japs and the Commies. He’s OK in my book.
What’s controversial with trying to overthrow an oppressive communist government in Laos? Or is it controversial only to communist newspapers in the U.S.?
koj mus koj
Not to diminish Vang Pao, but does everybody realize that Vo Nguyen Giap is still alive? He will turn 100 in August. I know he is a commie, but you got to give the devil his due. He beat the United States with a stone age economy (flame my hyperbole if you must). One of the great military/political minds in history. Ronald Reagan turns 100 next month. Not too shabby in the ‘great political minds’ was he, also.
The Serbs helped us in WWII also. Remember what Clinton did to them?
RIP.
Not flaming your hyperbole, I'm flaming your statement that he beat the US. He didn't.
BTW, there's still a human rights abuser in the Congress ~ Senator Patrick Leahy. He claims his first vote in the Senate was to defund our allies. At some point we have to remember to hold a war crimes trial for this guy ~
I'd like to waterboard the old boy to see if he can, in fact, tell the truth. I think he'd fail!
He played the U.S. like a fiddle. He used our left wing against us like a maestro. He beat the U.S. The only man in history who every did. That is until Obama was elected.
I know a sweet Hmong girl who was born in Hawaii right after evacuation from Laos. Great person and patriot to this country!!!!!! Better than a lot of Caucasian commie Americans and smarter, too. Love immigrants like her family. RIP.
--
Babe, koj thiaj yog tus uas kuv hlub nyob rau tiam n
Thaum kuv nrhug koj mus koj yeej yog tus kuv nco
Koj ib leeg thiaj yog tus kuv tshua lub neej no
Giap the general did most certainly NOT beat the U.S. on the battlefield. The U.S. lost the newsprint battle. But the U.S. kicked his ass on the battlefield.
I'll grant that the old codger is a tough old bird, but he's hardly one of the great military minds of the 20th century. He masterminded the ~disaster~ that was the Tet Offensive. General Giap gave a great interview, maybe 15 or so years ago now, where he admitted that the Tet offensive was almost their last act. The NVA was so thoroughly wiped out during Tet, that they effectively had no capability to make war anymore. They were so convinced of their imminent loss that they were making plans for their imminent surrender, or perhaps a negotiated peace.
It wasn't until they started seeing the coverage by the U.S. media (especially Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite) that the party leadership realized that their only hope was to take the battle to the media, through the U.S. anti-war movement.
BTTT....
He punished the Pathet Lao on the Plain of Jars for us, when we had no one else who would. I admire the Hmong, tough little soldiers. He was their leader (for good & bad) and he was our ally. The Hmong and a few of our "spooks" were effective then.
“Not one of our finer moments”
During the rainy season of 1969, Vang Pao abandoned the use of guerrilla tactics and launched a major offensive against the NVA/Pathet Lao forces, using the increased airpower to support a drive against enemy positions on the Plain of Jars . Operation About Face was a huge success. The Hmong reclaimed the entire Plain of Jars for the first time since 1960, capturing 1,700 tons of food, 2,500 tons of ammunition, 640 heavy weapons, and 25 Soviet PT-76 tanks.
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