Flight,

This might ring a bell with a few of us. I got it from the VHFCN site.

Tom Gator 851.

Vets Break Silence Of 'Secret War' In Laos, Cambodia....

May 26, 2003 SACRAMENTO, Calif. --

Memorial Day has become a time to break the silence for two veterans of
America's secret jungle war in Laos and Cambodia.

For 30 years, Maj. Gen. Dan Gibson and Col. Charles Cross never talked
about what they did in the Vietnam War. Neither knew the other had been
involved in a clandestine conflict, even though the two old friends sat
only a few feet apart in California National Guard offices in
Sacramento. But a recent declassification of military records has
allowed the Air Force veterans to finally honor those who fell.

"It does me good to know they're finally getting recognized, and their
stories are being told," Gibson said. "We've been bound to secrecy for
too long."

Gibson commands the California Air National Guard, and Cross oversees
the Guard's homeland security plans in the state. It was only last year
that the two traded code words -- "Prairie Fire" and "Daniel Boone" --
that indicated they both had been involved with the Military Assistance
Command, Vietnam, Studies and Observations Group.

Comprised of about 2,000 U.S. and 8,000 South Vietnamese troops,
MACV-SOG operated from 1964 to 1972. Its teams went into officially
neutral Laos and Cambodia to disrupt communist supply lines and harass
an estimated 40,000 fighters there, collect intelligence, capture and
assassinate North Vietnamese officials and rescue downed U.S. pilots.

More than 160 U.S. troops died, according to an Internet site created by
veterans.
Gibson was a forward air controller who helped to pick out landing zones
for Laos incursions. Cross was a helicopter gunship pilot who flew 988
combat missions, most of them in Cambodia.

Both had signed agreements forbidding them from discussing the secret
war.
"There were a lot of guys who died, but their stories were never told,"
Cross said. "Their families were only told they died in Vietnam. But
their brave deeds saved thousands of American lives, and they died in
Laos or Cambodia."

"Until missions were declassified, it was hard to resist the temptation
not to talk about these men," said Cross. "The fallen should've been
given proper recognition long ago, but, like the good warriors that we
were, we kept our mouths shut."

It was only in 2001 that units, which served as the MACV-SOG, were
officially recognized with Presidential Unit Citations -- one of the
highest honors in the military.

The units, according to the citation statement, "penetrated the enemy's
most dangerous redoubts in the jungled Laotian wilderness and the
sanctuaries of eastern Cambodia. Pursued by human trackers and
bloodhounds, the small teams out-maneuvered, out-fought and out-ran
their numerically superior foe to uncover key enemy facilities, rescue
downed pilots, plant wiretaps, mines and electronic sensors, capture
valuable enemy prisoners, ambush convoys, discover and assess targets
for B-52 strikes, and inflict casualties all out of proportion to their
own losses."

After military records were declassified earlier this year, Gibson
pinned a Presidential Unit Citation on Cross' uniform at a Sacramento
ceremony.
"The sad legacy of the secret war is that only the survivors really know
the importance of the sacrifice of those who died," said Stanley L.
Sandler, former Special Forces historian at Ft. Bragg, N.C. "Memorial
Day is an appropriate time to tell their story."