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| 12/1/2006 | Email this article • Print this article | Roger Wagner Discusses Laos War at Concordia University
Amy Doeun
Roger Wagner is well known for his PBS documentaries. He is particularly well known in the Hmong community for two books he has written about the war in Laos, Backfire and Out of Laos. His current projects include a video documentary entitled "Once Upon a Time in the CIA," a "biographical film" chronicling Bill Lair's involvement in Laos.
Wagner was in the Twin Cities the weekend before Thanksgiving to do some filming for this documentary and stopped at Concordia University for a brief "conversation" on U.S. involvement in the Laos war. Students, faculty and artists/ activists all gathered at Pearson Theater on the campus of Concordia on November 16. Lee Pao Xiong, Tzianeng Vang and "Delicious Venom" provided official welcome. "Delicious Venom" performed 2 songs while footage from the 1960s played on the screen behind them.
Everyone gathered agreed that the decade of the 1960s and the Vietnam War changed the lives of the Hmong. Wagner stated that the "Laos war is a tremendous epic story...with interest to main stream America." Wagner added that it is a "very complex story, everyone has a piece. The piece I have is the American side and the Thai side." Wagner acknowledged that many people are unaware of the Thai involvement in the Laos war. He showed clips from his film featuring Bill Lair recounting how he used Thai troops that he had also trained, the PARU, to then train Hmong fighters. The film likens Lair to Lawrence of Arabia, an English man who raised an army of nomadic tribesmen in the Middle East during World War I.
After Lair trained the Thai troops and they secured the borders of Thailand he went on to Laos. Lair stated, "The real potential for guerilla warfare was in the hill tribes." After making contact with Vang Pao, Lair and the Thai troops trained them in just 3 days. The first day they trained on weapons, the second "group weapons" and the third day on how to conduct ambushes. On the 3rd day the enemy stormed over the hills and were completely defeated by the Hmong. These early victories encouraged the war department of the U.S. and the numbers of Hmong troops increased from 1,000 to 6,000 to 30,000 by the end of the war.
Wagner stated, "If not for Lair there would have been a Laos war and it would have folded very quickly, in about 3 months." Meaning that Wagner believes the communists would have taken over Laos. But the Hmong troops were very "quick and effective." Lair recounts how he asked a young Hmong soldier who he was fighting for? The man replied, "I am fighting for my village chief and father." Lair added "I don't think they would have been very effective if they were fighting for us." Yet Wagner acknowledges that there is a feeling that the Hmong were tricked into fighting a war that wasn't theirs. "I don't think there's use pretending [that those feelings don't exist]."
Wagner opened the floor for discussion. Personal opinion of the audience members ranged from; "If not for the war, the Hmong would have had a chance to live their lives in Laos and preserve their culture." to "They didn't have a chance at all." One young man stated, "We've been fighting for ourselves through all history." Lair stated that Vang Pao told him they, the Hmong, could not live with the communists and would either leave Laos or fight.
Wagner added whenever tribes, or peoples without states behind them get involved in wars, "the tribes get screwed, because they cannot negotiate treaties. The Hmong suffered undue casualties and I don't think the war was fought well in the 2nd half [1967-69]."
But the real question of the evening was, "A lot of people see only loss - loss of that kind of culture. But was it a loss or a gain? A tragedy only?" That is the question Wagner hopes to answer at least in part with his upcoming documentary. Meanwhile Lair lives in Texas and is working as a truck driver. He says that he has no regrets and would have liked more assignments.
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St. Paul, MN
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