[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 80 (Wednesday, May 16, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2721-S2722]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                HMONG VETERANS' SERVICE RECOGNITION ACT

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, as a young man, I lived with my father 
while he served as U.S. Ambassador to Laos. I came to know it as a 
heartbreakingly beautiful country, with lovely, kind people, into which 
our international contest with communism violently intruded.
  The goal of the U.S. in Laos at the time was to prevent North 
Vietnamese forces from using Laos as a supply line for attacks on South 
Vietnam, along what was known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and to prevent 
Laos itself from falling under Communist domination by the Pathet Lao 
forces.
  So began a covert war in Laos, funded by the CIA, in which at least 
35,000 Lao and Hmong perished.
  The legendary Hmong military leader, General Vang Pao, operated out 
of a base at Long Tieng in the mountains of Laos. He told the New York 
Times in 2008, ``There were three missions that were very important 
that were given to us and to me. . . . One was stopping the flow of the 
North Vietnamese troops through the Ho Chi Minh Trail to go to the 
south through Laos. Second was to rescue any American pilots during the

[[Page S2722]]

Vietnam war. Third, to protect the Americans that navigated the B-52s 
and the jets to bomb North Vietnam.''
  After the war, thousands of displaced Hmong refugees were obliged to 
flee Laos. They fled into Thailand, to countries in Europe, and--in 
many cases--to the United States. My State of Rhode Island is proud to 
have had many settle and build their lives in our communities.
  The Hmong Veterans' Service Recognition Act passed into law this 
year, finally allowing naturalized Hmong- and Laotian-American veterans 
to be buried in U.S. national cemeteries. I am grateful to my fellow 
Rhode Islander Philip Smith of the Lao Veterans of America for his 
determined advocacy on behalf of Hmong and Lao veterans.
  Twenty-one years ago, the Clinton administration authorized a plaque 
to be placed at Arlington National Cemetery commemorating the valor of 
the Lao soldiers who aided American forces during the Vietnam war. It 
is a fitting honor for those brave combat veterans that they lie beside 
old comrades-in-arms, a way of keeping the promise inscribed on this 
memorial plaque, which pledges that the Hmong and Lao veterans' 
``patriotic valor and loyalty in the defense of liberty and democracy 
will never be forgotten.''
  After my father retired, he heard that local opposition had arisen to 
a proposed Lao temple not far from here in Virginia. He went with his 
military aide and CIA station chief from the Laos days to testify at 
the local hearing. The military aide was General Richard Trefry, then 
the commander of White House military operations, who in full military 
regalia testified that, without the courageous Lao resistance, led by 
Vang Pao out of the base at Long Tieng, there would be 1,000 more 
American names on the Vietnam War Memorial.
  It is with that sense of abiding gratitude that we remember the 
bravery of those Hmong troops and their dedication to fight for 
democracy and to protect the lives of so many young Americans at war in 
Southeast Asia.

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