Air America was a covert airline secretly run by the CIA during the Cold War, most active from the 1950s through the end of the Vietnam War, and while it outwardly appeared to be a normal commercial carrier, it was actually used for highly sensitive missions across Southeast Asia. Originally created out of Civil Air Transport, the airline became a vital lifeline for covert operations in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, where it ferried weapons, food, and supplies into remote areas, inserted and extr

#DearGrandparents Story Told by Pa Kong Lee (Hmong American) "At the age of 15, my father was carrying a weapon, an M-1 Garand, for his work under the American CIA in 1962. Like many from the Hmong family, in order to protect his family, they hid in the jungles of Laos as they were hunted by Lao communists. They were typically peaceful people who kept to themselves, until they were pushed out of their lands, and then recruited by the CIA to fight against communism in the Secret War. My father an