Pop Buell - The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

When Pop arrived in June 1960, Laos' isolation and low international profile changed dramatically with a coup d'état and the entry of Laos on the world stage as a pawn in the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Pop became involved in the Laotian Civil War between the Royalist government, supported by the United States, and the Communist Pathet Lao. Increasingly, both the United States and North Vietnam intervened militarily in Laos to protect their toehold in the country. Unlike Vietnam, where the US sent more than 500,000 soldiers, only a few Americans, civilian and military, worked in Laos. The CIA supported an anti-communist army made up largely of Hmong and other highlanders and Pop Buell was the man on the scene who knew the Hmong and had their trust. Many Laotians were displaced by the fighting or, in the case of the highlanders, cut off in their mountaintop villages. To Buell, now working for the U.S. Agency for International Development, fell the task of organizing relief aid to refugees and isolated villagers. Frequently, the aid was in the form of bags of rice air dropped by Air America aircraft. Air America was the CIA owned civilian airline operating in Southeast Asia. Buell became a "one-man supply corps."

Buell took money out of his retirement fund to buy supplies when U.S. government funds and resources were interrupted, as they often were at the far end of the supply chain. He was known to the Hmong as Tan Pop, "Uncle Pop". His opinion about the war in Laos was, "for every Hmong that died, one fewer American soldier died" in Vietnam. Many thousands of Hmong died in the war. He became one of several seldom-seen but mythical figures of the war in Laos – which is almost always described as "secret".