Gen. Vang Pao, who first saw combat with the French at the age of thirteen, led the CIA-trained and -financed Meo guerrillas throughout the war until the end. (Pic: Private collection of David Kouba)

War bled the Meo nation of its men until only children remained to fill the ranks. A child holds a white phosphorous marking rocket before it is loaded on a Raven O-1 Bird Dog. (Pic: Private collection of Michael Cavanaugh)

Prince Mangkhra Phouma, the son of the prime minister, poses with a Meo soldier on the Plain of Jars in 1969. The boy had been singled out for distinction for his high number of enemy ‘kills’. (Pic: Private collection of William Keeler)

Many of the Meo boy soldiers were so young they were scarcely bigger than their weapons. (Pic: Private collection of Chad Swedberg)

Republic F-105 ‘Thunderchief’ - nicknamed ‘the Thud’ (Pic: USAF photo)

Air Force CH-3 helicopter used in Jolly Green Giant search-and-rescue operations. (Pic: USAF photo)

An A-1 Skyraider, flown by the Air Commandos out of the secret Nakhon Phanom air base across the Mekong in Thailand. (Pic: Mesaris collection)

A Raven using a T-28 as an FAC plane. Note the marking rockets under the wing and grease-pencil, bomb-damage-assessment notes covering the cockpit. (Pic: Mesaris collection)

The golden gun - a .45 revolver - and its hand-tooled holster. (Pic: Cavanaugh collection)

Chuck Engle and “spook” relax against a bomb between missions. (Pic: Mesaris collection)

The Raven bar, tastefully decorated with parachutes. A favourite hang-out of Air America pilots and Ravens - the bears lived in a cage just outside. (Pic: EAPLS Archives)

The presentation by Mike Cavanaugh of Ross Perot’s golden .45 to Gen. Vang Pao. From left: U Va Lee “The Indian”, Mike Cavanaugh, Gen. Vang Pao, Burr Smith “Mr Clean”. (Pic: Cavanaugh collection)

Lee Lu, the Meo fighter pilot with five thousand combat missions, regarded by his American peers as one of the very best. (Pic: Cavanaugh collection)

The funeral of Lee Lu. Gen. Vang Pao walks in front of the coffin while his comrades-in-arms gather around. (Pic: Cavanaugh collection)

The ramp at Long Tieng with T-28 Meo fighters in the foreground and “titty” karst in the background. (Pic: Mesaris collection)

The O-1 Bird Dog, the Ravens’ war chariot - “The most formidable weapon known to man.” (Pic: Swedberg collection)

Mike Byers with Backseater in front of an O-1. (Pic: Private collection of Michael Byers)

‘Weird’ Harold Mesaris gives Floyd, one of a pair of Himalayan black bears, a beer - his favourite tipple. (Pic: Mesaris collection)

The “CAS” guys - the CIA men who ran the secret war - standing here on the Plain of Jars, dressed as if for a round of golf. (Pic: Morrison collection)

Tony Poe, the legendary CIA paramilitary operative, photographed as a young Marine. Poe helped get the Dalai Lama out of Tibet and fought in numerous clandestine operations. He was known to have paid a bonus for enemy ears and was rumored to keep the heads of particular enemies pickled in formaldehyde.

The CIA operations shack at Long Tieng, command center of the secret war in MR II. (Pic: Archives of the Edgar Allen Poe Literary Society)

Long Tieng, the most secret spot on earth. “Spook Heaven” as the CIA base for Military Region II was known, was the base for Gen. Vang Pao and his Meo guerillas. (Pic: Kouba collection)

The Mexican Banditos. The Ravens and their support troops posed for this photograph after a visiting Air Force general described them as “a ragged bunch of Mexican bandits”. (Pic: Mesaris collection)

Two Meo “tots” on the ramp at Long Tieng help load white phosphorous “Willy Pete” marking rockets. (Pic: Private collection of Harold Mesaris)

The enemy, so young they looked like girls. One had written on the band inside his helmet, “Born in Vietnam - Die in Laos”. (Pic: Craig Morrison)

“Weird” Harold Mesaris, a self-portrait. (Pic: Mesaris collection)

Lor Lu, the Raven orphan, carrying a Meo musket and wearing a combat fatigue hat. (Pic: Mesaris collection)

Craig Morrison in Pleiku, Vietnam, before volunteering for the Steve Canyon Program. (Pic: Morrison collection)

Scar, the “Number One” Backseater, for whom war satisfied some dark sense of fun. (Pic: Morrison collection)

Gen. Vang Pao with a group of Meo on the Plain of Jars. Burr Smith, a CIA case officer, strides beside him in dark glasses, while Mike Byers is to his right carrying detcord. (Pic: Byers collection)

The perils of making a mistake at Long Tieng - a T-28 is arrested by the vertical speed brake. (Pic: EAPLS Archives)

Chuck Engle, who was awarded the Air Force Cross, checks the fuel level on an O-1. (Pic: EAPLS Archives)

Chad Swedberg and Frank Birk in front of an O-1. (Pic: Swedberg collection)

Bob Foster at Long Tieng in the haze of the opium “burn” season. (Pic: Private collection of Bob Foster)

Ambassador Godley (in his Joseph Mobutu shirt from his days in the Congo), Frank Kricker with his newly awarded Silver Star, and an informal Robert Seamans, secretary of the Air Force. (Pic: Private collection of Frank Kricker)

Ambassador William Sullivan

Grant Uhls wearing holster and .45 beside a T-28. (Pic: Swedberg collection)

Chad Swedberg and Princess Hamburger - the photo is inscribed by Swedberg, “Town fool and friend”. (Pic: Swedberg collection)

Critter - Fred Platt’s prehistoric pet. (Pic: Platt collection)

Lloyd Duncan with the fighter pilots of the Royal Lao Air Force in the panhandle. (Pic: Kricker collection)

Hal Mischler beside an OV-10 he flew as a FAC over the Ho Chi Minh Trail just before leaving for Laos. (Pic: Whitcomb collection)

Tom Palmer during the siege of Long Tieng, holding up a sign with the Backseaters’ favourite phrase written on it - “We go home now.” (Pic: Morrison collection)

Fred Platt in neck brace and party suit, after the war. (Pic: Personal collection of Fred Platt)

Jim Hix and his Backseater Phanti beside an O-1 he “dead sticked” into a rice paddy after the engine quit. Phanti carries a captured Russian AK-47. Hix carries a Car-15 and a 9mm automatic. (Pic: Personal collection of Jim Hix)

Craig Morrison and Scar (right) with captured Chinese rifle. (Pic: Morrison collection)

Larry “Pepsi” Ratts with his squeeze box, and wearing his Volga boatman’s hat, outside the Raven hootch in Pakse. (Pic: Kricker collection)

A Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun inside Laos - their camoflague was superb. (Pic: AP/Wide World Pictures)

A boy holding an M-16 rests against a tree while a water buffalo grazes nearby.

Cheerful boy soldiers rest beside a bamboo hut, eagerly awaiting the next battle.

The Meo were first organized by the French into bands of masiquards who fought behind the lines of the Vietminh. A group of Meo soldiers lead a pony carrying supplies across the Plain of Jars. (Pic: AP/Wide World Pictures)

The war devoured the young Meo men until there were only children left. (Pic: AP/Wide World Pictures)

A unidentified American inspects the M-16 automatic rifle of a Laotian boy soldier. (Pic: AP/Wide World Pictures)

The face of the future - the enemy in Vientiane. (Pic: Kouba collection)

The writing on the wall. (Pic: Kouba collection)

A typical party suit worn to the Raven reunions at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. (Pic: EAPLS Archives)

Craig Morrison and baby son Trey, born just before he went to Southeast Asia. Beneath the smiles, there were psychological scars that took years to heal. (Pic: Morrison collection)

The Meo mass for the final American evacuation of the war in 1975. Only a fraction of their number could be taken out by the C-130 and two C-46s (one of which is shown here) manned by ex-Air America personnel. (Pic: Kouba collection)

Raffish armorers beside the bomb dump in Pakse. (Pic: Hightower collection)

Thai 155mm battery at KM 21 on the road towards Paksong. (Pic: Hightower collection)

The road outside of the Raven hootch after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. (Pic: EAPLS Archives)

The aftermath of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre - the Raven hootch. (Pic: EAPLS Archives)

Pakse control tower. (Pic: Private collection of Chuck Hightower)

Captured Russian guns lined up on the Plain of Jars after the success of Operation About Face in 1969. (Pic: Morrison collection)

Captured enemy anti-aircraft guns decorate the front of Gen. Vang Pao’s house in Long Tieng. (Pic: Morrison collection)

Captured 12.7mm anti-aircraft guns that nailed many Ravens. (Pic: Swedberg collection)