BANGKOK, Thailand -- U.S. Air Force Sgt. David Price, disguised in civilian clothes as a Lockheed employee, was operating a "classified CIA" mountaintop navigation beacon in Laos for U.S. planes bombing Communist North Vietnamese troops when he was killed in 1968, aged 26.

For the past 56 years, Sgt. Price was listed as "killed in action" and his remains lay unrecovered.

In June however the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced discovery of Sgt. Price's remains in the tropical jungle and jagged karst rocks at the small former CIA landing strip.

The remains of fallen U.S. troops are occasionally found and returned home from World War II battlefields and elsewhere, but the discovery of Americans who died in Laos during the Central Intelligence Agency's "secret war" is rare because its participants are still shrouded in confidential documents.

"More than 280 Americans are still unaccounted for in Laos, with some of them in a 'non-recoverable' category," the DPAA said.

"This means that through rigorous investigation, we have conclusive evidence the individual perished, but do not believe it possible to recover his remains," it said.

Sgt. Price and other defenders were unable to stop North Vietnamese forces scrambling up the steep peak to kill them all.

He died at one of the CIA's 400 landing strips scattered across Laos, code named by their initials as Lima Sites.

"In 1968, Price and 18 other men were assigned to Lima Site 85, a tactical air navigation radar site on a remote, 5,600-foot mountain peak known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province, Laos," DPAA said.

"The site was overrun by Vietnamese commandos, causing the Americans to seek safety on a narrow ledge of the steep mountain.  A few hours later, under the protective cover of A-1 Skyraider aircraft, U.S. helicopters were able to rescue eight of the men. 

"Price and 10 other Americans were killed in action and unable to be recovered," DPAA said before they found his remains.

He will be buried in his hometown, Centralia, Washington state, on August 30.

"The site in Laos was kept top secret and lacked much of the security and defenses that a U.S. military site might have had," the Task & Purpose military news site reported on July 24.

"The few Air Force technicians — who were listed as Lockheed employees during the mission — wore civilian clothes, had little to no combat training, and were supposed to be unarmed though they had brought a cache of rifles and grenades.

"Security was provided by roughly 1,000 Thai and Hmong soldiers organized and led by a pair of CIA operatives," at Sgt. Price's Lima Site 85.

"The evacuation of the Americans was chaotic, with CIA helicopters hovering overhead as the Hmong and Laotian troops held off 3,000 Vietnamese.

"Twelve of the 19 Americans at Lima died in the fighting, along with about 50 of their Thai and Hmong defenders. It was the deadliest ground attack suffered by the Air Force in the war," Task & Purpose reported.

Four CIA paramilitary officers including Vint Lawrence, Bill Lair, Pat Landry, and the notorious Tony "Poe" Poshepny -- who demanded and collected enemy ears and heads -- led the CIA's war effort, according to James Lilley, deputy CIA station chief in Laos 1965-1967.

"People questioned that whether he [Poshepny] was killing as many Pathet Lao as he said. And so he did this thing with cutting off their ears and sending us a bag with their ears," which arrived at the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane, Mr. Lilley said.

Mr. Lilley made the remarks in a documentary film about  Lima Site 20 Alternate titled "The Most Secret Place on Earth" by Marc Eberele and Tom Vater.

Sgt. Price's Lima Site 85 and the other landing strips supported the CIA's airline Air America which flew hundreds of flights each day above Laos, transporting minority ethnic Hmong mercenaries and "hard rice" -- ammunition -- while enemy gunfire tried to shoot them down.

The CIA created a Hmong force 27,000 strong under Lao Gen. Vang Pao to fight the invading North Vietnamese and their Pathet Lao allies.

"Vang Pao said, 'Hell yeah, give me some guns and some training, and maybe a little helicopter support now and again, and I'll fight them fuckers'," according to CIA Special Operations Group paramilitary case officer James Parker -- code named "Mule".



Air America's helicopters and fixed-wing planes flying in and out of Sgt. Price's site suffered severe wind sheers and drafts, similar to many of the risky landing strips in Laos.

The CIA focused on a tiny area in northeast Laos between Sam Nuea in the legendary Plain of Jars and Vientiane, the capital of Laos.

Invading North Vietnamese, aided by Pathet Lao, were carving sanctuaries in the Plain of Jars and trying to advance on Vientiane and topple the U.S.-backed regime.

Authorized by then-President John F. Kennedy, the Central Intelligence Agency ran the war in secret which obliterated Laos, killing tens of thousands of people from 1964 to 1973.

Using navigational beacons operated by Sgt. Price and others at the Lima Sites, U.S. aircraft dropped the equivalent of one ton of explosives for every person in the impoverished nation populated by two million people.

"From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions -- equal to a planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years -- making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history," Washington-based Legacies of War said.

Despite the intense American assaults, Communists in Laos and neighboring Cambodia defeated the U.S. in 1975 when the Pentagon lost the regional Vietnam War.

Brenda Fuller, one of Sgt. Price’s daughters, was only seven years old when her father was killed.

“I would like the American public to know that my dad served his country in a manner that he felt was going to further the cause, and hopefully make an end of the war,” Ms. Fuller told Task & Purpose.

“That’s, I think, all they need to know, that he loved his country. He believed in what he did, he believed in the men that he served with, and he thought he was doing what was best.”

When Sgt. Price perished in 1968, the U.S. was already losing its war in Laos.

CIA-armed Hmong mercenaries lost so many fighters that parents were reduced to forcing their children into battle though they also easily perished.

"A short time ago, we rounded up 300 fresh [Hmong mercenary] recruits," said Edgar "Pop" Buell, USAID's officer in Laos in 1968.

"Thirty percent were 14 years old or less, and 10 of them were 10 years old. Another 30 percent were 15 or 16 years old. The remaining 40 percent were 45 or older.

"Where were the ones in between? I will tell you, they are all dead," Mr. Buell said.

To avoid U.S. casualties, the CIA also trained Thais to fight and flew them from Thailand across the Mekong River to various Lima Sites in Laos.

The U.S. also taught the Thais how to train the minority ethnic Hmong tribesmen in Laos who were illiterate animists dwelling in medieval isolation.

"There were just so many Thais you could use as a surrogate for bringing in a lot of Americans," CIA case officer Mr. Lawrence said.

"That had great value. It allowed the American effort to work with a very small footprint," he said.

Mr. Lawrence was based at the CIA's clandestine headquarters in Long Cheng -- known as LS-20A, Lima Site 20 Alternate -- in northern Laos, from 1962-1966.

About 4,000 Thai "Tiger Soldiers" (Tahan Sua Pran) were trained by U.S. Special Forces and sent to Laos.

Thailand's then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej "told them to put a small piece of gold on the back side of the Buddhas they wore around their necks, to indicate their personal, private bond to him," CIA case officer Mr. Parker said in a 2016 interview.

"He told them in their difficult work ahead to use the words to the American song, 'The Impossible Dream' as their guide," said Mr. Parker who was assigned to the Laos program in 1971 in Thailand before transferring to Lima Site 20 Alternate to work with the Hmong fighters.

"Back in the day, their involvement was 'Top Secret'," Mr. Parker said.

"In December 1960, one of outgoing President Eisenhower's last acts was to sign an authorization for the CIA to organize and train Hmong around the Plain of Jars to fight the communists," Mr. Parker said.

***

Richard S. Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent reporting from Asia since 1978, and winner of Columbia University's Foreign Correspondents' Award. Excerpts from his two new nonfiction books, "Rituals. Killers. Wars. & Sex. -- Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka & New York" and "Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers & Freaks" are available at
https://asia-correspondent.tumblr.com