Emily Jenkins · March 2021
89 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. Arguendo 28
Between 1961 and 1973, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency secretly directed and operated a paramilitary force of Hmong guerilla fighters in Laos. This paramilitary force, standing in the place of American servicemembers, contained the communist forces in Laos and secured the attention of some 70,000 North Vietnamese soldiers who otherwise would have fought against the Americans and its South Vietnamese allies. Yet members of the Hmong paramilitary force do not meet the Department of Veterans Affairs’s current definition of “veteran” because the group was directly operated by the Central Intelligence Agency rather than the U.S. Armed Forces. As such, the veterans themselves and their families do not have access to the numerous benefits offered by the VA. In order for the United States to reconcile its failure to recognize and support the Hmong Special Guerilla Unit for the past four decades, the service by the Hmong must be considered “active service,” entitling the soldiers of the Hmong Special Guerilla Unit to veteran status. In order to do so, this Note argues that the Department of Defense must amend its requirement that a group must have served under the direction of the U.S. Armed Forces to include service under the Central Intelligence Agency, which would bring the Hmong Special Guerilla Unit within the scope of the criteria.
