Burr Smith and One Raven-FAC Nirvana
submitted by: Alva Leon Matheson
We learned how to work closely with the CIA’s paramilitary case officers, Air America, Continental Air Service, Hmong ground forces, Thai mercenaries, and the Hmong AT-28 fighter squadron with the callsign Chappakau. Somewhat overwhelmed by the CIA presence and the astonishing dynamics at LS 20A, we didn’t ask many questions at first. The Ravens turned their heads as dozens of 55-gallon drums of raw opium moved nightly via Hmong H-34 helicopters into the world’s drug networks.
These containers lined the five-hundred-meter road between our compound at LS 20A and the airfield. Ravens were prohibited from flying after dark for very good reasons. Even the most combat-tested of us could not have anticipated the intensity of this hostile arena.
Upon landing for the first time at Long Tieng, the place appeared to be larger than life. It at once was surreal, beautiful, philosophically profound, dangerous, eclectic, challenging, unburdened by administrative detail, without many politics, and immensely rewarding if you could survive—personal reward being a feeling I did not realize in Vietnam. This was Burr’s playground.
My last interview during the process of being selected to the Raven program was with the renowned American Ambassador to Laos, H. McMurtrie Godley. He asked how I liked my combat tour in Vietnam.
I irreverently took this rare opportunity to explain at some length how I didn’t much appreciate the bureaucracy of operations in South Vietnam, the oppressive political micro-management from the ether of Washington, DC, and the intimidation of being told I would fly a chair in a command post somewhere if I picked up more than two holes in my airplane. After all, I was trained in the U.S. to be an effective fighter-qualified FAC and came to Southeast Asia expecting to be able to use my skills winning a war for the good guys. Didn’t turn out to be the case, in my immodest opinion. I began to lean presumptuously forward over the good Ambassador’s desk as I dug my hole deeper, blurting out the kind of naive observations only a lieutenant can make and turning loose my pent-up emotions about the “stupid war in Vietnam.”
He just sat there like a patient father figure, quietly listening with the hint of a smile on his face—obviously not the first time for him.
I finally startled myself into reality when I crossed over the line of prudence every officer ought to recognize. A self-inflicted shot went off in my brain announcing that I had gone too far with this legendary CIA Ambassador. I hunkered in my chair like a scared dog anticipating punishment as a few seconds of silence pounded my eardrums.
To my surprise, he said, “Young man, I want to relieve you of this burden you regrettably carry. I’m not asking you to win any wars. You are being chosen for this job because of your already demonstrated creativity in battle using unconventional means to harass the enemy. All I want you to do is take that creative bent and go out and kill as many of them as you can. Are you able to handle that?”
I said yes, and the rest is history. My life and those of a few thousand Communist insurgents changed forever.
Instead of using the acronym, CIA, we had to say, CAS, meaning Controlled American Source. My favorite CAS officers at Long Tieng were Burr Smith, Dutch Snyder, Jerry Daniels and George Bacon. As I walked up the hill from the LS 20A airfield to the American compound marveling at my first sight of this incredible CIA operation, a BB from a Daisy pump BB gun parted the late- afternoon air and stung me squarely in the chest. The CAS officer in charge of the CIA’s weapons armory rocked back in his second-floor chair, belly-laughing at the “newby” on his knees clutching his heart in pain. Welcome to Long Tieng.