LTC Yangee Vang, President of the Lao Veterans of America, has always played a part in the administration and organization of all our formations. This organized effort led up to a new player, who worked on Capitol Hill and knew many of the Congressmen and their staff, named Philip Smith. Dr. Jane, as she is known among the Secret Army, had been a reporter in the Vietnam War, and had worked in the Hmong refugee camps in Thailand. After talking to many Lao survivors of the war in Laos, both men and women, she went about writing one of the most definitive books published about the Secret War, Tragic Mountains . It been read by many members of the U.S. Congress, making them well aware of the Secret War as well as the plight of the Lao refugees.
Hmong women wear their tribal clan dress.
There are Hmong women and Lao dancers in their national dress. The pictures of the 1997 and 1998 formations came from the Lao Veterans of America. The pictures in 1999 are from two world-wide reporters and camera people, Leigh Wilson and Chris Jackson. Chris worked with war refugees in Thailand and Cambodia, from 1979 to 1986, where she and Leigh met. The area of the Formations were on the Mall in Washington, DC, located between the Washington Monument and the Vietnam War Memorial.