Harvesting Pa Chay's Wheat: The Hmong and America's Secret War in Laos

"Pa Chay's Wheat" is a better book than its title which suggests a stoned hippie's fantasy about Laos. Quincy has actually written an engaging and opinionated history of the Hmong's war against the communists. The phase of that war in which the Americans helped the Hmong began in the late 1950s and continued until 1975 when Hmong commander Vang Pao and his CIA advisor fled the country. The written record of the war is sparse, so the author has relied mostly on Hmong informants. There are many events described here by Hmong that you won't find in any other book that I'm aware of. It is to be hoped that Hmong scholars will follow up on Quincy's work with some research among their elders who still remember that nearly mythical secret war in Laos. No doubt they will find some errors in "Pa Chay's Wheat" as books relying on old memories are wont to have. Quincy goes back to the beginning of the 20th century in describing the Hmong (or Meo as they were called in those days) and their place in Laotian society. He brings their history up to about 1990, at which time many of them have fled to the United States or to squalid refugee camps in Thailand. General Vang Pao is, of course, the central character of the book, as well he should be. The supporting cast of Americans includes legendary figures from the shadow war in Laos: Pop Buell, Colonel Billy (Bill Lair), Jerry "Hog" Daniels, Tony Poe, and others. I would say the book is objective in describing the war. Quincy doesn't waste any words about the failures of the United States, the Royal Lao government, or Vang Pao. Nor does he sugarcoat the brutality of the commununists. His point of view seems to be pro-Hmong, admiring their bravery and their accomplishments and deploring the shabby treatement they received from a retreating America and the conquering communists. "Pa Chay's Wheat" is a book worth reading. Smallchief

In Harvesting Pa Chay's Wheat: The Hmong & America's Secret War In Laos, Keith Quincey reveals the American military's involvement in Southeast Asia in what came to be called the Laotian "secret war" and its tragic consequences for the America's allies, the Hmong people and their culture. By the early 1980s, the entire Hmong society had fled out of Laos and into Thailand and the United States, making them a people in exile from their ancestral homeland. Harvesting Pa Chay's Wheat is a seminal work explaining how and why this terrible outcome came about, and is a chilling reminder that even after the fighting stops, the devastations of war continue on. Also available in a hardcover edition ..., Harvesting Pa Chay's Wheat is highly recommended reading for students of Hmong history, the Vietnamese conflict, and American foreign policy.

I rate this book a five stars. One for Quincy's interest in Hmong by putting out his time and effort, two for another volume added to the Hmong Historical Record, yet still just another presentation through an outsider point of perspective. And the last three I reserved for my Hmong intellectual brothers and sisters to take up the book and begin analyzing the fact that No one, no matter how competent they are, are not going to accurately write a Hmong History and handed to the world bypassing the very blood connecting our veins to that of our ancestors which upon millennia had etched our place on the human existence!I poured over Quincy's work twice in the span of one month making sure I had one week's break time from his presentation to digest everything. Though Quincy had obviously put his Political Science mind to good use, most inside - very intimated Hmong information best left be authored by Hmong Intellectuals through whose blood run the very life of Hmong civilization. It's so ironic that Hmong History had to be presented to the world without choice, on a western platter. Western and Asian sources alike, up to now had dissected Hmong History without even experience a lifetime's worth of understanding Hmong's unique make up. Most of them did not even care for correct Hmong name and spelling, let alone a unique philosophical mind that even rival that of other Asian race. I found it unrealistic that every single author had managed to add to the myth that Hmong are nothing less than civilized???Quincy like Hamilton and many others before them painted a Hmong picture by merely observing and researching and not through LIVING. Take the Chinese sources for example, how could one assume that it is accurate to cite when they had only two things in mind. One, to assimilate or exterminate Hmong at any cost and two, to record only their emperor's ambitious achievement? Notice that I have not even mentioned the so ever prevalent racist attitudes toward Hmong that Quincy so intimately pointed out in his book, that even an uneducated Laotian deemed a Hmong not worthy of a human life by refusing to take order from...Overall Quincy had still more to educate about Hmong and its civilization issues, if he ever will work on another Hmong projects in the future. However I assured you, Mr. Quincy, that you are certainly being appreciated for your work. I personally applaud you for showing the intellectual Hmong, the way........

Last year I took a college course in Vietnam History, so when this new book was released I was interested to read it. Frankly, even after some study, I'd never realized what an important, heroic and thankless job the Hmong assumed during that conflict. I gave it to my professor at school to look at and he said he'd already read it. Then he said: "Quincy knew what he was talking about." So why the political fuss? I give it five stars for content and a thorough view of a complicated affair. If someone'e brother, uncle or step sister has his/her nose out of joint then they should get a life and read some real history. If there are two sides you have to show both of them--that's what it's about. I'm with my professor--hats off to Quincy.