A typical introduction to the Ravens was that of Alan Poe (a pseudonym), who was a fighter pilot turned FACs. “I went down to Hurlburt Field, Florida, and was trained as a FAC, and then was sent to Vietnam. When we processed in through Saigon as a FAC, we had an in-country briefing, and they told us after you’d done your six-month tour in Vietnam, if you still hadn’t got enough of it, they had some kind of a special mission that might be available. That was all they would say. They didn’t say anything else other than that.”

But Poe quickly grew bored and frustrated in South Vietnam. He flew to Saigon and requested the “special mission.”

“They called it the Steve Canyon Program at the time. There were about 25 Ravens in country, mostly lieutenants and some captains. They were doing all kinds of crazy stuff – young guys with airplanes and rockets and guns. We used to say they were like Pancho Villa’s raiders but not quite as disciplined.”

Mavericks, with an aggressiveness and courage bordering on the foolhardy and stamina to endure flying 12 or more hours a day under some of the most harrowing combat and weather conditions, the Ravens and their Hmong counterparts, the Nokateng (Swooping Bird), fought the war from bases at Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Pakse, Savannakhet, and Long Chieng (or Long Tieng), flying to war in small, slow observation aircraft and trainers.

“If you’re in Vietnam, you’re a military combatant under the Geneva Convention. But in Laos, we were flying basically as soldiers of fortune, I guess, for lack of a better term, so we didn’t fall under the Geneva Convention, and they could do basically anything they wanted to. I don’t know anybody that ever went down that got out unless Air America or the Air Force rescued them almost right away.”

“We had the O-1, and then we had the U-17, which is a four-place Cessna 185, a tail-dragger,” Poe said. “We used that when we had to take along some interpreters or something like that, and it had longer legs. Then we had T-28s. We had the Navy version, which was 1,500 horsepower, and carried rockets. It also had .50-calibers in the wings. I flew the U-17 because it had longer legs, but it was almost interchangeable, really, with the O-1. Not everyone was checked out on the T-28. Usually the Head Raven and maybe the site commander were checked out on the T-28 … and a few others, but not many.”

The Ravens flew their small, slow aircraft day after day, and sometimes at night, over the mountains and jungles of Laos, spotting targets for Air Force, Navy, and Laotian aircraft carrying heavier ordnance. To say that the flights were dangerous is an understatement. Of the 191 who served as Ravens, 31 paid for their dedication with their lives.

“Ravens flew unmarked airplanes in civilian clothes, and most of them just looked like ragtag cowboys, if you want to know the truth about it,” said Poe. “We were basically outside the Geneva Convention when it came right down to it. We didn’t have ID cards. All our military gear was left back at Udorn. When we crossed over into Laos, there was nothing. We had Laotian driver’s licenses and things like that, and guys would jokingly ask, ‘What happens if we get shot down? What are we going to tell the captors?’ They said, ‘Eh, tell ’em you’re a forest ranger.’ It was all tongue-in-cheek, of course, but there wasn’t much you could do.