A Brother in Arms Pays Debt

'If I don't do it, who's going to do it?' says former U.S. medic of efforts to honor Hmong allies

BY JIM RAGSDALE

When Laos descended into chaos three decades ago, most U.S. soldiers and government workers were unable to protect their Hmong friends and allies from their mutual communist enemy.

Steve Schofield was a civilian medic in Laos from 1969 to 1975, triaging bloody casualties, ferrying Hmong families out of war zones and scouring the jungles for downed pilots. Now 60 and living near Sheboygan, Wis., he is a passionate advocate for honoring the role of the Hmong fighters he worked with and is raising funds for a Laos war memorial on the lakefront in Sheboygan.

"If I don't do it, who's going to do it?'' said Schofield.

Thirty years ago this month, Schofield joined the exodus out of Laos when the war ended, the communists seized control and a flood of emigration began that eventually remade the demographics of St. Paul and parts of Wisconsin. He spent his last weeks trying to help Hmong allies find a way out.

"It ended very badly,'' Schofield said. "Vietnam fell, Cambodia fell. We knew Laos was next.''

Laos was a busy place when Schofield arrived. Although neutral by treaty, communists were ferrying troops and weapons from North to South Vietnam via Laos and Cambodia. The United States did not want to put its own troops into Laos, so the CIA trained, equipped and directed indigenous fighters, often from the Hmong minority, to fight the North Vietnamese and harass military shipments.

Schofield had been an Army Special Forces medic in Southeast Asia before signing on as a civilian medic in Laos. He cut quite a figure in a photograph from the era - in his bushy mustache, floppy hat, an M-16 slung over his shoulder - pictured on a jungle path with local warriors.

"It was full bore," said Schofield of the secret war when he arrived in Laos.

Bombers roared off from Long Cheng, a secret outpost that made Schofield feel like the American boy transplanted to Asia in the adventure comic "Terry and the Pirates." Aerial spotters known by their radio call-name of "Ravens," Hmong fighters in do-it-yourself uniforms, CIA and Air Force men in civilian clothes, all were working at a base that was not listed on any map.

It was not uncommon to see young boys, barely as tall as their guns, going into battle.

"We really didn't promote it, but we allowed it to happen,'' Schofield said. "The Hmong were being bled dry, so village leaders would just go out and conscript any boy that looked like he could carry a rifle.''

Schofield helped resettle Hmong civilians forced out by communist offensives, and saw the Hmong become dependent on airdrops from U.S. planes. In later years, as the war turned in favor of the communists, Schofield said he had his hands full every morning after a night of carnage at remote bases.

"They started coming in, every day, chopper after chopper load, one after another, just bringing loads of casualties down, guys that had survived the night. … By 1 o'clock I'd be covered in blood…."

When the war ended, Schofield was at a U.S. compound in Vientiane, the Lao capital. Many Americans had fled without their pets - animals that would not be cared for under the new regime. Before he left Laos, his superior told him to put the pets down.

"It was one of the worst things I've ever done,'' Schofield said. "I had a .22 with a silencer; I would shoot them in the head and bury them."

Back in the United States, where he resumed his education and began a career selling medical supplies, he said he avoided Hmong people whenever he encountered them.

"I was embarrassed - I didn't what to talk to any Hmong,'' he said. "What could I tell them?… I was ashamed of what we did.''

But by 1990, when Schofield moved to the Sheboygan area and came in contact with relocated, immigrant Hmong living there, he was able to resume his relationship.

He and his wife, Yasuko, a native of Japan, invited local Hmong to his land to raise vegetables. He worked through Special Forces organizations to recognize local Hmong veterans, help them find uniforms and teach them to march.

"I got them at my place,'' he said. "They marched for hours. We taught them rifle salute. About-face. Left turns. Right turns.'' For several years, local parades have had Hmong contingents.

In effect, Schofield taught Hmong warriors how to be veterans.

Schofield, with white hair and a snowy beard, has produced a simple and compelling DVD about the Hmong contribution to the U.S. war effort, which he uses to raise funds for the memorial for Lao, Hmong and American veterans of the secret war. He speaks often to groups about the U.S. debt to the Hmong.

And though he was unable to do much for the tide of refugees 30 years ago, he and other U.S. veterans have given the Hmong soldiers a final gift. Recognizing the importance of funerals in the Hmong culture, Schofield has helped organize a Hmong color guard to send Hmong warriors off with the same three-volley salute given to fallen American soldiers.

ONLINE

The Web site www.secretwarinlaos.com has information about the Lao, Hmong and American memorial being planned for the lakefront in Sheboygan, Wis. - and about how to contribute. It also has information about Steve Schofield's "Secret War in Laos'' DVD.

Jim Ragsdale can be contacted at jragsdale@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5529.

Sherri Byrand column: Hmong protected U.S. troops in Vietnam by fighting North Vietnamese

Schofield reports he first went to Laos in 1968 as part of a U.S. Special Forces cross-border operation from Vietnam. He was wounded on that mission. A year and a half later, he served in Laos as a public health advisor with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

He said, “For five and a half years I worked with the Hmong and other hill tribes. I saw firsthand their tremendous sacrifices on behalf of the U.S. government.”

The Hmong were tasked by our government with “containing and disrupting the North Vietnamese Army” within Laos, according to Schofield. The Hmong engaged those Communist troops so Americans did not have to fight them in South Vietnam. Because the Hmong spilled their blood, they protected uncountable numbers of Americans.

Said Schofield, “Tens of thousands of Hmong were killed among a population of only 250,000.”

The death tolls included “many young Hmong boys” who “were trained by the CIA and Special Forces in Laos or Thailand,” said Schofield. “Sometimes they were sent to the front lines in and around the Plaine de Jars with little or no training. Many of these boys did not survive.”

Suffering then extended to the Hmong women and children because of the escalation of the war.

“Most of the civilian Hmong population were driven from their traditional mountaintop homes by Communist troops. In the crowded, lower elevation refugee camps and villages to the west and south of their traditional homes, the Hmong were decimated by diseases for which they had no natural immunity,” said Schofield.

Schofield presents this reality: the Hmong endured sorrow on a scale beyond what the vast majority of us have ever faced. Contrast his experience with the inexcusably outrageous accusation of the letter writer who reported that the Hmong were guilty of an ideology akin to “give me liberty or give me welfare.”

Said Schofield, “If there was/is a welfare mentality among the Hmong, it is because we forced it upon a historically self-reliant, hard-working, independent people.

” He explained, “During the ‘secret war,’ the CIA paid the Hmong troops a few dollars per month, and they fed and provided medical care for the Hmong women and children because if that agency did not, the men and boys would have been obligated to stop fighting to take proper care of their families. The CIA and U.S. government needed them to stay in combat.”

That same letter writer reported that “as soon as the fighting got tough [the Hmong] ran away.” Again, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

It wasn’t the Hmong who stopped fighting, but the United States.

Said Schofield, “We left the Hmong and Hill tribes of Laos to the genocide of the Communists. The Hmong were especially targeted for their fierce resistance to the Communists and loyalty to America. Many more thousands men, women and children were hunted down and exterminated.”

Schofield reports that the U.S. government had absolutely made a promise to “take care of the Hmong.” He explained that while it did end up keeping its promise with General Vang Pao by giving him “a ranch in Montana and a $30,000 a year pension,” the U.S. did not fulfill its obligations as it should have with the rest of the Hmong.

“The U.S. government badly used the Hmong and then abandoned them,” said Schofield. “I am ashamed of what we did to the Hmong in Laos and ashamed that the U.S. government did little to educate Americans about the role of the Hmong in the war in Laos.”

I am ashamed as well. It’s time the record was set straight; to stamp out falsehoods and to get past irrelevant debates like whether the Vietnam War was an international war or what prompted the Hmong to fight. Clearly American soldiers fought and died in that area so far away, and clearly more would have died if the Hmong hadn’t been there to keep some 40,000 North Vietnamese enemies off of their flank.

Likewise, clearly the U.S. government pledged to assist the Hmong and clearly it at first forsook them. Because of that inaction, thousands more suffered and died.

Schofield talked about how the Hmong had long been denied access to schools in Laos, so their progress here in the United States is nothing short of “remarkable.” He said, “They have made tremendous strides and are abandoning the welfare mentality that was forced upon them. The majority have become well-educated, contributing members of our country. There are now, 30 years later, hundreds of Hmong with advanced degrees.”

Because of the contributions of the Hmong that Schofield saw firsthand in saving U.S. soldiers and their tenacity for overcoming incredible adversity, he is working hard to create the memorial to Lao, Hmong and American Veterans that he believes is “long overdue.”

To contribute, please call 458-0808. Your donations are sorely needed to create this site, which will help reveal the truth about the Hmong.

Copyright © 2004 Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service. Send your questions and comments to Gannett Wisconsin Online.

Neighbor Worth Knowing: Local man helps honor Hmong veterans

By Mary Eckardt
Sheboygan Press staff

Steve Schofield, 59, of Newton, has chosen to be part of something monumental.

Actually, he’s been involved for some time, but now the project is being set in stone —granite as a matter of fact — in Deland Park.

Schofield is the lead spokesman for the Lao, Hmong and American Veterans Memorial, a national monument being built on Sheboygan’s lakefront, breaking ground this spring. The monument will honor Hmong veterans who served and died in the Vietnam War.

Schofield never knew his initial involvement, active duty in the U.S. Army for 3½ years and 20 years in the Army Reserve, would end up like this, but it did.

Schofield was retired as a major, Special Services of the Army Reserve after being in Laos for six years. Now, recognition of the Hmong for their part in America’s “Secret War” has become his focus.

“The six years in Laos, (six months in the mountains and 5½ years of commuting,) affected me. I was young, age 24 to 30, and when I came back and saw how the Hmong were treated, I wanted to do something.”

Several years ago he started speaking to civic groups and school classes, with a slide program he created from his own slides of the war. Then he thought it would be easier to tape the speech and show the slides with it, which then developed into the creation of a DVD, “A Brief History of the Hmong and the Secret War in Laos.” He is listed as the producer.

The graphics, music and sound were added by a professional Milwaukee firm, and Schofield’s group now sells the DVD for $20. All proceeds go to the memorial.

In the six weeks the DVD has been available, Schofield said it has raised $10,000.

The memorial committee now has $85,000, which Schofield said is enough to begin construction. No tax dollars are going to the project for building or maintenance. The target amount needed is $130,000 for labor and materials.

Schofield has speaking engagements booked soon in St. Paul and Atlanta, Ga.

He is the only one on the memorial board with experience with Hmong in Laos. To him, it means more than just volunteering.

He said 20 percent of the Hmong male population was killed in the war, and soldiers were often boys as young as 10. Tens of thousands of men, women and children died from communist invasion of their villages and homes. The memorial is also in their honor, he said.

Memorial board member Mary Lynne Donohue said, “Based on his intense experience in Laos and the war, Steve has grown to know and understand the Hmong culture beyond just their activities in the war. He’s a quiet but powerful guy. It goes beyond just what the Hmong did.

“He understands it. My respect for him just grows and grows,” she said.

“Without the Hmong, many more Americans would have died in Vietnam,” Schofield said. “They rescued American pilots shot down in Laos who otherwise would have been missing in action, and (they) prevented North Vietnamese convoys from going through Laos into South Vietnam.”

There are now 6,000 Hmong in Sheboygan and 40,000 in the state.

“This celebrates our whole community — its diversity, its beauty and its conviction that the Lao, Hmong and American Veterans Memorial is here at the right place and right time,” Schofield said.

The monument will have panels of text in polished black granite, half of it an educational narrative and half listing names of veterans.

Caring for the Hmong is not something new to Schofield. After finding retirement property along Lake Michigan, he actively supported them.

Initially, that meant giving the Hmong who, at the time, played volleyball at nearby Silver Lake College on Friday nights, access to his land to plant and harvest vegetables. The day after he made the offer, there were 100 people lined up, soon filling a four-acre plot.

Now, 15 years later, they’ve had a Harvest party every August. About 150 attend, for cooking and feasting on Hmong delicacies, and sailing on Lake Michigan along with other outdoor activities.

He has hundreds of Hmong friends and now among them are adults he used to know as children.

He was reunited with a man in Milwaukee whom he knew as a 10-year-old soldier in the war zone. He also recognized a Hmong man in a St. Paul, MN, shopping mall as one of his old friends from Laos.

To call Steve Schofield for a speaking engagement, call (920) 726-4618.

Copyright © 2004 Use of this site signifies your agreement to the Terms of Service. Send your questions and comments to Gannett Wisconsin Online.