Special Guerrilla Units (SGU) Veterans and Families of USA was established in 2004 in Minnesota by Hmong veterans of the Secret War as a non-profit organization. The organization’s mission is to service and provide social and emotional supports to the veterans, widows, and their families. Also, SGU continues to advocate state and federal political leaders to pass legislation to gain access to VA benefits for its members.

Another long-term goal for SGU is to build a museum to collect, preserve, and house the veterans and their families’ artifacts, military records, and stories. This SGU institution would be important to all communities with interests in learning and researching about Hmong history and experience.

The Hmong’s participation in this CIA-backed Secret War in Laos led the U.S. to accept them as war-torn refugees to come to the U.S. that began in 1975. From 1961 to 1975, the Hmong played a crucial role in the U.S. war efforts during the Vietnam War era. They were employed by the CIA as a secret army known as the SGU to fulfill the U.S. military objectives inside Laos: approximately 35,000 SGU soldiers died in assisting the U.S. in this war effort to stop communist expansion inside and beyond Laos. (This was known as the Domino Theory, which the fall of Laos would bring chaos to the rest of other Southeast Asian nations, and turned them into communist factions.)