Our Story
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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 legislations 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 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 during the Vietnam War: approximately 35,000 SGU soldiers died in assisting the U.S. in this war effort to stop communist expansion inside and beyond Laos.

At war’s end in 1975, these CIA-sponsored Hmong soldiers faced retaliation by the communists Lao and North Vietnamese regime. Some were captured and sent to re-education camp. About 20,000 Hmong soldiers and their families fled to Thailand. Majority of them resettled to the U.S. as refugees. Between 5,000 to 7,000 relocated to Minnesota to start their new lives. Since many SGU veterans live throughout the U.S., SGU has established state chapters to help the Hmong veterans and their families in their states.

(Photo courtesy Roger Warner Collection)

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