Tom Briggs is a retired career Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee with twenty-three years of honorable CIA service as well as three years as a commissioned military police officer in the U.S. Army, and three years as a Special Agent in the Drug Enforcement Administration.
While serving as a CIA operations officer in Laos in the early 1970s during the Vietnam War, Tom was running indigenous Lao teams to gather intelligence and conduct kinetic actions against North Vietnamese invaders and Pathet Lao communist enemies. Information on American Prisoners of War was a high-priority intelligence requirement for the CIA in Laos and by coincidence, Tom became friends - and worked with - Continental Air Services (CASI) pilot Lee Gossett [see Paul Carter video Lee Gossett: Laos Secret War Pilot • Laos Secret War Pilot:... ].
Lee was friends with Eugene DeBruin who became a prisoner of war in 1963 when his Air America plane was shot down over Laos. Tom became dedicated to finding Eugene DeBruin and began running operations to that end. This video concerns Tom’s efforts and the CIA’s stonewalling of the DeBruin family’s effort to learn Eugene’s fate. Since retirement, Tom has worked tirelessly with Eugene Debruin’s brother Jerry DeBruin in pursuing answers to what happened to Eugene.
These days Tom steadfastly tries to assist former indigenous U.S. allies, such as Lao, Lao Theung, Hmong, Montgnard, Khmer, and Afghans via his efforts as the President of the Coalition of Allied Afghan & Vietnam War Veterans (CAVWV) www.cavwv.org/
Tom has also applied his knowledge of the Secret War in Laos to provide significant support to an effort to have the recommendation for a Congressional Medal of Honor for retired USAF officer Phil Conran upgraded from an Air Force Cross. The Medal of Honor had been reduced to the Air Force Cross because the actions to be honored had occurred as part of a clandestine CIA Special Guerrilla Unit operation in Laos. [See pages 15-19 here - tinyurl.com/2j...]
A correction - "T.C." the Chinese radio man was from Hong Kong, not Taiwan.
Tom Briggs' Book is available at www.amazon.com...
Lee Gossett's book is available at: www.amazon.com...
Contact Chris Corbett for a Laos tour at: www.laoadvtour...
The villagers running to gather the dropped rice at 05:10 minutes are not villagers from PS-7 but Hmong villagers at another site.
@CarterOnConflict
15 сен 2024