CIA activities in Vietnam the next 14 years, the focus of their paramilitary operations changed over time. Until 1964, the Hmong fighters in Laos focused on trying to fight back North Vietnamese fighters and on preventing further encroachment. They were highly important, because the US hadn't begun putting troops on the ground in any great numbers, yet. After that, in 1965, the report describes the Hmong activities in Laos as "flitt[ing] over mountain trails or mov[ing] by air to occupy key high ground and to harass Hanoi's tanks and artillery," meaning that US troops took on a frontline role and asked the paramilitary forces
1971 in the Vietnam War 1971 in the Vietnam War U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam totaled 334,600 on 31 December 1970. The United States Congress adopted the revised Cooper-Church Amendment which prohibited the introduction of U.S. ground troops or advisers into Cambodia and declared that U.S. aid to Cambodia should not be considered a commitment to the defense of Cambodia. United States Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird said that the "Vietnamization" of the war was running ahead of schedule and that the combat mission of the U.S. troops would end in summer 1971. The last herbicide spraying by the United States to defoliate forests