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
1965 in the Vietnam War of a full division of American troops. Ambassador Taylor had not been present at the meeting and he protested that "Recent actions relating to the introduction of U.S. ground forces have tended to create an eagerness in some quarters to deploy forces into SVN (South Vietnam) which I find difficult to understand." Taylor opposed the introduction of American ground troops for offensive operations, believing they should be restricted to coastal "enclaves." General Westmoreland disagreed, believing that enclaves were "an inglorious, static use of U.S. forces...that would leave the decision of when and where to strike to the enemy." In Washington,