The Originals
I think back and within me tears want to fall. But there are not enough. For I have fled from the village of my birth.
- Survivor of the American Secret War in Laos
Planes marked USA, flying over a leveled village with its fruit trees torn to pieces. A school on fire, its students burning within. A man praying over an elderly monk fatally wounded by aerial bombing. These fragile drawings, collected by Fred Branfman and Bouangeun Luangpraseuth, were made on plain paper with pencil, pens, crayons and markers by survivors of the American Secret War in Laos (1964-1973). The accompanying narratives are marked by one recurring theme—the plea to be believed: Written with the truthfulness of what I saw. I, myself, truly saw this. Is there anyone who knows and sees pity for and with them?
Our presentation of The Originals opens with one highlighted illustration and its story, as told by the artist, of just one hour in the nine-year-long American Secret War. The display of the full collection below begins with depictions of the peacetime landscape and identity. These give way to the destruction of entire villages, and finally, we are left with the devastating impact on individual human lives. We invite you to view and click on all the illustrations to read their artists' stories, where available.
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This picture is a drawing of the airplanes shooting the town of Phonesavan. In the year 1969, the month of July, around Wednesday the 13th there were F105 airplanes which attacked my village from 6 p.m. for one hour. These airplanes flew around in the sky passing back and forth. At one time there was an I.R. 19 which dropped a smoke bomb down on the village in order to mark the place for further bombing. Then the F105 warplanes strafed and dropped rockets and 150 kg. bombs on the village and the people without stopping. So the people's houses burned and were completely destroyed. The people in the village were hit by bombs and killed, together with more than thirty who were wounded. Because these airplanes dropped bombs on the village without stopping, the people had no place to go to escape the battle. They had never before experienced anything like this. It caused parents to be taken in death from their children. And children from their parents in great numbers, causing the people's tears to flow. Because the airplanes had dropped bombs on the ricefields and rice paddies of the people, the people saw that they could not withstand these hardships so they fled into the forest and the jungle or different streams and caves.
Learn more about how The Originals inspired the founding of Legacies of War:
