Lawmakers press House to recognize Hmong, Lao ‘special guerrilla unit’ veterans with HF 2444

At a Minnesota House Veterans and Military Affairs Division hearing, lawmakers, veterans and advocates urged passage of House File 2444 to formally recognize ‘‘special guerrilla unit’’ (SGU) veterans who served alongside U.S. forces in Laos during 1961–1975.

Jay Shong, DFL co-chair of the Veterans and Military Affairs Division, said the inclusion of the provision in the division’s finance and policy budget bill marks “a historic moment for Minnesota” and called the recognition long overdue for veterans who “have been overlooked, left out of textbooks, excluded from formal honors, and denied [the] full measure of gratitude they earned.”

The bill, chief author State Representative Ethan Cha said, “is to restore the spirit, the dignity, and the honor” of SGU veterans and would apply to those who served in Laos from 1961 to 1975. Cha said the bill is intended to provide official veteran recognition in Minnesota and to signal a path other states might follow.

Supporters, including SGU veterans testifying in uniform, described decades of wartime secrecy and heavy community losses. Li Po Xiong, director of the Center for Hmong Studies at Concordia University,…