Hog’s Exit: Jerry Daniels, the Hmong and the CIA

Hog’s Exit explores the mysterious death in 1982 of Jerry “Hog” Daniels, a former CIA case officer to legendary Hmong leader General Vang Pao during the U.S.’s “secret war” in Laos. Drawing on first-person reminiscences of Daniels’s colorful life, Morrison also captures the drama and beauty of the Hmong spirit rituals, as well as the lamentations and suspicions that pervade this unusual funeral ceremony. Americans and Hmong, ranchers and refugees, State Department officials and smokejumpers, share their memories about Daniels: growing up; hunting and fishing in Montana; cheating death in Laos; and carousing in the bars and brothels of Thailand. Hog’s Exit provides a fascinating view of a man and the two very different cultures in which he lived.

About the Author :
Gayle L. Morrison has worked with the Hmong community since 1977 in education, refugee services, private enterprise, and as an oral historian, researcher and writer. The author of Sky Is Falling: An Oral History of the CIA’s Evacuation of the Hmong from Laos (1999), she lives in Santa Ana, California, and Missoula, Montana.

Review :
No other American is more recognized and beloved to the Hmong than Mr. Jerry Daniels. In the battlefield, he ate and lived the way they did. He took care of them and in return they treated him like a brother. He was one of them. Gayle Morrison did an excellent job of weaving together the stories of those who knew him best and exposing us to his humanitarian work as well as the mysterious circumstances surrounding his untimely death. This book is a great tribute to Jerry Daniels and those who served with him during the Secret War of Laos. --Lee Pao Xiong, Director of the Center for Hmong Studies Hog's Exit instantly vaults into the top five books on the CIA's covert war in Laos and its long, long aftermath. It's a wonderful work of storytelling and scholarship, and it opens up the spiritual world of the Hmong tribe as few have done before. -Roger Warner, author ofShooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos In Hog's Exit, the poetry of the hills of Montana and of Laos speaks to us through the memories of those who knew him, leaving all the questions and explanations and memories to follow in a stream. Jerry Daniels the CIA officer becomes Jerry Daniels the human being, someone we can understand. -Rebecca Weldon, anthropologist Expertly told through the voices of those who knew "Hog" best--fellow Montanans, smokejumpers, CIA personnel, US Embassy officials, and the people of Southeast Asia Jerry worked so hard to protect. Raw and unapologetic, Daniels's life tells us much about the human cost of covert operations. --Timothy N. Castle, former CIA Staff Officer and author of At War in the Shadow of Vietnam and One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North Vietnam This is not just a good, interesting read, but a must read on the life, amazing career, and untimely death of one of the greatest CIA field operatives of all time. --Alan Dawson, Bangkok Post