For almost 20 years, the fighting between the Western-supported Royal Lao government and the communist-supported Pathet Lao would rage across the plains, jungles, and mountain tops of Laos largely unseen by most of the world in this so-called "secret war." Thousands on each side would die and many more would be displaced as the conflict ebbed and flowed from season to season and year to year. Thus, the battle for Laos would see entire communities and generations caught up in a war seemingly without end, one that pitted competing foreign interests and their proxies against each other, and one that was forever tied to Washington's pursuit of victory in neighboring Vietnam.