History of Impact Laos

The story really starts in March 1970 during the Viet Nam War. On March 21st of that year, Air Force pilot Major Edward Hudgens, flying an A1 Skyraider, departed his base in eastern Thailand to provide air cover support for a search and rescue mission of a downed American F4 fighter pilot.

During the mission, Major Hudgens’ plane was hit by enemy ground fire and, in his attempt to make it back to his base in Thailand, his plane crashed in a mountainous area of Eastern Laos near the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail. He died in Laos 3 months before he was to return home. Major Hudgens was 39 years old. He was survived by his wife Mary, and four kids; Stacy, Doug, Wendy and Jeff.

It wasn’t until long after the war in the early 1990’s, when diplomatic relations improved between the United States and Laos, that a US Government team was allowed into the region to excavate the crash site.

While small remnants of the plane remained at the crash site, most of the plane had been scavenged by the people of the region and sold as scrap. The excavation team did find several bone fragments along with one tooth and, from these few remains, they were able to conclusively identify them several months later as the remains of Major Edward Hudgens. Those remains were flown back to the United States where they were interred at Arlington National Cemetery in 1996 with full military honors. And like so many tragic stories from the Viet Nam War, you would expect that to be the end of this story.

But, Major Hudgens left behind a six year old son, Jeff, at the time of his death. Jeff knew little of his dad and, he too thought that day at Arlington was the end of the story and it would bring closure to a very difficult chapter in his life. An opportunity, though, arose a few years later for Jeff to attend a reunion that was being held in Thailand by some of the same men that served with his dad. Jeff, wanting to know as much about his dad as he could, decided to attend the reunion and, while he was in that part of the world, he wanted to see if he could actually find the spot where his dad’s plane crashed.

So, in October of 2002, Jeff found himself in a small, remote village in Southern Laos just inside the border Laos shares with Vietnam. Beside the trail that entered the village, lay a 1,000lb unexploded bomb a mere 750 ft from the school house. The school house was made out of bamboo, with a roof and dirt (muddy) floor. Jeff wondered what he could do to help destroy the bomb and improve the learning conditions of the school. This was the beginning of the vision.

Negotiations with the village elders took place in the afternoon and an agreement was reached that would find Jeff standing at the site of his dad’s plane crash the next morning. After visiting the crash site, Jeff said his good-buys to the villagers and left them for the 4-hour truck ride back to Thailand.
But, again, this wasn’t the end of the story. While Jeff had spent a mere 24 hours in the village, he believed that he was there for more than to just have closure on a very painful chapter in his life. He knew that he wanted to reach out to the village and it was the children of the village that really touched his heart. After returning to California, he pulled a team of friends and together they developed a vision to reach out to this small village: a vision that became known as “Impact Laos”.

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