The phrase "sheep dipped," is more-or-less slang and not official terminology. It is commonly used in intelligence circles as a way of saying a person has been given an alternate identity. The paragraph quote below from THE SECRET TEAM, Chapter 7 Page 175, at the source so cited, although speaking specifically toward the Army and use of the phrase, is applicable generally and is about as close as you are going to find to a full scale definition:





"'Sheep-dipped' is an intricate Army-devised process by which a man who is in the service as a full career soldier or officer agrees to go through all the legal and official motions of resigning from the service. Then, rather than actually being released, his records are pulled from the Army personnel files and transferred to a special Army intelligence file. Substitute but nonetheless real-appearing records are then processed, and the man 'leaves' the service. He is encouraged to write to friends and give a cover reason why he got out. He goes to his bank and charge card services and changes his status to civilian, and does the hundreds of other official and personal things that any man would do if he really had gotten out of the service. Meanwhile, his real Army records are kept in secrecy, but not forgotten. If his contemporaries get promoted, he gets promoted. All of the things that can be done for his hidden records to keep him even with his peers are done. Some very real problems arise in the event he gets killed or captured as a prisoner. There are problems with insurance and with benefits his wife would receive had he remained in the service. At this point, sheep-dipping gets really complicated, and each case is handled quite separately." THE SECRET TEAM Chapter 7, Page 175







As far as the U.S. is concerned, the need for sheep-dipping in clandestine operations may have always have been there in one form or the other. However, the need grew exponentially during the so-called Secret War in Laos, a non-war war that was conducted basically during the same period as the Vietnam war. The U.S., along with a number of other countries, had signed the Geneva Accords which declared Laos an off-limits nation when it came to having foreign troops on their soil utilized in a combat status of which the following will attest too:





"The 1962 Geneva accords obliged America to withdraw all military personnel from Laos. Nearly eight hundred individuals, including military attach's, advisors to the RLA, MAAG staff, and the members of the White Star teams, packed up and left the country." (source)





When the Accords didn't stop the North Vietnamese from blatantly assisting the Pathet Lao with regulars in their attempt to bring down the legitimate government of Laos, as well as the continuing use of Laos as a staging area for NVA efforts in South Vietnam, the U.S. saw the need to counteract. At first, not wanting to be overtly violating the Geneva Accords, a small number of specially trained on-the-ground American military personnel were sheep-dipped, who then in turn participated in military actions, thus in extent, creating the groundwork for a Secret War. Those military personnel requiring the guise of sheep-dipping basically fell under the following quote:





"The non-communist forces in Laos had a critical need for military support in order to defend territory used by the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese communist forces. The U.S., in conjunction with non-communist forces in Laos, devised a system whereby U.S. military personnel could be 'in the black' or 'sheep-dipped' (clandestine; mustered out of the military to perform military duties as a civilian) to operate in Laos under supervision of the U.S. Ambassador to Laos."





On June 9, 1964 eight F-100D fighter-bombers of the U.S. Air Force's 615th Tactical Fighter Squadron operating out of Da Nang Air Base in the Republic of Vietnam flew the first combat air missions in Laos with strikes against targets in the Plain of Jars.[1]

A few months before those strikes could be fully implemented a number of cross-border forays from surrounding areas were put into place requiring the use of a number of covert ground teams inserted into rather remote and primitive conditions. On the non-indigenous American side, each team member and their equipment was sheep dipped and all teams embedded with specially trained communication personnel, each heavily blanketed with security clearances, versed in Morse code and the non-conventional expertise to build from scratch and use, if necessary, easily disposable Spark-Gap Transmitters and QRP transmitters, along with foxhole radios and crystal set receivers, of which all members were trained to travel light, eat indigenous foods, and leave no tracks.[2] However, it didn't take long before a handful of shark-sucking remora Committee 303 off-the-books shining-knight roundtable spooks, playing fast and loose in the shadows under the deep cover of a red-phone presidential mandate, discovered the existence of the ground teams --- if they hadn't been responsible for them in the first place --- and once discovered, under a two-way reversible double blanket of security (an even more covert team pulled from a covert team) a special select few were soon appropriated for other duties.

In the very early years of covert bombing operations, due to the lack of close air support control systems, those ground teams used a variety of makeshift systems to clarify target areas, including markers as simple as bamboo arrows pointing to the target, smoke grenades, etc. Participants in the ground teams that carried out such operations were Thai, Lao, and Hmong, as well as Australian and American. The Americans, primarily used in communication areas, had full and extensive military training and clearances, while other members had little or no specialized training --- in close air support or anything else. Although not universally applied in all cases throughout operations in Laos, the ground teams being referred to here, at least for those whose members could be traced back to being non-indigenous, were sheep-dipped.[3]

In confirmation of the above, the following paragraphs have been extrapolated from the one time limited distribution Top Secret, now declassified source so cited, Project CHECO, Chapter II, The Butterfly FAC, page 15 as so sourced and linked to in PDF format at the end of the paragraph:





Until the end of May 1964, strike control services were provided to the Royal Lao Air Force (RLAF) by civilians not formally associated with the United States Government. These strike controllers supported RLAF T-28s rather than USAF resources.

Prior to late 1964 the need for FAC services was relatively small and was required primarily in Northwest Laos (MR II) in support of General Vang Pao's ground actions. Due to the extreme political and security aspects of military pressure in Laos as well as the relatively minor requirements for Forward Air Guides (FAG) directed strikes, the mission was performed by use of civilian piloted, contract, Short Take Off and Landing (STOL) aircraft, not FAC configured. Operationally oriented civilians were utilized as controllers.

American military personnel first directed air strikes against communist forces in support of Laotian ground troops during Operation Triangle in early June 1964. This operation, which sought to clear enemy forces from the Route 7/13 Junction and to reopen Route 13 between Vientiane and Luang Prabang, used ground Forward Air Guide teams to help with air support. These teams, from the WATERPUMP detachment at Udorn, controlled RLAF T-28 strikes by marking friendly positions with smoke markers. The T-28s were then directed against the enemy by using the friendly smoke as a reference point. The American teams also controlled strikes from RLAF U-6s (de Havilland L-20 Beaver) and U-17s (military version of the Cessna 185E). Ground troops radioed enemy locations to the aircraft by reference to smoke flares marking the friendly positions. The airborne controllers relayed this information to the circling T-28s which then attacked the target. There was no attempt to mark enemy positions directly, since the utility aircraft used by the controllers were not equipped with target-marking ordnance. From June to December 1964 civilian controllers continued to operate in northern Laos and were joined more frequently by military personnel. During these months the U.S. military air strike control program was described. An ill-defined group of US Air Force and Army personnel who happened to be on the ground in the vicinity of air strikes, had radio contact with strike aircraft, and were able to give some information concerning target location.[4] The strike aircraft used during this early period were from the RLAF or Air America. As USAF interest and commitments in BARREL ROLL increased, an improved system was gradually developed.





And so it goes. Rather anybody likes it or not, from the former Top Secret CHECO document so sourced:





An ill-defined group of US Air Force and Army personnel who

happened to be on the ground in the vicinity of air strikes.





An ill-defined group who just happened to be on the ground in the vicinity. Now, if that just isn't the cutest thing.(source)

The graphic at the top of the page shows Long Tieng (Long Cheng), also known as LS-20A (Lima Site 20 Alternate) in Laos, circa early 1970s. Ten years before, albeit almost operational immediately, it was just in the early stages of being hewed out of the valley floor and a majority of the support buildings and infrastructure that grew up around the airstrip in the photo were just beginning to be put into place. For all practical purposes Long Tieng was the operational headquarters for the Secret War in Laos.[5]



U.S. SECRET ARMY IN THE KINGDOM OF LAOS MEMORIAL, ARLINGTON CEMETERY

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