Auto Defense Choc

The Auto Defense de Choc (ADC) was a militia training program for the Royal Lao Armed Forces. Begun by a French military mission in 1955, its 100-man companies were placed under command of the local Military Region commander when trained. By 1 September 1959, 20 ADC companies were in training, and there were 16,000 ADC soldiers nationwide. When Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives Theodore Shackley, James William Lair and others slipped into the Kingdom of Laos in the early 1960s, they instituted an American version of the ADC dependent on pre-packed airdropped materiel. Using a three-day training schedule in Operation Momentum, Shackley, Lair and others, worked with Vang Pao to raise a guerrilla force of 5,000 troops in several months.

The ADC concept's success helped it spread. The Royal Lao Government (RLG) set up its own version. U.S. Special Forces (USSF) copied the ADC for Operation White Star and Operation Pincushion, and to organize the Degar in South Vietnam. In 1967, Royal Thai Special Forces belatedly began their own ADC program along the Thai-Lao border. As the Laotian Civil War continued, ADC troops began to assume the role of regular light infantry. They were gathered into larger units such as ad hoc battalions. In many cases, the village militia was transferred away from their home villages. They were assigned to such non-guerrilla tasks as defending or attacking fixed positions. They were conscripted into regular units of the RLA. Their numbers dwindled in the confusion of warmaking; the ADC faded in importance until only 6,000 remained in service by war's end.