Once selected for pilot training, most participants entered the CIA’s covert Project Water Pump with much excitement, but chapter 3 reveals that they subsequently went through a tumultuous process. Surviving pilots identified internal and external factors that influenced how well they progressed through the aviation program. Academic background helped some to perform well in ground school, especially in learning English. Their narratives, however, suggest that academic abilities alone did not determine who would succeed in learning to fly. Physical and mental health conditions often impacted their training experiences. Surviving pilots describe the obstacles they confronted when interacting with instructors and recall that trainees and instructors generally did not socialize together because of language barriers, as well as a culture of Americans and Lao regarding Hmong as inferior. Instructor pilot narratives unveiled an unorthodox training program that required flexibility from all involved.
“Dis-able bodied” or “dis-able minded”: stakeholders’ return-to-work experiences compared between physical and mental health conditions
