enchantingly beautiful, sparsely populated by remote mountain villages. for centuries, home to ethnic minority hill tribes, like the hmong. this is where the cia recruited, trained and armed over a hundred thousand fighters. >> mr. lee: we live in the mountains. we just farm along the sloping creek and mountain. >> translator: they, ah, start to build this road since ah, 1983. >> anthony: before that, how did you get up and down? walk? >> mr. lee: by foot only. >> other villager: using only a rocky trail with a very steep drop off. >> anthony: in these same mountains, but on the other side of the conflict, there were people like mr. lee, now in his 80s, who fought for the communist pathet lao. he is hmong. and during the secret war, he fought other hmong. >> anthony: oh, that's -- wow! >> translator: you grab the vegetable and dip it in the sauce. eat like young children do. >> translator: this is, ah,