Major General Sourith Don Sasorith was a Royal Lao Government commanding officer during the Laotian Civil War.
Many officers were also commissioned into the upper ranks from civilian life; they tended to gain their posts through family influence rather than training or ability.
He owed his appointment as a military officer to family connections; Katay Don Sasorith, his uncle, was the former prime minister of the Kingdom of Laos.
On 23 May 1960, the communist Prince Souphanouvong and his supporters fled imprisonment by the Royal Lao Government; Sourith and two companies of his paratroopers unsuccessfully pursued them.
The senior American military adviser from the U.S. Embassy, which was supporting the RLA, concluded that the Royalist army completely lacked the urge for combat.
[10] Sourith was undergoing training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas when a series of strategy meetings were held in Laos during April and May 1966.
On 1 April, General Thao Ma was blamed for using the T-28 Trojans to strike the Ho Chi Minh Trail instead of supporting the RLA.
The following day, Sullivan negotiated a compromise that kept Thao Ma in command of the T-28s and moved his headquarters from his home ground of Savannakhet to Vientiane.
[12] In any case, when General Thao Ma failed in his 21 October 1966 coup, and fled into exile, Sourith became commander of the entire RLAF.
By the time Nam Bac fell on 14 January 1968, in what was referred to as "the largest military disaster in the history of Laos", the American air attaché had concluded that Sourith was a failure in his command.
Sourith was opposed to the idea of Hmong fighter pilots, but eventually capitulated to the proposal as a way of preventing ethnic tensions among his fliers.
When Thao Ma actually returned to Laos on 20 August 1973, Sourith hid in his home, prepared if need be to change his allegiance to support the coup.
[19] After the coup was suppressed without his help via Thao Ma's execution, Sourith was relieved of command of the RLAF and transferred to the post of chief of logistics for the Royal Lao Armed Forces.