Thao Ma began his military career as a paratrooper in the French Union Army, when France administered the Kingdom of Laos.
Thao Ma Manosith was born in 1931 at Salavan in the French Protectorate of Laos, of mixed Laotian and Vietnamese heritage.
[3] In 1959, Thao Ma was promoted to colonel and appointed commander of Laotian Aviation, which the following year became the Royal Lao Air Force (RLAF), with him remaining at its helm.
In February 1965, he refused to accept bribes from higher-ranking officers and categorically informed them that he would not allow his pilots to be coerced into drug smuggling.
Gen. Thao Ma had not only successfully managed to increase the T-28s' combat sortie rate, but continued to personally fly many strike missions.
Instead, he pleaded for a six-month grace period before relocating his headquarters to the capital city and fled to Luang Prabang.
During the six-month grace period, he desperately sought alternatives to the ordered transfer, seeking unsuccessfully the intercession of King Savang Vatthana, of his American sponsors, and of his friend Captain Kong Le.
Gen. Thao Ma attempted a coup via air strike when he personally led a flight of Laotian T-28 pilots loyal to him in a combat sortie directed at Vientiane.
An attempt to kill the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Lao Army (RLA), Major-General Kouprasith Abhay, with rocket fire aimed at his home failed.
[2][6][7] On 20 August 1973, Thao Ma returned from exile in a motorized column carrying 60 adherents to stage another coup attempt.