Kitaro - Heaven & Earth Soundtrack - Heaven & Earth Land Theme (1993)

The Phoenix Program was a program designed, coordinated, and executed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), U.S. special forces, special operations forces from the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam, and the security services of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War.

The program aimed to identify and "neutralize" (through infiltration, capture, terrorism, torture, and assassination) the infrastructure of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF or Viet Cong).

The CIA described it as "a set of programs that sought to attack and destroy the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong."

The program was active from 1965 to 1972, with similar initiatives recorded before and after this period.

The men of Phoenix "neutralized" about 81,700 suspected NLF agents, informants, or sympathizers, of which between 26,000 and 41,000 lost their lives. (source: wiki)