Sometimes bombs end up in very odd places.
Sometimes looking for bombs is pure science. We look out over the surface of a landscape and haven’t a clue where the suspected ordnance lurks. All we can do is crank up our metal detectors (devices that are both sophisticated and expensive — a far cry from what you would use to find coins on the beach!) and systematically sweep the area, trusting that our technology will allow us to find every single item, big or small, old or new.
Scientists have bred dogs, rats, pigs and even wasps to display indicating behaviors in the presence of minute particles of TNT. A few years ago I watched a frolicking Black Lab search for ordnance. The pooch, on loan from the Swedish army, found a five-hundred pound bomb that had been buried 18 inches underground for over thirty years. I suppose that if you can teach pigs to sniff out a truffle, teaching them to sniff out bombs should be just a matter of determining what reward will keep them working. We don’t employ animals in our operation, but their use in other countries indicates how bomb detection has evolved and changed as scientific knowledge has expanded.
On the other hand, sometimes finding a bomb amounts to nothing more than a good old-fashioned Easter egg hunt. We’re on a roll here: for three days straight our Response Team has been called to villages to remove bomblets that people found when they were gardening, herding livestock, collecting firewood, or foraging for edible plants. In each case we’ve arrived at the scene within hours of receiving a report. At each location, knowledgeable villagers have led us confidently to the place where they last saw the bomb or rocket, only to discover that the ordnance had disappeared. And each time we had to search the area like children looking for eggs on Easter morning.
For over thirty-five years, Lao villagers have lived with the scourge of bomb-infested land. Over those many years villagers learned that they could depend on no one but themselves to keep their family and their livestock safe. No police officer, fire fighter, soldier, or bomb technician could be counted on to assist. If a father worried that his children might tamper with a bomb found in the woods, he had best get rid of it himself.
If the chief of a village learned of unexploded ordnance in the community, he or she would often take responsibility to remove the items, knowing full well that handling bombs or rockets could end in death or dismemberment. People just did what needed to be done; they asked for no special thanks and did not consider themselves heroes. They just did what fathers, mothers, elder brothers or sisters were supposed to do: protect the others in their families.
But, what to do with the ordnance? How far to carry it? Where to put it? How much risk to take? People usually made sensible choices. They placed the ordnance where they assumed no one was likely to venture. They dropped them down wells, threw them into ponds or rivers, or buried them in the bottom of bomb craters — but only if these repositories were nearby. If not, the person holding the bomb would look for a second-best location. When we know that a bomb has recently “walked away,” we scan the area and ask ourselves, “If I had a bomb in my hand and I wanted to place it where no one else would stumble on it, where would I put it?” Then the hunt begins.
Today we found several items, all sitting on top of the same tree stump: a deadly little nest containing two bomblets, a mortar shell, and a rocket. It’s impossible that those four pieces could have ended up on that stump in the ordinary course of warfare. Some brave soul placed them there so that others in the village would be safe. While we were searching for these items, we happened upon a previously unreported bomblet in the hollow of a tree. It’s remotely possible that it landed there forty years ago; more likely, some concerned father or mother placed the bomb in the hollow.
A couple of days ago we were looking for two missing bomblets. Vilisack, the senior member of our five-person team, is the best man to have on a hunt. I watched him as he checked all the usual places. Stumps, hollow trees, animal burrows. Then he carefully approached a deserted termite mound that had begun to sprout grasses and shrubs. Sure enough, there on top of the mound sat the two missing bomblets … or, maybe not? On the backside of the same mound were two additional bomblets! Which pair were the two we were looking for? And which two had been placed on the mound days, months or perhaps years earlier?
Sometimes what looks like a safe resting place for a bomb creates a future hazard. A bomblet placed on top of an ant hill might, within a few years, be swallowed up by the growing mound and disappear from sight. I know three children who lost their mother to long-forgotten ordnance. The young mother was using a steel hoe to remove a termite mound from her garden and was unaware of a cluster bomb buried inside the mound. She was killed when her hoe struck and detonated the bomblet.
A bomb placed in the fork or hollow of a tree might safely rest there for decades — away from foot traffic, but a potential threat to villagers who cut timber or burn the land in preparation for planting. Bomb craters often become a site where people collect and burn rubbish; a crater is no safe place to stockpile ordnance. Ponds and rivers are not much better. During the rainy season, ponds and rivers swell; in the dry season, they shrink and dry up. I’d think long and hard before digging around in the bed of a dried pond in this part of Laos — and then, I wouldn’t dig.
A couple of days ago we dashed to Phonphanpek village to deal with a bomblet that was found under a log, near several houses. When we arrived, the fellow who had found the bomb informed us that he had already moved it. We asked him to show us where he had placed the bomb, and he said something about having to get his boots. Assuming that he was going to put on footwear before leading us to the location, we waited for his return. When he reappeared a minute later he was barefoot but carrying a single boot. He explained that to make certain that his children didn’t get curious and inspect the bomb, he had hidden it in one of his boots.
We advised him to gently set the boot on the ground. Then, we modeled how to slowly back away from it. When my teammates and I stopped laughing we had to design a plan to demolish the bomb right where the fellow placed it: six feet from his own front door. A couple of hours later, with the bomb buried beneath bulging bags of sand, we banged it away after sliding a block of TNT down the boot. Fortunately for the homeowner, we succeeded in destroying the bomblet without putting any holes in his walls or roof. Unfortunately, the guy lost one good boot. We take risks in this work, but we know better than to roll a bombie around for the sake of a boot.
We are working hard to let 6,000 villagers in 15 resettlement villages know that our newly formed Response Team exists, and that we move fast to destroy any ordnance reported to us. However, the idea that anyone would respond immediately to the discovery of ordnance is so far outside the experience of villagers that it’s a struggle to convince them that they don’t need to continue risking their own lives.
We see each newly-discovered bomb as an opportunity to prove ourselves to villagers. During one recent month, people in seven of the 15 resettlement villages we serve needed our help. In that month alone, we removed 837 items, ranging in size from bomblets to bazooka shells. All were potentially lethal. We destroyed a lot of ordnance; we hope we built a little trust.