Project Phongsali 2011: Among children killed or injured by ordnance, far more victims are boys. What is it about boys?

Almost half of all UXO accident victims are children. Of those young victims the vast majority are boys. It's especially challenging to teach children safe behavior around ordnance when they encounter UXO so frequently that bombs have become a familiar part of everyday life.

Day Thirty-Four:

To say that I acted on intuition would suggest a premonition. To be honest, I had no inkling, no gut instinct, no hunch. I was bored, becalmed in the doldrums, and simply hoped to provoke something, anything, interesting to happen.

We were returning to our camp after a long, hot afternoon of doing area clearance, which means doing the same thing again and again without diversion. (Contrary to common belief, about 98 percent of the time “bomb clearance” consists of repetitive, mind-numbing activities. Think twice before entering the profession if you are looking for thrills).

Up ahead I spotted a dozen boys. They looked to be school age, perhaps eight or nine years old. As our truck was about to pass, the group split, some kids dashing to the right, the others to the left.

I barked to Yai, “Stop and ask those kids if they have UXO!”

Yai braked hard and slid to a stop beside the group to his left. The boys stood, mouths a gape, wondering why we had so abruptly stopped and hailed them. With offering either a smile or polite hello, Yai sternly addressed the group:

“Do you have any UXO? Any bombies?”

The closest kid, stunned, staggered back and then blurted “No, not me, but that boy over there does!”

Yai and I swung our heads to the right, following the boy’s pointed finger to a small figure standing near my window — a kid thunderstruck to have been confronted out of the blue, and shocked to have been busted by his buddy.

Before we could ask, a shaky hand thrust a small piece of ordnance through our open window and dropped it in my lap. It wasn’t much, the nose fuse off of a fragmentation bomb, but not something you should carry around if there’s a chance you might clink it hard against something else.

We thanked the boy for his fuse. Then, Vilasak palavered a bit with the group, explaining how dangerous it is, in Laos, to pick up odd bits and bobs. He emphasized that it’s always best to report unusual objects to a parent or village naiban, and always a bad idea to pocket ordnance.