WHERE OLD WEAPONS GO TO DIE

An old tank rusts among mango trees near Siem Reap

It's sad but true, that a 500 lb bomb is not an uncommon sight in Southeast Asia. During my travels here, I've seen them used as door stops, and as decorations. They've even been disarmed, hollowed out, and reformed to use as bells for Buddhist temples. The heavy bomb before me standing on it’s end, has a long pole sticking straight up out the nose where the detonator used to be. Atop the pole, is a Cambodian flag. This old American bomb, has become a flagpole base.

“Your country have war?” one of the staff asks me as I look.

“Yeah,” I answer. “We have war.” 

Although my country now fights a war in Afghanistan, (where I worked as an aid worker) it occurs to me that our war is not fought at home, like happened here. The Afghanistan war is fought in a faraway land, while most at home in America go about their normal lives. But here in Cambodia, war engulfed the entire nation. Every family suffered terrible losses, and Cambodia would never be the same. The tools used to destroy Cambodia and its people surround me here, in the Military Museum near Siem Reap.

Old Chinese and Soviet armor, stripped of parts

Unlike the usual stuffy indoor museums, this is outdoors. Here in between the grass and leafy green trees, are brownish, rusting steel hulks of old military armored vehicles. These are from the cold war era, built in China or the former Soviet Union. There are numerous tanks and armored personnel carriers. Many are stripped of their parts. Without its wheels, one armored carrier looks more like an odd metal boat, rather than a threatening land vehicle.

Some of these heavy beasts had long histories. One Soviet made T-54 tank here was built in 1954. It was later given to North Vietnam; used during the war against the US and South Vietnamese armies. After that war, it was used by the Vietnamese Army when they invaded Cambodia. Next, it was given to the new Cambodian Army. Finally, it was damaged beyond repair by a Khmer Rouge landmine in 1994. Soviet built vehicles had a reputation for mechanical breakdowns, and somehow, this one remained in use for 40 years. That may be some kind of record for a Soviet built tank.

Some tanks here were used by several different armies

I climb onto another old armored carrier parked under a tree. It’s been thoroughly stripped, with the turret and all the hatches removed. I stick my head within for a look, and find many mango laden tree branches reaching inside. The fruit hang down through open steel hatches. So this place isn’t just a military museum, it’s also a mango orchard. 

As far as high tech weapons go, there's little here. There's only an old MiG jet, and a Russian built Mi-8 helicopter outside in the parking lot. But the fact is, most of the fighting in Cambodia took place on the ground, not in the air. It was just too expensive to use jets and helicopters in this dirt poor country.  

Unlike war museums that I've seen in Laos and Vietnam, this museum has no propaganda. It's simply lots of weapons, with simple, hand written captions. A notable example, is the caption for the only unarmored vehicle on display: a wooden wagon. The caption reads:

Old disarmed weapons from Cambodia's wars

“COW CART

Cow Cart used to transporte the

Ammunition Weapons by Khmer Rouge

Since 1970 ~ 1998”

Well, if your tanks or trucks ran out of gasoline, I suppose it’s better to have a cow cart than nothing.

Entering a shack, I'm surprised to find a wide range of assault rifles lying on a shelf in front of me. Gun fanatics would absolutely wet themselves here. There must be nearly 50 machine guns on hand. There are weapons made in Russia, China, USA, UK, and more. There's even an Israeli made Uzi. Some look relatively new, some look ancient, including World War II era guns. There is a Browning Automatic Rifle, and a Thompson submachine gun. Surprisingly, these aren’t in display cases, and there are no locks either. I pick up the Thompson, and feel it in my hands. This is the infamous 'Tommy' gun, preferred by American gangsters way back during prohibition. For a small machine gun, it’s surprisingly heavy.

Old Rocket Propelled Grenade Launchers (RPGs)

I pick up a Kalashnikov, with its signature curved ammunition clip. I remove the clip, and pop it back in. Unlike the others, this one isn’t so rusty, and the bolt still works. I pull back the bolt and release it. It's now cocked. I pull the trigger.

Click.

Dry fire. I’m surprised at how light the AK-47 is. The M-16 they have here is very light too. These deadly weapons are so much lighter and easier to handle than the older weapons. It's no wonder they were used by so many child soldiers in Southeast Asia before, and in Africa and the Middle East today. 

I have another sobering thought. With so much violence in Cambodia over the decades, there’s a good chance that many of these weapons here in front of me have killed people, including innocent civilians. 

Finally, they have rocket propelled grenade launchers, M-79 grenade launchers, and a heavier .30 caliber machine gun on a tripod. I’ve never seen such a wide variety of weapons, in such a small place. I notice there aren’t any pistols on display though; they would be too easy to steal. It would be more difficult to walk out the exit, with a Kalashnikov under your shirt. I notice two old red flags here too, from the hated Khmer Rouge. I wonder if they were captured in battle, or if they were turned in after the 1998 peace agreement.

Chinese terror weapon: 177 mm rockets

Walking outside, four long metal cylinders are sitting on small stands. They look like tank shells, but are even longer. These are Chinese made 107mm rockets. These can be launched without the use of any tube. As such, they're very inaccurate. Since these rarely hit any military target, they are principally a terror weapon. The Khmer Rouge used these to target civilian neighborhoods of Phnom Penh in 1975. They are still in use today. When I was in Afghanistan, the Taliban used them frequently, firing them at Kabul a few times a week. Just like here, they rarely hit anything military. It was the civilians who suffered casualties.

A couple of well manicured, grassy areas are more chilling. They are strewn with various types of anti-personnel mines, and unexploded mortar rounds. All these have been disarmed. This isn’t a realistic display of landmines though. Landmines are usually invisible to the naked eye, buried just beneath the surface. It’s only after stepping on them that their exact location is known, when an explosion is triggered. By then someone has lost a limb, or a life.

Nearby are disarmed landmines. Stack after stack, all brown with rust, these have been unburied from Cambodia's footpaths, roads and rice paddies. 

I find one positive thought, among all these weapons of destruction. None of these deadly weapons that I see here, will ever hurt anyone again.

Never, ever again.

Mangoes grow inside this defanged, disabled war weapon

WHERE GUERRILLAS ATTACKED THE HIGHWAY

The edge of the Plain of Jars. Some Hmong fighters still hide out in the remote northern mountains.

The last Lao passengers climb aboard our bus in Luang Prabang. I’m anxious to get started, as we have a 10 hour drive ahead to get to the remote province of Xieng Khuang. Like most bus stations, this is a drab place. At least it’s boring until the last rider gets on, as he carries very unexpected baggage! 

He's carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle! This Laotian teenager with a peach fuzz moustache has one of the world's deadliest weapons in his hands. I watch as he slowly walks down the aisle towards me, stopping right at my side. Then he casually puts the AK-47 on the shelf overhead, and sits down behind me. 

Across the aisle, a curly haired French backpacker listening to his MP3 player stares at this process, totally wide eyed. The look on his face is something between stunned and confused. Until this moment, he has probably only seen an AK-47 rifle in the movies. 

As it turns out, the heavily armed young traveler isn’t a guerilla, he happens to be an armed guard for the bus company. His presence isn’t really needed here in Luang Prabang though, since the town is safe enough. I recall seeing a few policemen relaxing outside a police station, and they carried no weapons at all. The reason for the armed guard’s presence, is due to trouble on the highways ahead of us. 

Traditional homes in the highlands

Back in 2003 a bus traveling on Route 13 was ambushed. 10 Laotians were killed, as well as two Swiss cyclists. An attack on another bus south of Luang Prabang later that year left 12 more dead and 31 injured. Both attacks were believed to be by Hmong rebels hiding out in the highlands. These were probably revenge attacks, after Hmong civilians were killed by security forces. Hoping to keep the existence of these rebels quiet, the Laotian government tends to write them off as ‘bandits’.

These highway attacks took place before the Laotian government began an amnesty program for the Hmong rebels. Many of them finally came down from the mountains and gave up their weapons, but not all of them joined the amnesty. There are still some Hmong fighters hiding out in the remote hills. As I had already heard explosions one night in Vang Vieng, its evident that the army is still pursuing the holdouts in the mountains. With fewer rebels around these days, the roads have been quiet recently. 

The driver starts up the old bus engine, and we head east into the highlands. The little guard behind me stretches out across two seats, and goes to sleep. He’s certainly not the type of security guard to be vigilant. If our bus ends up getting attacked today, he would have to wake up, stand up, grab his weapon off the shelf, and then load it with the the ammunition clip he carries in his pocket. Only then, could he return fire. With him snoozing behind me, I’m hoping this will be an uneventful trip. 

We make good time as we ascend into the highlands. Although only two lanes, the highway we're on is well paved. The surrounding hills may not be completely pacified, but road infrastructure in Laos has improved considerably since the war years. 

Stopover town on the highway from Luang Prabang to Phonsavan, once a dangerous route

One reason for this improvement, has been road construction completed by their northern neighbors, the Chinese. Road construction by Chinese in Laos goes all the way back to the war, when Red Army road crews built roads in the far northern provinces. During all those years of bombing, by the US Air Force, American pilots were careful not to target Chinese road crews. Washington did not want to risk increased intervention from the China communists. 

These days its Chinese capitalists that are coming in droves. Today, many Chinese companies are running projects all over Laos, and they've returned to road building. Chinese road crews are completing a key trade route, a main artery running through northern Laos, that will connect China to Thailand. It’s real progress to have commerce as the driving force behind road construction, rather than war. 

Hours later, I awaken from a nap feeling familiar pressure in my ears. We are gaining altitude, and my ears are popping. Looking out the window, the mountains are giving way to rolling green hills. We have arrived on a high plateau. I’m getting my first view of the geographical place, known as as the 'Plain of Jars'. The temperature is thankfully cooler now, since we have climbed to an altitude of 3000 feet. At around 400 square miles, this highland plateau has always been strategic to northern Laos. For that reason, some of the worst fighting of the Secret War of the 1960's - 1970's took place in these rolling hills. 

Continuing across the highlands, we finally arrive outside Phonsavan, capital of Xieng Khuang Province. Fortunately there was no need for our armed guard to load his weapon on this trip. As we park he takes on another duty; unloading baggage. He hands me my suitcase, I grab a tuk-tuk, and head into the highland town. There's a great deal to be seen here on the Plain of Jars. 

THE 'TORA BORA' OF SOUTH VIETNAM

Tuc Dup, the 'Tora Bora' of Vietnam's Mekong Delta 

 I’m approaching some kind of freak of geology. The Mekong Delta is generally flat, but I’m staring at one enormous, gargantuan mountain of rocks. As our 4X4 drives closer, I see that this isn’t a pile of just rocks, it’s a pile of massive boulders. Somehow, nature piled all of these massive boulders here onto one place, forming a towering hill that rises high above the flat expanse of the surrounding landscape.

This is Tuc Dup, one of the few high vantage points in the Mekong Delta. It’s not tall enough to be classified as a mountain. But its higher altitude gives it not only a great view of the delta beneath, it also made it easily defended. The solid rock boulders that form the hill made  superior natural defenses. This made Tuc Dup an ideal location for a rebel stronghold; the Viet Cong's 'Tora Bora' in the delta. 

The flag of the former Republic of Vietnam, crossed out

From the bottom, I look up at this jagged, intimidating hill. I know that climbing this will be a good workout. As I start up, I can see a large flag of old painted on a boulder, the former yellow and red striped flag of the Republic of Vietnam. This is a rare sight in today’s Vietnam. The former South Vietnamese flag is rarely seen anywhere in public. But the flag now has a black 'X' painted across it, to remind visitors that the south didn’t win the war.

A long curving walkway of wooden steps eventually runs out, and soon I enter one of the many cave entrances of this strange hill. With the boulders piled every which way, the large gaps between each boulder are large enough to form natural passageways and caves. The former soldiers here managed to chip away the rock to widen some openings, and make some of the walkways more accessible. 

The passageways form an elaborate network. I make my way through, rock hopping from boulder to boulder. Some of the areas are difficult to fit through. Like the Cu Chi tunnels, some openings are tight for an American, but easier for the shorter and thinner Vietnamese. 

Entering one section,  I find wood was brought in to make platforms, to make the caves more livable. Daylight reaches in, and I look above to see parted boulders form a natural skylight. Dead vines hang downward along the heavy rocks. I’ll bet they used to put containers out here to catch water during the rainy season. With no plumbing, it was a real chore for the VC to carry water all the way up here every day.

A natural skylight in the caves

Weaving through the cave network, there are openings here and there that lead back out to the hill’s exterior. Reaching one, I climb out onto a boulder and look at the surrounding landscape. Green farming fields below stretch all the way to the horizon. Behind me, one of the larger boulders has a lot of holes and chips in it. A sign near it translates as, “Bomb Trace Marks”.

Even a US made 500 lb bomb dropped from above, didn’t do much damage to this 30 ton solid rock boulder. So despite numerous bombardments, the Viet Cong held onto Tuc Dup for years. During the course of the war there was so much heavy bombing here, that the locals gave Tuc Dup the nickname of ‘$2million dollar hill'.  

This ended with a final battle, and according to the government version here, the siege and fighting for Tuc Dup raged from November 16^th, 1968 until March 24^th, 1969. The VC in these caves faced both American and ARVN forces. Helicopters  and jets attacked from the air, with ground troops and tanks attacking by land. This hill of boulders became a sort of 'Alamo' for the Viet Cong.

View of the surrounding countryside from upper cave opening

As I continue through, up, down and through this strange network of caves, I pass through other inner rooms. Other stone signs posted on the boulders list their former function. “Dried Rice Cave” and “Cave of Support Unit 61” One is named, “Cave of the No Name Soldier". I recall hearing that after the war,  the bones of anonymous fighters who died on Tuc Dup were left lying up in these caves for years. Those bones and other remains of the war have since been removed. The stone passageways of Tuc Dup are now filled only with rubble, disturbed by the occasional visitor.

Reaching another overlook, I peer down at the land in front of the strange hill. The unexploded bombs have been removed from the earth, and now it’s a family park. Vietnamese families come here to relax on weekends these days.

Captured US made weapons on display

There are some small restaurants and cafes, most of which have hammocks hanging in them for their patrons to relax. There is a pond with pedal boats, and an enclosure with live alligators.

To remind visitors that this is more than a park, at the base of the hill sits a small museum, with a large bomb crater out front. Filled with the usual captured small arms, the place is empty. Rather than look at war relics, the visiting families would rather eat in the cafés, and spend the afternoon relaxing in a  hammock. 

This is precisely where I find my guide Nga. Since she didn’t want to make the long climb up the hill with me, she’s been reclining in a café hammock, chatting away with a local waitress. 

Old bomb crater outside museum at base of the hill

Nga is one of my more interesting translators I’ve had in Vietnam. Besides guiding me around the delta, she also occasionally works as an actress. On the way here as we passed a village, she told me, “I was in movie here, days ago.” The film was a love story, and she had a supporting role in the film.

She described for me another movie she acted in, when she played the role of a captured Viet Cong cadre. In that difficult role, she had to act in an interrogation and torture scene. That wasn’t an easy role, that’s for sure. 

Hammocks where Tuc Dup's visitors relax

As we are on our way out and heading for the 4X4, we spy a shooting range, and stop in for a look. This is much like the firing range I saw in Cu Chi, except that the prices are lower. Whether firing an AK-47 or a semi-automatic AR-15, the price per bullet is only 10,000 Dong (about 55 cents.) I’m not surprised its cheaper here, since Tuc Dup is remote and gets far fewer visitors than Cu Chi. I look toward the targets, and I’m amused to see that between the firing line and the backstop, there are neat rows of green plants. They are growing some kind of crop out in the middle of the firing range.

Since I’ve already shot a few rounds when I went to Cu Chi, I decline the offer to shoot here. But I’m surprised when my petite guide Nga speaks up, saying, “I want to try.”

The Tuc Dup firing range, where crops grow??

She buys some bullets, and takes her place at the firing line. The muzzle of the AK is bolted to a post, in order to keep wayward shooters from firing high and out of the range. With the assault rifle loaded, Nga takes aim at a target of a tiger.

POW! Her first shot rings out, and she giggles nervously. Then she takes her second shot. POW! She stops, lets go of the weapon, then walks to a bench and sits down. “I’m scared,” she says.

Nga now lives in a Vietnam without war, and guns these days are a rarity, not available to the general public. Unlike in the past, when the VC fighting force included women like her,  Vietnamese women today rarely touch firearms. “First time in my life I shoot,” she tells me. “I a little scared.”

As a child growing up in the Mekong Delta, she had survived the war. She was so young that at the time, she didn’t really know what was going on. Meanwhile, others in her family were involved in the conflict.

“My grandfather was VC,” Nga told me. He had been a commander in the delta until he died in 1966. The story handed down through her family, is that he was killed by Americans. They say that his death had been witnessed by her uncle. She tells me her uncle was so frightened by what he saw, that he had wet himself.

With such a terrible story to tell, I would think that Nga would hold a grudge against Americans like me, and she doesn’t. She had never known her grandfather, and as a devout Buddhist, she takes the route of forgiveness. It also probably helps that her grandfather’s side eventually won the war. For Nga, like so many other Vietnamese I’ve already spoken to, the war was so long ago, and is better left in the past. 

FIREPOWER: US WEAPONS IN VIETNAM TODAY

A tourist takes aim with an AK-47 in Cu Chi

As I walk through the brush outside of Cu Chi north of Saigon, I hear the sound of gunfire in the distance. Continuing on I’m not just hearing single shots, I’m hearing automatic weapons fire; the sound of machine guns.The shooting grows louder. 

What can this be? Entering the next clearing, I have my answer. My group has arrived at a shooting range run by the Vietnamese military.

I’ve been to private firing ranges before, but this one is bigger, badder, and more deadly. The guns used here aren’t little .22 caliber rifles, or target pistols. This range is for weapons of war, and the guns here were made for one purpose: to kill. For those really into firepower, you can shoot an M-60 here, or even a .30 caliber machine gun.

Captured weapons from the war are available for target practice

I look at their selection of weapons lined up on a rack, and many of them are American made. Most of them were probably captured from the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) as the war ended in 1975. There are M-16s, M-1 Garands, a Thompson sub-machine gun, and .45 caliber pistols. A smaller rifle available here is the M-1 carbine. Looking at the old rifle, I wonder just where this old weapon came from. Was it captured by the communists, or was it given to them?

One of history’s forgotten details, is that way back during World War II, the US military was for a time allied with Ho Chi Minh’s communist guerillas! Then known as the Viet Minh, they were fighting the Japanese, who occupied Vietnam back then. As the Japanese were a common enemy, the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) supplied the Viet Minh with thousands of these M-1 carbines. The smaller size and light recoil of the M-1 made it the perfect rifle to give to the Vietnamese, who were physically of smaller stature than most American soldiers. Little did the OSS know then, that some of those same rifles given by the US to the Viet Minh for free, would later be used to shoot at American soldiers 20 years later.

“This is ridiculous! These are no protection at all. You can go deaf,”” says a foreign gun enthusiast at the firing line. He’s complaining about the woefully inadequate ear muff protectors they provide to the shooters. He decides not to shoot, and walks away. I’m surprised to see that the Vietnamese Army soldiers supervising the firing line aren’t wearing any ear protection at all. Perhaps it’s a machismo thing. These soldiers that work here over the long term don’t know it, but their daily exposure to loud gunfire is doing irreparable damage to their hearing. Some of them will begin to lose their hearing at a young age.

I head to the firing line, and put on the flimsy ear protection they have. I’ve purchased five rounds for about a dollar each, and the stone faced soldier handling the weapons loads them into an AK-47. I pull the stock into my shoulder, peer through the sights, and take aim at the rectangular red target about 30 yards away. I gently squeeze the trigger.

POW! A cloud of dust goes up in the dirt next to the target. I missed to the left. Maybe the sights are off. Or maybe I’m just a poor marksman. Their cheap ear protectors did little to muffle the huge noise of the gunshot, but I’m more taken at how little kick there was from the recoil.

I switch the AK to automatic fire, and squeeze the trigger again.

PO-PO-PO-POW! In hardly more than a moment, the rifle spurted out the remaining four rounds. Again, it hardly kicked. A larger cloud of dust appeared, right where the first one was. They say that the AK isn’t very accurate, but it makes up for that problem by having a high rate of fire.

Prices per bullet are in local Vietnam currency

In the US this one rifle, the Soviet AK-47, would be forever associated with the communist rebels of Southeast Asia. It later become the favorite weapon of just about every other rebel group in the world. From Africa to Afghanistan, from Latin America to Northern Ireland, they all loved the Kalashnikov.

The AK-47 was a simple design, which made it easy to disassemble and maintain. Unlike the American made M-16 which had a tendency to jam at times, you could drop an AK in the dirt, pick it up, and keep right on firing. Its light weight and light recoil made it a favorite of armies that forced children to fight as soldiers. During the African civil wars of the 1990s, the sight of a child soldier carrying a Kalashnikov was a common sight. You can still see child soldiers today carrying this deadly weapon in Congo and Somalia.

With it’s deadly effectiveness, it wasn’t long before other envious nations began to copy the Kalashnikov’s design, and manufactured it for themselves. Before long the Chinese, the Vietnamese, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and many other Eastern Bloc nations had their own versions. 

A US made M-60 machine gun sits on the firing line

I remember seeing an interview with Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Russian inventor of the weapon. An old veteran of the Red Army, he was quite proud of his deadly creation. I wonder if anyone ever told him how many Red Army soldiers were killed by his own invention, when AK-47’s were used in the 1980’s by the Mujahadeen to fire on the Russians in Afghanistan.

With my bullets spent, a few other tourists take their turn blasting away at the targets. Some pick up the shell casings to take home as souvenirs. They better remember not to put them in their carry on baggage before they go to the airport, unless they want to be arrested.

As we head back to the city, I realize that the Vietnamese Army has taken those old weapons from the war, and turned them into a money making venture. With so many weapons being fired by so many visitors, they are making a tidy profit on all the ammunition used here every day.

I don’t know it yet, but as I continue my journey across Southeast Asia, I will later see other bizarre uses for old weapons. Some of the people I will meet have transformed old weapons and war refuse into things that I never could have possibly imagined.