Theres a little country in Southeast Asia called Laos - its about the size of Montana, with about as many people as Brooklyn and the Bronx combined. The Laotians had the misfortune to be caught in the middle of the Vietnam war - North Vietnam sent troops and materiel to pro-Communist troops and guerrillas in the South, and America and South Vietnam bombed the hell out of those troops en route (and any hapless Laotians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time). Laos was neutral in that war and was not at any time at war with the United States or South Vietnam The US Air Force, US Navy, US Marine Corps, Royal Thai Air Force, Republic of Viet Nam Air Force and the CIA carried out a combined total of SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND air raids on Laos between 1964 and 1973. That breaks down to an air raid every six minutes every day for 9 years. The Laotians got 2.5 million tons of explosives dumped on their country - more bombs than got dropped on Germany, Italy and Japan COMBINED during World War II ...and it wasnt even their war! Some of those bombs didnt go off when they hit and from time to time they blow up to this day. About 200 Laotians a year get blown up by those unexploded bombs (dude in the pic is a Laotian government employee - his job is to find those bombs before folks get blown up by them)
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 21:30:08 +0000