What's in the Picture?

Seeing this man with his primitive weapon made me realize that even in this area of the world which was awash with firearms, none had made it to his village. Even more bizarre was the fact that the remains of first world weapons were all around me. This beautiful part of the world with it’s simple people was at one time on part of the Ho Chi Min trail so as far as the Americans were concerned, fit only to be blasted ‘back to the Stone Age’.  The people survived by hiding in caves but a residue was left behind in the form of cases for cluster bombs, which are made into fences and garden features. I don’t know how much a cluster bomb costs, even at 1969 prices but even if a fraction of the money that was spent trying to kill these people could have been given to them instead their lives would have been transformed. They might have been able to buy man powered threshing machine, or even a simple shotgun!

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Cluster bomb cases in a village garden.

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