Ho Chi Minh Trail Archives | HistoryNet

Photo of defused UXO outside a house in Xieng Khouang. Over 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos by the US failed to explode - leaving literally millions of items of ordinance (many of them tiny mine bomblets from cluster bombs) sitting in villages, buried in rice padddies, and scattered over the hillsides. Casualties from UXO are estimated at 12,000 since 1973. A substantial industry in scrap metal has arisen from the abundance of recoverable (but still fused) bombs, both due to its relative lucrativeness (compared with growning rice), and also out of desperation, as thousands of hectares of land has been rendered unfarmable until cleared of UXO. Once defused, much of this war scrap is also put to practical use; cluster bomb casings are used as planters and house stilts, bomb cases for fencing and jettisoned fuel tanks converted into fishing boats.

A Look at the Damage from the ‘Secret’ War in Laos

by Zita Ballinger Fletcher3/2/20233/2/2023

Local civilians have recycled and repurposed war material.

Photo of Soldiers of the National Liberation Front , the Viet Cong, in the early 1960s display weapons from a variety of sources, from left, a captured American M79 grenade launcher; an American M1 carbine, captured from the French or South Vietnamese or supplied by the Chinese; and a K-50M submachine gun supplied by North Vietnam.

Here Are the Weapons of the NVA — Backed by Russia and China

by Jon Guttman12/19/202212/19/2022

How CIA and Special Forces Tested Counterinsurgency Strategy in Vietnam’s Central Highlands

by J. Keith Saliba1/8/20225/24/2022

See How US Air Force Special Ops Squadrons Took on Dangerous Missions in Vietnam

by Jon Guttman12/27/20214/18/2022

‘Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964-73’ Review

by Jon Guttman11/9/202111/9/2021

Saving Captain Vizcarra: A Downed Fighter Pilot’s Rescue from North Vietnam

by Marcelo Ribeiro da Silva8/25/20213/13/2023

Ambush in the Ia Drang Valley: The 1st Cavalry’s Grim Fight

by Steve Hassett8/17/202111/16/2022