A Sad Little Museum Worth Visiting

After returning from the uplifting waterfall, some of us, led by our fearless leader Bun, went to the UXO Museum in Luang Prabang.  

UXO means unexploded ordinance.  It is a very small museum, dedicated to spotlighting the problems of unexploded ordinance in Laos, primarily from the US bombing Laos as part of the Vietnam War.

It's only a few rooms, but it has a huge impact on anyone going through it.  The problem of unexploded ordinance continues in Laos to this day.  An estimated 12,000 UXO-related accidents have occurred since 1973, as efforts to find and clear UXOs continue to this day.  

From the UXO museum website:

"Data gathered by UXO Lao in areas where it operates in from 1999 to present, show 934 casualties, divided into 655 injuries and 279 deaths. Data indicates more than 50% of the victims are children and more than 81% are male. Bombies are the most common cause of accidents."

("Bombies" are little bomblets that were dropped as part of a huge cluster of bombs.  Most exploded, but many did not.)

Please do not read this post as a criticism of the many Americans who served in Vietnam.  Remember, the decisions were made at a different circumstances than the global situation today -- the US was trying to help stop communism from taking over SE Asia, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were using Laos for part of the Ho Chi Minh trail, and while the situation was America's first defeat in a war, we were fighting a determined people who were more equivalent to the American side in the Revolutionary War.

That doesn't make the situation of postwar UXOs any less tragic or any less important to protect the Laos people from.

I'll have more to say on the Vietnam War down the road.

Bombies.  The sign helpfully says

"Do Not Touch".  I didn't need to

be told twice.

Outside the museum.

All of the ordinance on

display has been disarmed.