Word: komura
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Burma, enlisted men maintain neat parade grounds, teak officers' quarters, even the occasional flower bed of marigolds and roses. Bugles sound morning reveille, and new recruits march to target practice under a gatepost that carries a black-lettered sign, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH. Even in Komura, a muddy labyrinth of trenches and bunkers 100 miles south, where some 500 Karen soldiers have been trapped in battle for months with the Burmese army, the men are high-minded. The only pinups on the walls are chaste photographs torn from Thai mail-order catalogs of ladies in bridal gowns...
...noon, and another round of shelling has begun in Komura. As the earth shudders, men drop into bunkers near a thick stand of bamboo trees. Nobody talks, but with each blast, the muscles in the men's faces tighten. Saw Klee Moo's face, however, remains smooth. When a rocket explodes nearby, shaking the ammunition crate where Saw Klee Moo crouches, he smiles. Saw Klee Moo is nearly 15 and certain that he will never be hit by a bomb...