To maintain the terror of the moment, a net of land mines also was stretched from one corner of this country to the other, a silent killer that continued to raise the indiscriminate ante of life exposed to war. Though the Vietnam War ended in 1975, for the most part the land mines and unexploded ordnance remain. The human exposure continues to haunt the people of Laos. The legacy of war pursues them. They are the unintended consequences.
War has a face, and unintended consequences have faces as well.
They are now often the faces of children. Sixty percent of the victims of land mines are children under 15 years of age. Children, who do their farm chores and play their games far from well-traveled roads, become the unintended victims. Long before these kids were born, they were destined to inherit a cursed land. Their own value, their own identity would forever be tied to the madness of a moment when this military confetti would rob succeeding generations of a legitimate future, a sustainable hope, a sacred dignity provided by a God who created each of us in his image.