Trees draw close, borne by rising ground. A Vietnamese crewman unlatches the chopper's door, opening the cabin to a shock of wind, and peers over the side as the engine guns. The helicopter trembles, yaws in place over a small clearing hacked from the woods. The chopper hits the ground, skips, hovers, slaps down a second time. The pilot kills the engine.
Tribesmen swarm the landing zone.
Another one in 10 have been recovered from the field, but have not yet been identified. That leaves 23 percent of the cases, or just under 600, open and active. On the LZ, dragonflies dart over mahogany and pine stumps hacked with machetes, bamboo shoots cut into evil points. The trees below have been dragged off, the topsoil stripped, and a switchbacking trail dug out of the heavy, yellow-gray clay beneath. Mountain people, Mnong tribesmen, are strung along the path, each taking buckets from the man or woman below, passing them to the one above, and in a swooning heat the clay thus marches slowly uphill toward other workers who strain it through metal screens.