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22 3 From miles away, strong gusts of wind gathered the monsoon clouds into dark masses. The winds died and warm air rose to meet the cold front. Eardrums popped as air pressures dropped, rose, and fell again. Flocks of birds scattered at the tremendous sound of thunder. Solid sheets of rain came down and flooded the streets. The monsoon floods had come to Siem Reap once again. We shouldn’t have been so surprised when the battle began that stormy night. A few weeks earlier, the town militia had conscripted my father and my elder brothers Simona and Serey, who were college students. (My eldest brother Larony had already signed up for full-time active military duty with Lon Nol’s forces, over our parents’ objections.) Larony took intensive courses on using new U.S. weapons, but Simona and Serey, calling themselves “commandos,” spent just a few days in basic training, learning to operate World War II surplus American rifles. While my father and brothers prepared to join the Vietnam War, at home we stored food and supplies. My only sister Mealanie was now the oldest child at home, and Mother was recently pregnant. On the radio, the new government broadcast orders for everyone to build bomb shelters for protection. We dug a trench in the backyard, piled sandbags around it, and roofed it with timber. My mother held war drills so often it became both boring and tiring. “When you hear the whistle, you know what to do,” she said. We immediately had to go to the trench and do a head count. Mother, Mealanie, Norane, me, Lonk, Nosay, and Monika. And we never knew when the drill would happen—sometimes it occurred in the dead of night. We had to know how to get to the trench, even in the dark. “Those who are prepared enough will survive,” Father always said. But who can really prepare for war? An Uncivil War Heavy Shelling in Siem Reap AN UNCIVIL WAR 23 Our house by the forest was just outside the city’s defensive line. Instead of moving us into the city, Father said it was safer for us to stay at home because the city would be heavily shelled. He was right. At about ten o’clock that night, as we huddled together in our new trench, the loud whizzing screech of shells joined the sounds of the thunderstorm. The roof tiles rattled and the house shook. It was like fireworks, but louder, though you could still hear people yelling. Man-made tracers joined Mother Nature’s lightning. Intense odors settled around us. The papery sulfur smell of gunpowder was joined by garlicky phosphorus. My mother held little Monika in her arms and screamed. Lon Nol seemed to be in firm command of everything. My father and my brothers were in Siem Reap, defending the city against the well-armed and well-disciplined Khmer Rouge guerrillas and their allies, the battle-hardened Vietcong who, for years, had taken on America’s finest. The chaos repeated itself day in and day out. I missed my father and my brothers Larony, Simona, and Serey. Outside our trench, power blinked on and off, and our radio often emitted static. It was hard to know the status of the war, of our father and brothers. I imagined them in flooded trenches under the rain, ready to shoot. “Please, Preah [Lord Buddha], take good care of my family and I will do anything you want.” I repeated my prayer so many times that I lost count. We became so hungry that we’d routinely send one person up to cook outside while the rest huddled in the soggy trench. We ate and slept in the trench. At night, a kerosene lamp gave us some light and the smoke blackened our nostrils . Severe headaches dogged us. I longed for my warm bed. We all did. “When can we go back to the house?” we asked our mother. “This trench is uncomfortable, dirty, and wet,” Mother said, “but it’s safe.” Our house was built high on stilts to avoid floodwaters but not artillery fire. So we stayed in our crude trench waiting for the firing to begin, at the same time praying that the war would never come. After more than two weeks in the awful trench, Mother caved in. “I’ve had enough of living like rats in a hole. I’d rather die from bullets than drown!” I looked at Mother’s...

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