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39 5 The relentless cold had dried up the small ponds and streams. As the waters receded, ducks, sand cranes, and other waterfowl feasted on freshwater fish, snails, crab, and shrimp. The ending months of 1970 were also a season filled with death and destruction. Larony was sent to Bangkok, Thailand, for a year of Special Forces training. He wrote us often. Mona was permitted to stay home to help the family. Father and Serey came home from the front lines more often but never for long. Our trench here was dry and roomy. Since our first attempt earlier this year, we’d learned how to waterproof the dugout, cover its entrance, and ventilate the sides. We kept snakes and pests out of the trench by throwing in lime rinds. Every time we heard a boom, we instinctively ran to the trench. This time we stayed dry, with plastic sheeting and warm bedding. Escaping the shelling became routine, and we always slept inside our trench instead of the house. When the shelling was heavier than usual, we figured that China had just sent fresh supplies to the Khmer Rouge. It was common knowledge by this time that the Chinese backed Sihanouk and the Khmer Rouge, and the United States backed Lon Nol. The attacks came without warning. Shells exploded in the crowded streets or marketplace. The wounded and the dead lay untouched for hours. Schoolchildren died, too. The schools closed for weeks, sometimes months. We held sporadic classes behind sandbags at odd hours. The Lon Nol military forces controlled the city. Anyone with a military connection had access to Swiss bank accounts and trips abroad. To those with the right position or contacts, the war was a great business opportunity. Arms dealing was especially lucrative with U.S. military aid pouring into the country and the government encouraging citizens to arm themselves. Ammunition and grenades were cheap and widely available; it seemed that every house had A Time of Plenty Back Home in Siem Reap weapons. On the black market, government soldiers sold pistols and small arms to anyone with cash, including Khmer Rouge cadres. Subtle corruption was practiced in one form or another by those who could, even in my own family, where Father used his associations to obtain medicine and, more importantly, to avoid conscription of any more of his children. By 1971, many of my older classmates and school friends were in Lon Nol’s Republican Army. I was ten, just old enough to be recruited into the military as my elder brothers (excepting Norane) had been before me. Father didn’t hesitate to pull some strings. One of our family friends, a general and commanding officer, helped so that the rest of my siblings and I were spared from conscription, which is certain death on the frontlines. I never found out how the officer prevented our recruitment . Others must have died in our places. This trading of lives shamed me, but we had to survive. Those with neither money nor strings to pull found themselves at the frontlines after only a few days of weapons training. The youngest were usually assigned to the high-casualty Grenade Corps, a group of children whose sole mission was tossing grenades at the enemy. They were trained to follow orders well. Their commanding officers or squad leaders were often only in their very early teens. One day I saw my best childhood friend Lan going off to the front lines. We had been classmates since Grade 11 at Wat Damnak (equivalent to the second grade in the U.S.). Lan was now about age twelve. Unlike the rest of us, he had never liked playing soldier or war games, and yet now he was joining a real-life battalion. That morning, he wore brand-new green government-issue fatigues with rolled-up sleeves and pant legs. An old helmet with a finger-sized hole was too large for his head. One hand held the helmet while the other held an M-16 automatic rifle. “Made in America,” he said, smiling wryly. That was my last memory of Lan, walking shoulder to shoulder with the other conscripts. Back at home, my family and I heard the wailing well before we saw Aunt Thet. My mother and I ran out of the house to see Aunt Thet heading our way, sobbing, with uncontrollable grief on her face. My hero, Uncle Vin, my mother’s eldest brother, who had helped us escape the...

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