Burma Junior Rambos

The Karens may be the most civilized guerrillas on earth. At army headquarters in Manerplaw, deep in the jungle of 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...

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