DONG HA, Vietnam – It was at the heart of the some of the fiercest fighting during the war in Vietnam. In the late 1960s, the Dong Ha Combat Base, forward headquarters of the U.S. 3rd Marine Division, was under constant attack from forces in the north. In peacetime, it has been the site of tragic accidental explosions injuring innocent civilians. Only desperate squatters dared to live on its land.

But now, more than a quarter century since the war ended, a large portion of the base that once housed 50,000 American troops supplying firebases south of the Demilitarized Zone is ready to be resettled by local residents.

Clear Path International, a humanitarian mine-action nonprofit based in Vermont, sponsored the successful removal of more than 500 pieces of lethal ordnance to clear the way for residential housing and a school on 110 acres of land that was part of the base. It is the largest demining project of its kind by a privately funded American mine action group in Vietnam.

The organization, which started the clearance project more than a year and a half ago with the support of the Freeman Foundation in Stowe, Vermont, has transferred the cleared site to local authorities for development and will be sponsoring the construction of an elementary school.

“This was an extremely dangerous piece of land that was useless to the community because of the high density of explosives,” said Martha Hathaway, Clear Path’s executive director. “It’s very satisfying to turn it over to local residents, knowing families can now live there in safety and confidence.”

The clearance, implemented with the technical management of UXB International of Ashburn, Virginia, and executed by professionally trained Vietnamese deminers, was a painstaking process, Hathaway said.

Deminers had to work with handheld detectors, particularly in areas of dense vegetation and around dwellings. Only where the soil was loose and gravelly was the demining team able to use an armored tractor for clearance. The project was completed without any accidents.

Clear Path International is a 501 C 3 nonprofit dedicated to serving landmine accident survivors, their families and their communities in Southeast Asia. It has projects in Vietnam, Cambodia and on the Thai-Burma border.

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