From Laos to Gaza to Ukraine, we must confront the war beneath our feet

This September marks 80 years since the end of World War II. Even at that distance, we are still feeling its legacy. In August, authorities discovered a 250-kg World War II bomb during construction in Stuttgart, Germany, my father’s ancestral homeland. Nearly 1,000 residents were evacuated, train traffic was halted and order was restored only after the device was safely defused.

Around the same time in southern Laos, my mother’s home province of Champasak, a farmer was out in the field working with his two small children when he struck an unexploded bomb leftover from the American Secret War in Laos that took place between 1964 and 1973, when over 2.5 million tons of ordnance were dropped on Laos — more than all the bombs dropped on Germany and Japan combined during World War II. The farm