Badass of the Week: Lone Cambodian Hero Takes on More Than One Million Landmines, page 1

Aki Ra is a real hero of Cambodia and a true badass - not because of his service rocking faces on a military level, as so many others on this website demonstrate – but because he has dedicated his life to single-handedly neutralizing Cambodia's once-crippling landmine problem. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he seems to have found the most badass way of accomplishing the feat, either.

When he's not running a successful non-governmental organization, curating the museum, or flexing his pulsating iron ballsack, Aki Ra also takes in homeless, (often-times drug-addicted) local kids who have had appendages blown off by land mines and provides them with adequate food, shelter, and education. Aki provides for his twenty-plus "children" by going out into the jungles and hunting wild boars with a crossbow. I wish I was making this stuff up.

www.badassoftheweek.com...


Aki Ra's parents were axed to death by Pol Pot (cost effective - saves bullets)

Aki was conscripted as a child soldier at the age of five and set to work installing booby-traps along the Cambodian-Thailand border

He did this with a gun jammed in his back for approx. ten years

Then, he was conscripted into the Vietnamese army for a further ten years



After spending a forced 20 years as a mine-layer for various armies, he returned to Cambodia where he began undoing all of it, using nothing more than a shovel and stick

Aki can defuse a landmine in two minutes. It takes United Nations bomb teams one or two hours

He believes he's single-handedly defused over 50,000 land-mines and has trained up to 1,000 people to do the same thing

Awesome article about a truly awesome guy

To see full article and photos:

www.badassoftheweek.com...

Link to video of Aki Ra in action:

www.youtube.com...


Wikipedia link to Aki Ra:

en.wikipedia.org...


New Zealand Herald article about Aki Ra:

www.nzherald.co.nz...


Lots of reading at the links about this inspirational guy

who doesn't waste time on words but instead just gets stuck into it

reply to post by seattletruth

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Thanks, Seattle

He makes you ask, 'Why not' ? doesn't he ?

He makes you wonder what you personally are capable of and makes you want to find out

He's no ten foot tall movie star. Just an average guy showing what average guys can do if they give it a try

reply to post by ANNED

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Ahh, I didn't know that. I agree claymores are a different matter.

That makes me think the legislative process is rigged to make the talks fail...

They should have new legislation simply to ban production or use of pressure activated mines. There's no reason why any country shouldn't sign onto that.

reply to post by ANNED

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Claymore mines can have a trigger system.

Snipers, or advanced recon units use them to guard their backs, putting wires across their perimeter. If an undetected enemy comes by, the advantage of the claymores (directional blast) will show, taking out the attacking enemy.



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edit to add:


Btw, there is a reason why UN (and everyone else) takes a lot of time (not 2 hours everytime) to disarm this things.

It's called safety.

There are anti-disarm mechanisms in mine. Some have two triggers (one for pressure, other in case the mine is lifted).

If this guy knows where the mines are and how they are, good. Better.

But not everyone is that lucky, and mostly not everyone is taking off the mines that they planted them-selfs.

And for every mine, there is the risk of losing a piece of your body or your life.


Yeah, this guys work is great.

But don't fall in the mistake of putting down the UN and volunteers work who RISK THEIR OWN LIFE DAILY.

[edit on 13/2/10 by Tifozi]

reply to post by drakus

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No, I'm saying that if you're not gonna fight fair, neither am I.

Originally posted by Dock9
reply to post by seattletruth

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He makes you wonder what you personally are capable of and makes you want to find out

He's no ten foot tall movie star. Just an average guy showing what average guys can do if they give it a try

100%!!! This guy is, in my not so humble opinion, the embodiment of true, unmandated, civic responsibility. And he does it with a crossbow, almost as good as the Duke boys...but he dosn't have a hot rod.

reply to post by Dock9

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he's not an average guy

reply to post by ANNED

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Claymore mines can be both command detonated as well as trip wire detonated.

reply to post by TokiTheGreat

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Our aggressors? Who are they supposed to be anyway? Few hundred yrs ago it was England; couple hundred it was Spain, also our own countrymen (Civil War), then in the 1940's it was perhaps Japan and maybe Germany tho they never openly attacked us on our turf.
No aggressors since then.
We are the aggressors. If we are on another country's soil in war, that other country is clearly not the aggressor.
If another country was invading us, you'd protect yourself by any means neccessary and you'd be saying "Geneva convention be damned".

reply to post by primus2012

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Thats pretty much what I am already saying. Geneva convention be damned. It's a worthless document that next to no one adheres to anyways.

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