talking to an old PI soldier

[Federico]

Originally Posted by Bill

who served in the Southern Philippines from 1950-83. A few interesting things. The use of swords, spears, & bow/arrow against government soldiers was common untill 1970, then groups that opposed the gov. were funded & supplied from outside the PI, & the groups went from "primitive" weapons to superior weapons almost overnight. The interesting thing is that this fellow states it was easier to fight the better armed groups, as earlier ambushes were always well planned, & a quick retreat into boobytraps for the gov. soldiers. Better armed, opposition groups, became over confident, & stood thier ground; often to the avantage of the better trained soldiers. Typical of attacks, earlier in his career, were single archers hidding in trees, or groups that would have the high ground & shoot high into the air, so that the arrows would be coming staight down. Krismen often would wait in tall grass, & were quite feared, the wounds from the kris were always fatal, he states. He gave me many examples of the kris attacks & the damage done, as he said, the body never stops the blade. As to the barung, I was surprised, his opinion was that it was not as deadly as the kris. He stated he never saw a man survive a kris wound, but did see men survive barung wounds.

Ok, in the early 50s you have the Kamlon uprising, my Uncle served and was killed in that one. But before the MNLF start in the late 60s, what was the PI army doing down there? From all Ive heard after the Kamlon event (from people living in the area, books, etc...), til the MNLF times and uprisings down there were some of the most peaceful in the region in centuries (well as peaceful as it ever gets down there aside from general political terrorism against civilians, blood feuds, and crime). At least in terms of involvement of the army. Was this guy speaking of general fighting/feuds? Kamlon used guns, and there are many people who attest that after WWII guns were quite common in the area. Im sure people still used kris and barong for whatever personal reasons, but I havent heard the bow being common?