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| Spurred by Gratitude, 'Bomb Lady' Develops Better Weapons for U.S. |
| 2007-12-01 |
| Excerpts below. Please read the whole thing. h/t Lucianne Now, at age 47 and living in Maryland, Duong is still grappling with the question, trying to apply bedtime lessons from Vietnam to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Duong is known as "the bomb lady" around the Pentagon and as the engineer behind America's first thermobaric, bunker-busting explosive. A 5-foot-1-inch suburban mother of four, Duong has become, according to Thomas A. Betro, director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, "one of the most important weapons-developers of the modern era." For Duong, who was honored recently as one of the federal government's top civil servants, producing tools for U.S. troops is a way of life. After years of pioneering explosives for the Navy, she now creates systems to help identify terrorists. "I don't want My Lai in Iraq," Duong said at the Pentagon, where she works on anti-terrorism issues as a science adviser. "The biggest difficulty in the global war on terror -- just like in Vietnam -- is to know who the bad guys are. How do we make sure we don't kill innocents?" Duong's most recent innovation, the Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facilities (JEFF) project or "lab in a box," analyzes biometrics. It will be delivered to Iraq at the beginning of 2008, the Navy said, to help distinguish insurgents from civilians. "The best missile is worthless if you don't know who to shoot," Duong said. "I remember clutching my little bag full of pictures of teachers, childhood friends, of my cat and dog that I had to abandon, and a few pieces of my best clothes, crying the whole time," she recalled in a speech at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, where she worked before moving to the Pentagon. Eventually Duong and her family were transferred to a Vietnamese boat, which pulled alongside a U.S. Navy ship. One by one, they jumped. "Each would have to wait for the right moment, the short period when the waves would bring the boat and the ship closest," Duong said. "I was standing in line for that jump, when my cousin, who was ahead of me, made his jump at the wrong moment. Even today I can still picture him sliding down the side of the ship while everyone on the other side was trying to catch his hand . . . while my aunt was screaming." Her cousin, dangling, his feet nearly crushed between the two hulls, was hoisted on board. "Someone shouted in my ear that I was next," Duong recalled. "Only after I made it to the ship and found my father did I break down." Duong came to Montgomery County in 1975 by way of refugee camps in the Philippines and in Pennsylvania. The First Baptist Church of Washington sponsored her family. "Her life story is at the heart of her commitment," Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter said in an interview. This fall, he presented Duong with the 2007 Service to America National Security Medal from the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service (PPS). Backstage, as Winter listened to Duong's account of her escape, he took a deep breath and, he said, "I'm thinking, 'Gee whiz, am I going to be able to do this without choking up?' " PPS president Max Stier said afterward, "Americans sometimes forget the important role their public servants play. Immigrants don't. At Indian Head, in the 1990s, Duong headed the development and transition of 10 explosives into 18 different U.S. missiles, bombs, torpedoes and gun projectiles, a record in the field, according to the PPS. In 2001, Duong led nearly 100 scientists at Indian Head to build a thermobaric, internal-blast explosive so powerful that critics called it "thermo-barbaric." It was designed for use in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom to penetrate enemy caves. Her team compressed years of work into 67 days. Duong's colleague, Karen Burrows, a fuse specialist, recalled how she and Pam Carpenter, the chief chemist, sat in meetings with Duong, calculating the optimum heat and pressure to billow around corners and rip through tunnels. Male colleagues called the women, all mothers of young children, "the knitting club." |
| Posted by:mrp |
| #9 More Bomb Ladies plz, Her dedication and commitment to America not only makes us stronger but makes me Proud. Nice to see immigrants to America who LOVE Her! /:) |
| Posted by: Red Dawg 2007-12-01 15:46 |
| #8 From Indian Head to the five sided wind tunnel. The ultimate definition of culture shock. Wahaaaaaaaa! Besoeker is in trouble again! /~:) |
| Posted by: Red Dawg 2007-12-01 15:21 |
| #7 Another example of an American who happened to be born somewhere else. Author! I don't quite see how her compact biometrics lab will help to identify terrorists. If it can perform short turn DNA sequencing to determine country of origin, that might be of some use. Otherwise the biometrics would seem to be useful only in intercepting typical catch and release returnees to combat or identifying terrorist family members. If someone else has more insight on this I'd be interested. It is no small irony that America has received the expertise of Ms. Duong. According to my Vietnamese friends, South Vietnam was the intellectual center of that divided nation. Essentially, a bunch of communist-armed northern peasant rabble overran the south's universities and factories only to wreak their usual Socialist havoc upon a semi-functional economy. Vietnam possesses a peculiar legacy amongst all other East Asian nations. Throughout its history, women have always been able to vote, serve in the military, inherit wealth, own property and run businesses. Quite the contrast with all other Asian cultures. Add in the fact that two of Vietnam's greatest war heroes are the Trung sisters who led a successful resistance against a Chinese invasion. It is a small wonder that a nation which, so very early on, rejected the female submissive doctrine of Confucianism has managed to produce a mind like that of Ms. Duoung. Of even less wonder is that Ms. Duoung would recognize and respect the freedom she enjoys in America. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-12-01 14:56 |
| #6 Inspiring story, but I think publishing her name is a security risk. We need to protect our weapons developers better than that. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-12-01 13:23 |
| #5 she recalled in a speech at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, where she worked before moving to the Pentagon. From Indian Head to the five sided wind tunnel. The ultimate definition of culture shock. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-12-01 13:13 |
| #4 Another example of an American who happened to be born somewhere else. |
| Posted by: Rambler 2007-12-01 11:53 |
| #3 Amazing lady. I saw a discovery special on the thermobaric bomb and she was highlighted in it. She is also proof that the American dream and experiment is alive and well. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-12-01 09:43 |
| #2 Good read, I'll follow the link and read the whole piece; as an aside, one bit reminds me of one of the moments right after 9/11 when I realized how full of crap the "experts" were, in that rather short time which made me lose all faith an interest in the msm : the pic of an afghan cave/bunker in some kind of a very big rock, with a taleb standing guard in front of it... and the talking head saying that "only a nuclear or chemical bombing could take it", that is that quite unimpressive cave/bunker. I'm not military-savvy, but even I could see that this was pure bull, and that this "expert" didn't actually know sh*t, or at least, nothing that mattered, like the work that lady has done for the afghan campaign. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2007-12-01 09:09 |
| #1 There is a video accompanying the piece. It is magnificent. |
| Posted by: mrp 2007-12-01 08:58 |