A U.S. secret operation in Laos that ended 43 years ago is still creating fresh wounds. 

Eight-year-old Brong Yang has shrapnel in his side. In July, he made the mistake of playing with what he thought was a ball. Instead, it exploded.

“There was blood everywhere,” his father said. “I didn’t know what had happened, but when I felt metal under my son’s shirt, I knew it was a bomb.”

That bomb was dropped more than four decades ago by the United States military. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. carpet-bombed neighboring Laos, in part to cut off North Vietnamese supply routes. That covert operation is called the Secret War.