Rangers in the Gap: Act with Courage, Never Surrender

Where would you hide if soldiers burned your home and pursued your family? In the jungles of Burma (Myanmar), throngs of ethnic people hide in nomadic communities to elude government-trained terrorists. Burma Army soldiers call these families the resistance. And what do they resist? Torture and rape. Theft of land and farms. They resist working like pack animals and starving in relocation camps. For more than 60 years, rag-tag resistance groups have withstood the powerful Burma Army while nations and commercial interests watched. Today the world is waiting for democracy to douse the flames of ethnic hatred in Burma. BUT NOT THE FREE BURMA RANGERS. Since 1997, the Free Burma Rangers have launched hundreds of relief missions, because internally displaced people (IDPs) are starving. IDPs die from dysentery, fevers and untreated landmine wounds. At plundered villages and jungle hide sites, ethnics feel stripped of dignity and hope. Free Burma Rangers cross raging rivers and scale mountains to help these IDPs. No mission is complete until every human rights violation or act of courage is documented and recorded for broadcast worldwide. What possesses a Free Burma Ranger to strap on a heavy rucksack full of food and medical supplies? Why do Rangers dodge battalions of Burma Army terrorists to deliver help, hope and love to people they don t even know? In this book, seven Free Burma Rangers reveal the reasons they champion families ravaged by artillery, flame, torture and death. Share in the Rangers daring odysseys, and savor their sense of fulfillment. Their stories may challenge what you believe is your own destiny.