The dusty mountain road stretched ahead. I could see up ahead that it was blocked again, this time with a frayed rope hung across it, unlike the rusty chain I’d encountered at the last guard post a few miles back. If I was counting correctly, this would be the sixth stop within the hour where I would be peered at suspiciously and my passport demanded. No “gringos” were traveling in this remote region during the war. I was probably a strange sight to my roadside scrutinizers. Two ragtag undernourished young men hoisted old M1 rifles over their shoulders as they approached my jeep. They were part of a 700,000 Civil Defense Patrol, local militias, made up of men and boys, some as young as