Driven from city life to jungle insurgency

On jungle crests about 1 mile from the front lines in eastern Myanmar, a former hotel banquet coordinator slipped his index finger onto the trigger of an assault rifle. A dentist recalled picking larvae from a young fighter's infected bullet wound. A marketing manager described the adapted commercial drones she is directing to foil the enemy. More than a year after Myanmar's military seized full control in a coup -- imprisoning the nation's elected leaders, killing more than 1,700 civilians and arresting at least 13,000 more -- the country is at war, with some unlikely combatants in the fray. On one side is a military junta that, apart from a brief interlude of semidemocratic governance, has ruled with brutal force for a half-century.