Spurred by Gratitude, 'Bomb Lady' Develops Better Weapons for U.S.

"On Saturdays, I would work and come home drained, and do laundry," Burrows recalled. She told her 4-year-old son, "'Mommy is making a bomb for Osama bin Laden.' He shared this with his friends, 'Mommy makes bombs.' "

At home, Duong's four children, ages from 5 to 11 at the time, were barred from playing with toy guns. No Harry Potter books -- too violent. Even their Disney videos were censored, Duong's daughter, Cynthia, said: "Our 'Pocahontas' movie had all the fight scenes cut out."

Though Duong and her husband Tho, a software engineer, favor building a strong U.S. arsenal, they are "strongly antiwar," Duong said. "We don't want our kids to think violence is the answer." She builds weapons for deterrence, she said, though, if provoked, the United States should use them. Asked if she worried her bombs might be misused, she said, "You've got to have faith in our leadership."

Recently, Duong returned to Indian Head for a visit. She saw Doug Elstrodt, who was in charge of mixing and casting the thermobaric ingredients.

"It's like baking a cake," Elstrodt said, standing over a 420-gallon steel mixing bowl with beaters three feet long. "You start with the liquids. Add the solids."

Duong remembered how she used to come home from work and cook dinner -- but no brownies or cakes. "I'd been baking all day," she said. She also remembered how nervous she was at the Nevada site, when they tested the thermobaric mix. A picture of bin Laden, pasted on a concrete slab, was placed inside a tunnel. Duong said her heart pounded as the explosion ruptured the cave.

Now Duong was standing inside a charred and pitted Navy detonation chamber, inhaling the corroded odor. "This feels like home," Duong said, the words echoing against metal walls.

Back home in Saigon as a little girl, Duong used to stand by the gate of her brother's air base, waiting for him to come home. She'd pretend she was a fairy: "I wanted my brother to win, to have the best weapon, so he would come back alive."

Today, to defeat terrorists, she said, "We need a mind-opening weapon. That's the best weapon -- to change the terrorists' minds." She had lifted it in her hand as a girl and aimed while waiting for her brother. "My first weapon," Duong recalled in a soft voice. A magic wand.