Yeoh En-Lai, Lhoknga – All that remains of the barracks that housed 2,000 Indonesian soldiers in this village is a huge mound of rubble, crushed in seconds by last month's tsunami. The commander died when his quarters were washed away.
The devastated remains are one of many signs that the Indonesian military suffered serious damage in Aceh, the tsunami-ravaged province where troops have been battling separatist rebels for three decades.
Other militaries in Thailand, India and Sri Lanka also reported tsunami damage, but the losses don't seem as severe as Indonesia's.
Before the disaster, 35,000 troops were based in Aceh – where more than 106,000 people died in the December 26 earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
Jakarta rushed thousands more troops to the rebellion-wracked region in the aftermath of the disaster.
Officially, the country's military said 39 soldiers died and 44 were missing. But those numbers were drastically lower than the hundreds of dead reported by officers in the field.
Maj. S. Jamaluddin said at least 300 army personnel died at the base in Lhoknga, about 10 miles from the provincial capital of Banda Aceh. "It was a Sunday, so many of the soldiers and their families would have gone down to the park," he said, pointing to an area a hundred yards from the base.
In another coastal town, Meulaboh, more than 350 troops died, said West Aceh military chief Lt. Col. Geerhan Lantara. Military outposts in Calang, about 125 miles from Banda Aceh, were also wiped out.
A senior officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested that the official death toll was classified so it wouldn't give comfort to the enemy – the Free Aceh Movement, known by the Indonesian acronym GAM. "Maybe there is a need to protect the total numbers from GAM," he said. "We do not want them getting any advantage."
More than two weeks since the disaster, soldiers can still be seen searching for their missing comrades, guns and ammunition. A makeshift sign at the destroyed army base urges people to return army uniforms found strewn around the countryside.
"We found four M-16s. Nothing else. All our mortars are still missing," said Cpl. Guniawan, a member of Company B, which occupied the destroyed base in Lhoknga.
Sri Lanka's military, which has been grappling with a 20-year separatist insurgency by the Tamil Tigers, acknowledged it suffered losses but did not give a death toll.
"Our camps have been damaged, but the loss of heavy military equipment is negligible because we don't keep sensitive or heavy equipment near the beaches," said Brig. Daya Ratnayake, spokesman of the military.
The Tamil rebels also declined to report casualties. But a Tamil journalist, D.B.S. Jeyaraj, who has access to rebel information, reported in the Sunday Leader weekly newspaper that the Tigers lost 100 fighters.
India's air force suffered extensive damage on Car Nicobar island, a strategic outpost off the country's southeastern coast. The base is important to India because it helps authorities curb illegal movement of arms and narcotics into the insurgency-wracked northeastern Indian states.
More than 150 people – including officers and their families – died, and dozens of officers' homes and offices were flattened. The base's air traffic control tower toppled over, and most of the airstrip – used by fighter jets - was destroyed.
Indian officials said the base was also important to keep an eye on Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger rebels, who routinely use the area to ferry arms into their strongholds.
Officials said reconstruction could take a year. Indian Air Chief Marshal S.P. Tyagi ruled out relocating the base, but said some of the officers' quarters would be moved.
"We have asked for land in higher areas from the civil administration," he said.