The scenic Makua Valley opens up wide and grassy, backed by a fan of sharply fluted mountains. It serves as the ammunition field of the Makua Military Reservation. The seaside road opposite the southern end of the reservation leads to a little graveyard that’s shaded by yellow-flowered be-still trees. This site is all that remains of the valley community that was forced to evacuate during WWII when the US military took over the entire valley for war games.
After several ground fires, and lawsuits charging that not enough environmental-impact studies had been done, live-fire exercises were discontinued in 2011.
