14. War Souvenirs

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By Jim Cowan

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One HOT! 1968 afternoon in Phu Hiep, Bill Gray and I were on our way back from the dump and were extremely bored, so we started tossing around ideas of what we'd like to do to entertain ourselves. Feeling exceptionally adventurous that particular day, we agreed to go looking for war souvenirs. We were hoping to find mortar casings, flair chutes, or whatever. We'd heard of a cleared minefield near the dump, so we decided to begin our search there. I stepped out onto the minefield first, and found several mortar casings and a couple of flair chutes. Bill found some mortar casings. We were having a field day! Suddenly, I looked down and 1/2 inch from my right foot was an unexploded anti-personnel mine. It was as if time stood still!

I yelled for Bill to stop! He did. I told him what I'd just found. He asked what we should do. I told him to turn around and take the exact same footsteps we made coming in and let's get the hell out of here! How we managed to get out of that minefield alive, I'll never know, but it was the last time we searched for anymore war souvenirs during our tour.

Later on, due to an IG Inspection, I had to hide my war souvenirs, so I buried them. A few days later when I went back to retrieve them, they were gone. To think I had placed at risk my lower extremities and somebody had the nerve to claim my trophies. Oh well, s**t happens!