The picture shows a killer called the "Bouncing Betty" anti-personnel mine. When tripped, the mine bounces up at least chest high before exploding. The one who trips it will probably die or be maimed, but often in the great mystery of war, the one who trips it may survive while others die. This was the case around November of 1967 in the Street Without Joy in the I Corps of South Vietnam. My Marine battalion 1/3 was nearing the end of an operation. I was with H&S Company as part of an S-2 field interrogation unit. I usually had a tethered prisoner to push along in front of me while I followed in his footsteps. At times, we had tracked vehicles with us on flat ground. This was a bonus because I could walk in the trail left by the treads and not worry about tripping a mine. I didn't have either one on this day on the right flank, moving over hard bare ground. Real war isn't like the movies where troops bunch up and tell jokes or walk in a big cluster giving their o
My fiction, life in general, and war, with some pics from my Marine days in Vietnam.