Mine Sweep
It was May 9th, 1968 in Vietnam. I was in one of the
squads of ‘C’ Company, 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, 4th Infantry Division. I
was a combat demolition specialist, MOS 12B30. We were on the road between the
village of Polei Kleng and the bridge over the Kontum River, sweeping for
anti-vehicle mines.
As we crossed the stream outside the village, I saw a
small ring-neck snake. I picked it up and it bit me. I took this as a warning,
for snakes usually didn't bite me. I used to keep them as pets. My ‘pets’ would
bite other people, though.
I told the Sergeant, our platoon leader, but
he said I was full of it, and ignored me. Then the mine detectors started
breaking down. We carried four, two were metal detectors, the other two were
for detecting plastic mines. After considerable repair efforts we were left
with only two working detectors, one of each type.
The other minesweep
team, who swept from Kontum City to the bridge, had already finished and a
Colonel radioed us saying: "We finished our half, WTF are you? Hurry up." The
sergeant ordered us to have one detector work each side of the road and to "take
big steps." This was dangerous and I told him so. He ordered me to the back of
the line in last probe position (we followed the sweepers and probed the ground,
if they got a reading). That was so he didn't have to hear me complain.
After some distance doing this, I looked down at the road's edge and just
"knew" a mine was there, although the detectors missed it and there was no
obvious sign. I called a halt to the sweep, and the Sergeant came back fuming:
"WTF is it now, Golinski?" "I think I have a mine." I did. As I scraped the soil
with my bayonet I uncovered a gray 40 lb. plastic Russian anti-tank mine. The
APC behind me had numerous troops and Vietnamese civilians piled upon it. I told
them to wait as I dug up the mine. The sergeant halted the following convoy and
called back the mine detectors to start a more careful sweep while I dug out the
Russian mine. They found nothing, but the mine I found turned out to be the
first in a series of nine mines. Some were found with mine detectors, the rest
I found by 'knowing' they were there.
A truck coming from Kontum didn't
know the road wasn't clear and was driving toward us; I had been switched to
point position (we took turns to avoid fatigue) and ran up frantically to get
the truck to stop; it had barely missed a buried mine. The driver had no idea
the road was still 'hot.' We showed him the mine and he went gray.
At a
dip in the road a puddle of water had collected from the rain. Looking at the
puddle I felt a mine was there, underwater. I asked the mine detectors to check
it a second time, but they found nothing. I asked a prober to probe the puddle
carefully and he also found nothing. The two soldiers in the truck were anxious
to continue on and they were let go. As they drove over the puddle, it
exploded. Their 3/4 ton pick-up was tossed into the air to land upside-down on
the side of the road. One soldier crawled out, the other was dead. We called
for a dustoff, but I do not know his fate.
I had wanted to check the
puddle personally, but regulations required me to stay on point and watch out
for ambush. I felt that if I had checked it, I would have found that mine and
have felt guilt for the past 46 years. It haunts me to this day, I knew the
puddle was mined, but I relied on my fellow soldiers to tell me it was clear.
I didn't trust my instinct over their hard science. I think the guilt over
that is the root of my PTSD. I have hypervigilance, as well as a sense of
invulnerability (which proved false). I know I'm better off than lots of other
Veterans and I deal with it best I can.
I was with Charlie Company, 4th
Combat Engineer Battalion for all of 1968 as an 12B30, Combat Demolition
Specialist.
We were all over the Central Highlands, and even in Cambodia
and Laos on the Ho Chi Minh Trail around Thanksgiving. I spent time in Pleiku,
Duc Pho, LZ Baldy, Kontum, Dak To, Polei Kleng, and a bunch of numbered
fire-bases and LZs.
We laid airfields of PSP, blew fields of fire and did
a lot of minesweeps. I’m in tough with some of my battle buddies and looking for
the rest.
Edwin F. Golinski aka ‘Snake’
SP5 Demolition Specialist
Charlie Company
4th Combat Engineer Battalion
4th Infantry Division
Central Highlands, South Vietnam
JAN 1968 - JAN 1969
Cultural
Anthropologist
Disabled Combat Veteran
Be sure to check out his photo gallery here.
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