Monday, April 3, 1972
Booby Traps - The Silent, Deadly Enemy
CAMP CHARGER, Vietnam --High on this hillside base camp of the 196th Inf. Brigade, with a panoramic view of the countryside around Da Nang and its blue harbor, there are few reminders of the war being waged nearby.But sitting here away from the action and waiting to go home, Spec. 4 Sherman Moore, 20, of Memphis, Tenn. is a man marked forever by the brutality of war.The Vietnam war is indelibly stamped on his body by ugly scars on his arms and legs. The scars and the shrapnel still in his body are souvenirs of a Communist booby trap he accidently (sic) set off recently while on patrol."It was a time delay mine," he said. "When I got hit my back was to it."Moore and his squad had been dropped into the area by helicopter to study the effect of an earlier B52 strike. Moore recalled the area was "real hilly; lots of trees, lots of rocks."Carrying an M79 grenade launcher, Moore found a wisp of a trail and began to follow it.He had only traveled about 30 feet "when it hit me and knocked me down. I felt like I had been hit by a truck."U. S. Infantrymen are running into fewer booby traps than in past years as their numbers dwindle and areas of operation shrink.But American militarymen also say that part of the reason for the decrease in booby trap finds is that the Americans are operating close to Communist base camps.As one officer put it, "you don't mine your own yard.""We have found when we operate close to the enemy on trails he uses, we never find a booby trap," said the brigade's intelligence officer, Maj. Gene Rutland.As a result of the fewer booby trap incidents, the soldier tends to ignore the possibility of running into booby traps."Tripping a booby trap was the last thing on my mind," Moore said.During the six month period from April to October of last year while the 196th Inf. Brigade was still operating in the lowlands southwest of Da Nang and away from Communist base camps to the west, 40 per cent of our casualties were to booby traps," Rutland said.Since then the 196th area of operations has shrunk and the responsibility of patrolling the flatlands has been turned over to ARVN forces."You can't say the booby traps are disappearing from the war," Rutland said. "The Vietnamese are running into them frequently like the U.S. soldiers used to."Rutland said the Communists are using booby traps for three purposes.-"To deny us access to an area, such as a supply area which they'll ring with booby traps."-"As a delaying device. It slows us down because we have to start searching more."-"As an early warning device to let them know we're around."Although booby traps take many different forms, from pungie stakes in the ground to 500-pound bombs rigged with a trip wire, the most common type is a C-ration can filled with an explosive and "broken glass, chain or anything that will create shrapnel," Rutland said."You don't fear death as a young soldier so much as you fear mutilation," said Maj. William Scudder, assistant brigade operations officer.Most of the booby traps are fashioned from items discarded by Americans in the field and from the explosives of dud bombs dropped from U.S. warplanes. Items such as razor blades, beer cans and glass can be used as shrapnel."The booby traps are being made mainly from stuff they (Americans) are leaving out here," said Sgt. Tim Wagner, 21, of York, Penn., a mine and booby trap instructor with the brigade."Our troops are constantly reporting finding defused 500-pound bombs," Rutland said.From these ingredients the communists "have actual factories for making bombs back in the mountains and jungles," he said."Booby Traps - The Silent, Deadly Enemy", by Spec. 4 Ken Schultz, published in the Pacific Stars and Stripes on Monday, April 3, 1972 and reprinted from European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, a Department of Defense publication copyright, 2002 European and Pacific Stars and Stripes.