House Mine

Kandahar, March 2004 

We were out on our day off looking for trouble…no, actually we had nothing to do so we decided to go out into Kandahar and do some “sightseeing”. Around 1100 we were still driving when our phone rang. Some sergeant was calling that someone had found a mine while digging the foundation for a new house. Great we thought, finally some action. Since we were only about 10 minutes away we decided to take the call and flipped the truck around.

When we arrived the sergeant gave us a guide and a ‘Terp (interpreter). The first thing the ‘Terp did was to ask us where were our bodyguards, and after laughing we told him we didn’t have any, we were it. He didn’t seem too happy with that idea. Next thing he did was to ask us if we were really going to get close, I told him that not only was I getting close to the mine, I was going to pick it up and put in the truck between my feet. He really wasn’t happy now at all. As we started following the directions from our guide we noticed he was taking us directly behind the old Al Qaeda house, which didn’t amuse me all. Mike and I started talking possibility of booby-traps, since they have been found in plenty of occasions in the area.

The house we went to was approximately 500 meters north east of Osama’s shack. Great, I thought. We got out of the truck and told our ‘Terp to stay put and watch our truck, which he didn’t have a problem doing. We opened the gates and found 6 locals around poking at the mine…immediately I shouted at them to stop what they were doing and get

the hell out of there. I am positive they did not understand a word of English but they got the point and left lickety-split.

We watched them leave and got down to business. While Mike covered me for the possibility of ambush, I started removing the earth from the top and immediately found a fuzed and armed TM-62 anti-tank Russian mine. Now the question was if it had been booby-trap. I started digging under it very carefully. Dig, look, dig, look, very tedious but necessary. With my AK-47 laying next to me, I kept an eye on Mike and he on me, he was standing around the front wall, looking at our approaches. As I cleared the mine section directly in front of me I found out that there was nothing under it. I then pushed all the dirt in, and moved to the other side, starting the same process. This side was a bit more difficult since it was lower. I started working my knife under the mine, feeling for tripwires, for anything hard.

At the third probe with the knife I hit something that sounded like metal, definitely hard and didn’t feel like a rock. My heart skipped a bit and I called Mike for a second opinion. The puddles of sweat were creating mud around me. Mike came over and after checking under the mine, agreed with me to keep digging all the way around and then get down and flat and try to see what it was.

I kept on digging and digging my hole to “China”. When I was confident that I could see underneath I stopped and took a look and sure enough, there was a rusted piece of metal under it. Shit I thought…more digging. Again, knife to earth for two more hours, the dirt was very hard and the day was getting hotter. I was sweating buckets and Mike kept yelling at me “hurry up you old fucker” my reply was always the same “bite me!” I knew he was just joking, but I was hot and dirty and tired. I dug a nice sized hole and was finally able to identify the object, it was an old nail…all that for nothing, but then again, one can never be careless. Saved the world again!!!!

I immediately removed the mine by hand and very carefully placed in the front of my truck right between my legs. We almost had to force the ‘Terp to get in. After a lot of talking, he finally agreed that it was safe. I picked up my AK and drove out to the PRT compound, where we dropped him off. Then it was to our house where we stashed the mine under my bed for future disposal. I sure slept like a baby.