Landmines have become an emotional issue. But in trying to save innocent victims around the world, activists have forgotten the American infantryman.
Even today, a snow-covered field evokes a wondering about schu-meinen hiding underneath." So wrote, 53 years later, the officer who commanded a rifle company from November 1944 to May 1945 during the drive into Hitler's Germany. Retired Army General F. J. Kroesen still remembers the landmines. 1
In a New York Times column of 28 March 1996, retired Marine Lieutenant General B. E. Trainor, a rifle platoon leader in the 1st Marine Division during 1952, echoed the same thought about the Korean War. "To this day, I cannot walk across an open field without an eerie feeling that death lurks in the tranquillity." Landmines, he added, ". . . both threatened and saved my life." 2