Min(e)d Fields

Anti-personnel (AP) blast mines are often intended to wound but not kill. The reasoning is that if a mine kills a soldier, that's one less soldier. If, on the other hand, they wound a soldier, that's one soldier incapacitated with potentially several others working on first aid and evac. Several birds with one stone, I guess. When detonated, blast mines deliver a high velocity compression wave of hot gas, sending casing material, dirt, and body parts skyward. They are loud, surprising, disturbing, and after the dust settles, really painful.

To arm an AP blast mine, one attaches a compressible, concave cap that holds the striker pin, removes the safety pin, and buries the device. Often, many mines are placed throughout a field in order to make the entire region unsafe to cross. Those who place the mines generate maps that indicate which fields that are mined, and sometimes, lines of safe passage through those fields. (After all, AP is supposed to mean anti- "they're" personnel, not anti- "our" personnel.) With the passage of time, maps become lost, mines that were once slightly visible become covered over, and the fields become unsafe for anybody--"we" or "they".

Of course, I've never handled a piece of military ordinance in my life, but I've laid a lot of mines. The mines are buried in memories in the fields of my own mind. They are armed and ready to go off at any time. Like many blast mines, the explosions are non-lethal, but loud, surprising, disturbing, painful. They explode with a hot compression wave of embarrassment, regret, and shame. Mined memories can lay anywhere and be from at any time--some old, some new. I do not have a map.

Here's an example. I set off a mine when I was driving to Dallas for Christmas. I remembered the time when I had driven my friend's Mercedes to Dallas en route to California. There was a problem with one of the rear wheels. I even had to stop and duct tape the wheel well back to keep it from scraping. In Dallas showed the wheel to my brother-in-law, and at once he recognized that the tire was too large. It was, but I remembered that I did not want to believe him. KABOOM! Foolish, regrettable. Later, he followed me to the Mercedes shop. I wanted to hear their assessment (and find out if the automatic heigh adjustment system (some benzos are way too fancy!) had been damaged). The tire was too big, and it needed to be replaced. Otherwise, the car was fine. Just like he'd said.

This story holds more emotional charges than that mine. The whole trip to CA was a pain in the ass. Beginning as a late start from Austin due to problems with new tires being put on--the wrong tire, even after going round and round with the tire store. Who the fuck puts 24" rims on a Mercedes?!? What a nimrod! Pulled over at night, by myself, in the cold, in the rain, to buy duct tape and hack the damn car just so I could make it to Dallas. Seriously. There are plenty more, "what the hell have I gotten myself into" stories from that trip, but they're beside the point. None of those memories are mined. I hold no resentments against my friend at all, questionable choices in rims notwithstanding. I didn't trust my brother-in-law's assessment--I didn't want to believe him. That's the mine I'd laid. I didn't even know I was doing it at the time.

My min(e)d fields are extensive; those damn things are everywhere. Some are very old. All I have to do is come across the wrong memory at the wrong time, and KABOOM! Blast wave. Shame. Ouch! Strangely, nearly all the mines I've found thus far have been planted in memories associated with events best classified as "no big deal." Apparently, however, they're a big deal to me, and apparently I need to be reminded of that through the repeated use of emotional ordinance.

Suddenly, I'm reminded of a song:
As I returned across the fields I'd known
I recognised the walls that I once made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid
--Sting

I think I know what he was talking about. Such are the min(e)d fields in which I walk. I do not know where are the mines I've laid. I do not have a map.