TAM KEY.— Specialist 4 Ronald Quinn machine gunner, Company C, 1st
Battalion, 35th infantry, fully understood the meaning of preventive
maintenance the other day, when an example of Charlie’s lack of PM
possibly saved his foot.
As SP4 Quinn walked through a peanut patch, he was suddenly snatched
by what men of the Cacti Green call a G.I. trap. The traps are known
stateside as bear traps and are being utilized by the North Vietnamese
Army north of Chu Lai to supplement their other booby traps.
SP4 Quinn hadn’t seen the trap, which was lying in the field and
overgrown with plants. He said he realized at the last moment before it
sprang shut that he had stepped on something unnatural but was still
caught as he tried to pull his foot back.
The trap, luckily, was kept from closing completely by the sole of
his boot and he was not seriously hurt. The very thing which had made the
traps so effectively camouflaged, according to SP4 Quinn, also had left
the trap in poor working condition.