Israel Tze’elim, Israel
There is no good situation to hear of Israel Defense Forces soldier dying of a mine that exploded.
But I guess one of the worst is when you carrying 2.5 kg of explosives on my back… Probably something that you don’t tell your girlfriend….
That’s what happen when you are an a soldier in the engineering corps =) Even as reserve soldier you are handling with those materials on daily basis.
The soldier that was killed is Private Roey Yisrael Alfi (19 years old). His unit was clearing an old anti-tank minefield in Golan Heights, as part of of an advanced training course. I had the one of those practices, it was scary – landmines buried in the ground for decades.
Anti-tank land mine is designed to explode only when an heavy vehicle (a tank or an APC) is driving over it. As much as I understood the mines were so old, and buried in the hard soil of Golan Heights.
I said it was scary, but fear is something that slowly fades away. Fear is what makes you sharp when handling with those land mines. After a long day of handling it… you start losing it and handling with less and less safety. And if you don’t keep the minimal safety measures – you end up blowing it.
Take Care
Gad
2.5 kg of explosives, I’ve been carrying for a whole week, and in the end we didn’t even blast it!…
An old hand grenade (“Chocolate”) we found in the field
M4 in a Shooting range
Nice explosion! (0.25 kg of explosive) (You can hear the approval and the counting down)
A smaller explosion (of a detonator), but still cool one =)
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Explosion of soil for excavation – not far from how a landmine explosion looks like