1. Presumably they know what they are doing. It appears that they have a lot of practice, and the simpler old fashioned style mines were often quite easy to disarm, as long as you could find it. They didn’t start installing anti-tamper devices until later; those are the kind that you have to be nervous about. Which reminds me of the amazing (or appalling) stories of the EOD (or Bomb Disposal Units) techs in Britain (and elsewhere, no doubt) who had to teach themselves to disarm German bombs that started to come with increasingly complex and deadly anti-tamper devices.By 1941 and 42 they had become so advanced that any movement of the bomb, any opening of the case or manipulation of the fuse would in theory cause it to detonate, along with timed devices to throw off small incendiaries and bomblets to discourage EODs and firefighters. And of course almost all of the unexploded bombs you found were actually fitted with time fuses so that they could theoretically detonate at any given moment, anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours or more later.
   So it was ALWAYS amazingly courageous to tackle this job, and incredibly dangerous to try to defuse a bomb even when you had the procedure perfectly ingrained in your memory. But what really gets me is that someone had to figure this procedure out. Someone…probably several people, minus the first unlucky few….had to discover that they were now using a new anti-tamper system WITHOUT exploding the bomb. He then had to figure out how to take it apart without it exploding on him. If he failed, then the next guy presumably picked up where he left off. Not sure if they called out to someone at a safe range what they were doing, so they could know what NOT to do next time in the event it didn’t work out, or what. All this while knowing that the timer might be counting down the final seconds to Boom as you work on it. I still don’t know HOW they actually managed to disassemble these “un-disassemblable), which when you read the description seem to defy any attempt to counter them….we’re talking hair trigger mercury switches that detonate at the slightest movement once armed, failsafe fuses that detonate if any attempt is made to open, adjust, block or otherwise alter them. But they did it.
   But someone had to be the very first, and that always just amazed me, the nerve that must have taken. At least you know it would be a quick end, which is nice.
   So compared to that, the disarming of yet another of countless thousands of primitive land mines is probably a total piece of cake, like rigging jumper cables for these guys. All the same, I would say it was more prudent to have only one man doing the work, while the rest stand back a safe distance, just in case. No need to risk everyone when only one person is needed. But I suppose they take it for granted that it’s safe enough. They’ve no doubt seen this done many, many times before. Cambodia is still infested with mines, live bombs and bomblets, both from US planes and from their various internal conflicts. As usual, people don’t realize how good they have it in the US.

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   1. SOP for British EOD is to have a second tech at a safe distance plus a telephone link so they would know everything up until the last. As a result they developed the magnetic clock stopper and steam sterilizer among other tools. The old Danger UXB TV series actually has good technical coverage based on the book Bomb Disposal by A B Hartley who was both a WWII EOD officer and the technical advisor to Danger UXB. Ivan Southall’s 17 Seconds or Softly Tread the,Brave (not 100% on titles) covers the RN work on mines dropped by the Luftwaffe

2. Does make one feel a little bit ashamed, really. These people have to organize annual mine-disarming bees (or maybe just whenever a new patch is discovered), they have to watch their step and religiously stay on the paths in the forests, the kids need to learn to watch for and report any mines they find. We put all those mines there. Obviously it’s not practical to expect us to go back and clean them all up again, but it would be kind of embarrassing to go there and face the people who have to live with them in person. I think banning landmines is impractical, but I am all in favor of the modern types that self-disarm after a period of time. No one should have to live with these things for decades later, it’s irresponsible warfare. Not that the US was in any way unique for using them, just that in this particular case it is almost certainly a US mine. And were were never even officially fighting in Cambodia, to make it worse.

   1. The mine in the video is a russian PMN-2.

3. Send them flail tanks.

   And keep a few around in the US for riot control.

4. Wonder what that guy pays for life/disability insurance…

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