Viet Cong Mines and Booby Traps: Marine Corps Training Film

This 1967 unclassified training film designated for “official use only“ instructs Marines on how to best identify and avoid Viet Cong mines and booby traps. Footage includes demonstrations of antipersonnel and anti-vehicle mine detonations, as well as close up depiction of sharpened bamboo man traps, bullet traps, repurposed US explosive device mines, fish line trip-wired grenade mines, noisemakers, buried mortar shells and other electronically or pressure detonated mines and booby traps. Narration urges Marines to stay alert and aware of these dangers by looking for signs of disturbance in the earth, or for signs left for neutral Vietnamese civilians. Narration also urges Marines to leave demolition of mines to trained engineers and demolition. The training film also details where mines and booby traps are most likely to be found: communication routes, foot paths, helicopter landing sites, rice paddy dikes, high grass, arid un-farmable land or foot bridges.