Report: Heidi Mines
Pictures: Graeme Main

IT would be fair to say that over the years my family name has been the cause of much amusement.
From “Danger Mines” to “Coal Mines” and “Mine’s a big one”, I have embraced my surname and tried to revel in the knowledge that I am fairly unique.

And so, as I accepted the jibes from the clever corporal who signed me in to Gibraltar Barracks to begin my Mine Awareness Instructor (MAI) course, I held my head high and moved along.
Armed with only my name and a basic knowledge of mines, mainly from films such as Behind Enemy Lines that depict beautiful people hopping daintily over buried explosives, I felt the challenge of passing the MAI course was in the bag.

How very wrong I was, I thought, as I crept silently to the back of the class where my fellow students from all three Services had already gathered.

I hoped the ground would swallow me whole when the class of 20 scary- looking, burly personnel turned around in bemusement as my name was read out from the nominal roll.

I was introduced to the group by the course leader as Heidi Mines from Soldier – a reporter attempting to pass the course for a Media Ops challenge.
Unfortunately, he added the caveat that anything anyone said to me could be written down and used “as evidence”. As a result I was initially avoided like the plague.

But even so, by the end of my first day a friendly Para had showed me how to mould PE4 explosive in order to blow up a feather- stuffed pair of trousers.
The demonstration was designed to show the impact of a mine and as the bottoms flew through the air I felt a sense of achievement and that perhaps things were not as bad as they had first seemed.

Anti-personnel mines, anti-vehicle mines, fragmentation mines, Soviet-legacy mines, Bosnian-mines – details of them all are now embedded in my memory. Basically, name the device and I can identify it.

But I found personal accounts of those injured in mine strikes hard to listen to and the tragic and terrifying situations that the soldiers had found themselves in a stark taste of reality.
I learned how great hindsight is and how easy it is to judge when you are not the one in a compromising situation.

As the Powerpoint demonstrations rolled on during the second day, the sheer value of the information that is taught on the course, which is offered to sergeants and above by the Mine Information and Training Centre wing, became apparent.

The instructors assessed my presentation skills on the third day when the group was asked to deliver individual talks on a section of the programme.

We were advised to draw on personal experiences of situations with mines – I chose to discuss my major faux pas at Kabul International Airport.

During my first visit to the Afghan capital I walked from the Hercules straight onto the airstrip where, feeling weary and queasy after my flight, I started to look for a comfy spot on the hard rocky terrain at the edge of the runway.

I thought I had identified a good area to sit down when the bark of a huge warrant officer tore through every fibre of my being. He screamed that I was about to make myself at home in an area scattered with mines and to quickly turn around before I met with a nasty accident.

Although feeling fairly stupid, unbelievably my tale was a talking point in recent months as an Italian soldier suffered a serious injury while running around the perimeter of Kabul’s military airbase.

My biggest discovery on the course was that the threat of mines are even inside some camps and forward operating bases as erosion can cause them to move.

The challenge to pass the course was a tough and very real one and presenting to hardened soldiers with decades of experience between them was terrifying.

For one who is known to talk the hind legs off a donkey, I was remarkably quiet during my sessions in small teams – I simply felt embarrassed by the wealth of military knowledge around the table.

But people were surprisingly responsive to my input when recalling national news stories covering high profile mine attacks on British soldiers and so I did have something to bring to the party, however small.

I also felt a tad disappointed that the type of mine avoidance portrayed by the likes of Rambo, who simply replaces his foot with a large stone and carries on walking after stepping on a device, doesn’t tend to happen in real life.

Yet, somehow, I passed the course. Despite my initial reservations I am now a qualified MAI which proved that after all these years, my family name is actually quite apt.

I accepted my certificate to a chorus of applause tainted by a few boos and I left the unit experiencing mixed feelings.

Although keen to brag of my first Media Ops victory and impart my newly-acquired knowledge to the rest of the Soldier editorial team, who regularly deploy to operational areas, my thoughts were firmly with the Servicemen and women who battle daily with the Taliban in one of the most mined countries in the world.