I love the desert. You never know what you'll find.
When I was a kid, we hunted rabbits in an area that still had signs up from the temporary cordon around the VX nerve agent incident area near Dugway Proving Ground.
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#1 lesson I learned in the military, about dangerous stuff: EOD personnel think they are gods, and, as such, are very complacent ... until they lose their first few fingers.
#2 lesson I learned in the military, about dangerous stuff: If there is an unavoidable danger, EOD won't tell you about it until you're out of harm's way, or waiting on life flight.
I used to do a lot of helicopter recovery missions on the Eglin AFB bombing range, and in live-fire LZs. Many stories. Much stupidity.
One of the more notable incidents was a helicopter that had uncommanded flight controls, so the pilots slammed it to the ground as quickly, but safely as they could. Once we corrected the issue (a faulty circuit breaker constantly cycling a hydraulic valve on and off), the aircraft took off.
...But not before a couple cluster bomblets detonated as the helicopter drug its landing gear out of concertina wire that it had landed on.
EOD: "Oh. Yea... We knew those were there. But there was nothing we could do about it without blowing holes in the helicopter. Next time, tell the flight crew to find a better spot to land..."
Two weeks later, that EOD guy was severely injured by a detonation set off by the truck he was driving across the same LZ to transport some UXOs to a pit for controlled detonation.
This is a place NOT to go off-roading. (There are no gates to keep people out - just 'restricted area' signs on the main roads. That live-fire LZ was the worst that I had the displeasure of working in.)
