We were the HMDs: the human mine detectors. In a sense the job was easy, but impossible to do well. There was no good…
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.wrath-bearingtree.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/bvr.jpg?fit=164%2C164&ssl=1)
Brian Van Reet
Brian Van Reet is the author of Spoils, named one of the best books of 2017 by the Guardian, Military Times, the Wall Street Journal, and others. A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, he has twice won the Texas Institute of Letters short story award. He lives in Austin with his family.