Almost all of the killed and maimed are civilians, often women and children, nearly always after the cessation of active hostilities. Mines have an average life span of fifty to one hundred years. Many are nearly undetectable because of their low metallic content. Antipersonnel mines are indiscriminate hidden killers and constitute one of the great public health hazards of the late twentieth century. For millions of people, antipersonnel mines are the biggest influence in their daily routine because every step they take could literally be their last.
Antipersonnel mines frustrate post-war reconstruction in a score of countries.
Ibid., p. 15. In some cases, mines took an even higher toll. Hambric and Schneck, p. 15. Historically, the U.S. has been one of the world's most influential exponents of landmine warfare doctrine, as well as one of the world's major landmine producers and exporters. Antipersonnel mines made in the U.S.A. are being dug out at great financial cost and personal risk in the fertile coffee plantations of Nicaragua, the sandy loams of Somalia, the bomb-pitted paddies of Vietnam, and along southern Africa's old confrontation lines.