Astounding

I read an article in Time last year about an American Vietnam veteran that is working to located and disarm munitions and other weapons from the conflict. He travels through Vietnam (along with other members of his non-profit) and teaches people how to identify munitions and cordon off areas/warn others of the danger. He also trains ordnance disposal teams to disarm, relocated, and exploded safely. He said doing this helps him in dealing with his memories of the war.

I wish the bomb-disposal gentlemen good luck in finding that unexploded mine at Messines. Do the Belgians have a unit like the French?

I understand it's also an issue in the Balkans and anyplace the Israelis and Arabs fought.

I'll post the exact chapter titles in the (eventual) review - but here are the countries that each have a chapter:
France
Russia (dealing with stuff from the 1940s)
Nevada (atomic testing)
Vietnam (from wars in the 1960s and 70s)
Kuwait (1990s)

The thing I found so amazing - ok, besides the part about how many tons of this stuff the French keep finding and removing every year - is how secretive they are to keep everyone from becoming panicky over it. The storage places don't have signs (besides ones indicating danger) and the monthly gathering and exploding of all the stuff is done - well not exactly quietly, but secretly. I can't wait to see how the other countries trying to manage this compare to France. It actually might not be as messy - the bombs from WWI have such a horrible combination of decay mixed with deadly gasses, intentional shrapnel production, and designs that were new at the time - I wonder how much worse better technology can make it.

I expect the answer is going to be pretty awful.

Oh and one of the storage sites for the stuff is a few miles from Versailles, underneath a fort built in the 1880s. Which at first you think sounds risky - then you realize that everywhere under the soil this sort of thing is lying around anyway so...