TAC,
We found an English campsite at a small oasis once, and discovered among other things a few cans of unopened Bully Beef. The cans still appeared to be in good condition. I didn't have the nerve to do it, but one of the guys opened a can, said it looked and smelled good, and ate it. He said it was ok after all that time.
You wouldn't believe what some of those idoits did! We had a Halliburton cementer come roaring into camp one day and jumped out of his pickup shouting for us to come see what he had found. He had a live 88 shell that had been bouncing around in the back of his truck for several miles. Needless to say he was ordered to immediately go very far away and dump it.
We heard storys every month of Camels, Bedoins, and trucks getting blown up by mines. Many of the mine fields had been cleared, but many more had not. Some were laid on top of each other by English, Germans, & Italians as they retreated and advanced over the same area, and no one had attempted to clear them.
We had maps of the KNOWN mined areas and once had a camp right next one that had been marked with flags so no one would venture into it. Unfortunately the supply plane landing strip was on the other side of it from camp, and the road to the landing strip looped around the mine field.
One day when the mail plane landed my Geologist was in a hurry to pick up letters from his girl friend. I got in the Landrover with him to go to the plane and he took off straight toward the plane (and across the mine field) with me screaming at him to stop. When I finally got him stopped we were in the middle of it! I got out of the Rover, wished him good luck and walked back out in one of the truck tracks. The lucky bastard drove on out without getting blown up.