It was May 1970, deep in the jungles of Vietnam, and 19-year-old infantryman John Smith stepped to the edge of a hill to admire the view. Then came the snap of a wire.
“They must’ve thought, ‘This is a beautiful view. Someone’s going to come over here to look at it,’” said Smith, 76, of Newark. “And they were right. I tripped the wire.”
The explosion ripped into him, leaving Smith with two broken legs and nearly severing a finger, weeks before he was scheduled to leave the combat zone…