Frank Philip appreciates he is lucky to be alive.
The 60-year-old was on the original flight manifest for the Chinook helicopter which crashed in the Mull of Kintyre, with the death of 29 people, in 1994.
Mr Philip has subsequently spent decades dealing with the threat of deadly explosive devices.
The Montrose man heads up the Scottish de-mining charity The Halo Trust’s operations in Iraq, where he has been programme manager since 2017 after serving with the army and as a private security contractor.
Mr Philip is philosophical about the risks involved in such a war-torn country.
The former Gordon Highlander said: “I can’t say I’ve met many landmine victims because the majority of victims are dead.
“The standards of improvised explosive device (IED) we are pulling out the ground are like a 20 litre jerry can with a fuse, a power source, and a switch, which is a pressure plate normally.
“It’s not like anti-personnel mines that are designed to wound or maim. These IEDs will remove all traces of you if they function. There was a chap I met in southern Fallujah and I asked him if there had been any recent accidents.
“The first thing he did was touch his young son’s head and said ‘his two cousins were killed in that field’. They’d been operating a front-loader shovel and triggered an IED.
“Accidents are happening because people are leaving the refugee camps. They know there are explosives everywhere, but they are desperate to start rebuilding their lives.”
All donations to Halo to December 22 are being doubled by the UK Government’s Department for International Development through its Aid Match scheme.
Halo’s “breaking boundaries” campaign also aims to raise money to save more than 3,000 people in Zimbabwe from landmines.
Father-of-three Mr Philip said his wife Noreen, 62, and his family had grown used to him working in dangerous environments.
He added: “I wouldn’t say my wife is overly worried. She was very much part of the regimental family all the way through my army career.
“I was actually on the flight manifest for the Chinook disaster. I was lucky and my wife got very involved in the support effort with the widows.
“I’d always intended to be out of the army before I was 50 to find a less hazardous job. Yet, the first day I left the army, I flew out to Baghdad.”
International Development Secretary Alok Sharma said the UK Government was proud to support Halo.
He added: “Landmines are indiscriminate weapons of war that maim and kill innocent men, women and children and their devastation lasts long after conflict has ended.
“Halo Trust is a world leader in de-mining, and I am proud that, through UK Aid Match, we will double generous donations from the British public to help rid Zimbabwe of these deadly explosives.”
For more information, go to www.halotrust.org/breaking-boundaries