Punji Stick

"''Every time when I see punji sticks, they give me nightmares all the time. They're so dangerous that they're camouflaged by natural undergrowth, crops, grass, brush or similar materials. You might fall so that they'll dig your leg out, immobilizing you longer than if your foot is simply pierced, in which case you could be evacuated by stretcher or firefighter's carry if necessary. There's something that adds more on an increasing nightmarish scale: coating the sticks in poison from plants, animal venom, or even human feces, thus causing infection or poisoning into you after being pierced by the sticks, even if the injury itself was not life-threatening at all. They're intended to prepare for an ambush while the soldiers lie in wait for the enemies to pass by via deployment in such certain areas where the surprised enemies expect to take cover, thus soldiers diving for cover would impale themselves, like you. You shouldn't get penetrated usually in your foot or your lower leg area. But don't worry, they're not necessarily meant to kill you if you get stepped on it, but rather, they were sometimes designed specifically to only wound enemies and slow or halt their units while the you're getting evacuated to a medical facility as well. When I see them, I'll be dreaming of being penetrated by that into death. Now I don't want to meet the same fate as what my dream said. That'll be... well, tough luck.''"

--Su Ji-Hoon, A Tougher Luck

The punji stick or punji stake is a type of booby trapped stake. It is a simple spike, made out of wood or bamboo, which is sharpened and heated. Punji sticks are usually deployed in substantial numbers. Punji sticks are banned from use as weaponry under the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

In When the Cold Breeze Blows Away, punji sticks will be used by Tay Son Nation and Viet Cong after Unified Soviet Red Assault Command and Beleninsk Pact saved punji stick from Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons that they recognized this traps as most deadly traps make US soldiers fear in Vietnam War.