EOD technicians busiest outside of Iraq

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt Scott Campbell
  • 386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) --  With more than 1,200 man-hours spent on reportable incidents and destroying 595 unexploded bomblets, mortars and various other threats, the wing here has the busiest explosive ordnance flight outside of Iraq, said explosive ordnance disposal flight chief Master Sgt. Chris Schott.

“The (first Gulf) war started 15 years ago and (unexploded ordnance) are still being found. The sands and time are exposing more every day,” said Staff Sgt. John Carroll, an 386th EOD technician

Sergeant Carroll said security forces recently found a bomblet that the Bedouins probably found and put on a rock so it would be seen. The team was dispatched to the scene to dispose of it and found others while there.

“(In this second type of ordnance found), there are 220 bomblets in a dispenser and we figure they have about a 10 percent dud rate. On top of that, who knows how many canisters they dropped? That’s a lot of bombs that didn’t go off,” Sergeant Carroll said, describing the hazards of working outside the base.

Sergeant Carroll said identification of the ordnance is also important. The EOD team has to positively identify them so they know what different safety precautions to take. It also lets them know how the ordnance functions so they have an idea why it didn’t go off. The submunitions found on this trip were U.S. munitions left over from Desert Storm.

Once identified, the technicians destroyed the bomblets with explosive and returned to base.

“A lot of folks never actually see what we do because it’s either on our range or outside the wire, which causes lots of misconceptions about our mission,” Sergeant Schott said.

In addition to disposing of munitions from yesteryear, EOD swept more than 542,000 square meters of land for future construction projects, trained U.S. military and local host nation security forces in ordnance procedures and responded to numerous aircraft-related ordnance hazards. In short, EOD members have to be ready for virtually anything involving an explosive hazard.