Explosive disposal team aids warfighters one threat at a time

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Brian Jones
  • 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  Explosive ordnance disposal is a dangerous business under normal circumstances, but add the challenges of a deployed environment and a constant threat of attack and it truly becomes hazardous duty.

The Airmen with 332nd Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron’s explosive ordnance disposal flight here face these challenges every day ensuring the mission gets accomplished despite working with an array of unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices.

"Any time you're in a deployed environment the challenges are magnified," said Chief Master Sgt. David Williamson, deployed from Hill Air Force Base, Utah. "At home, we don't have rockets and mortars flying on base, so we never deal with those situations."

Balad's EOD technicians are called upon every time the base is attacked. They work through the alarm conditions searching for and destroying munitions that did not explode when they hit the base.

"A good night sleep around here is pretty rare," said Chief Williamson.

While unexploded ordnance on base keeps technicians busy, almost half of their jobs involve going "outside the wire," or off base, many times in response to IEDs.

"Outside the wire is a different environment. You're always on guard. You never know what you're going to encounter," said Chief Williamson. "It's not uncommon for us to take small-arms fire."

When working off base, EOD is never alone and is always accompanied by an Army security element typically made up of gun trucks or armored personnel carriers.

"It's part of the job. We know that most of our jobs will be outside the wire," said Staff Sgt. Mark Brady, an EOD craftsman deployed from Minot AFB, N.D. "As EOD technicians you have to be a warfighter, as well as a technician."

Besides working the perimeter of Balad, EOD technicians are often called upon to travel throughout the theater to support vehicle recovery and munitions disposal operations.

"We respond to vehicles that have been attacked on convoys to make sure they are clean before recovery teams can bring them back," Chief Williamson said.

The flight regularly sends technicians to forward-operating bases to help with disposal operations. It was during one such mission that Sergeant Brady encountered a roadside IED.

"We got a call from the Army saying that they had found an IED," Sergeant Brady said. "It was unusual in that it had a wire attached heading back into the desert."

The team used one of their robots to remotely disarm the IED and blew it up in place.

"All that was needed was somebody on the other end of that wire and they could have taken out a vehicle," said Sergeant Brady.

The remote-controlled robots play a significant role in the EOD team accomplishing its mission. The flight has more robots than people. The flight currently has 12 Airmen permanently assigned. In addition, they bring in technicians from other bases in theater for two-week rotations to help with the workload.

Keeping the robots ready for action is critical.

"The environment is really hard on the equipment, really hard on the robots. We live and die by the robots," said Chief Williamson. "We spend a lot of time making sure the equipment is ready to go. When the time comes and we respond to a call, that's not the time to make sure everything is together."

With the high operations tempo, the EOD Airmen rely on the training they have received before arriving in Iraq.

"It's a big change from home. There we spend most of our time training to get the chance to go out in the field and do our jobs in the real world," Sergeant Brady said. "All the training has definitely paid off."

"They're trained for our mission and have the right mind set," said Chief Williamson. “Morale is extremely high. We take care of business and get the job done. These guys get a lot of satisfaction out of accomplishing the mission."

This deployment is providing an abundance of real-world experience the EOD technicians here will be able to draw upon for the rest of their careers -- experience they can not get at home stations.

"At home we train with rubber and plastic rockets. We come here and have real ones landing on base," said a master sergeant who did not want to be named. "I'll respond to more (unexploded ordnance) in three months here than I have in my entire 21-year career."