Airmen clean up Iraqi weapon stockpile

  • Published
  • By Maj. Robert Couse-Baker
  • 380th Air Expeditionary Wing public affairs
KIRKUK AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  Airmen rattle windows for about 12 miles here as they detonate stockpiles of Iraqi weapons twice a week.

“Everybody on base and in town knows what that sound is. It’s the death of tyranny and the birth of freedom,” said Col. Jim Callahan, 506th Air Expeditionary Group commander.

Coalition explosive ordnance disposal team of Reserve airmen and Latvian troops have collected and destroyed more than 1 million pounds of explosives.

“If we don’t get rid of this stuff, there are people out there who would use it against other Iraqis and against us,” said Master Sgt. Todd Payne, explosive ordnance disposal flight chief. He is deployed from the 452nd Air Mobility Wing at March Air Reserve Base, Calif.

Payne and his team work with the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade and local citizens to collect and destroy ordnance in this part of northeastern Iraq.

“We’ve been trying to get the word out that we want people to tell us when they’ve found something, not to pick it up and bring it to us,” said Master Sgt. Jerry Dunn, deployed from the 349th AMW at Travis Air Force Base, Calif.

“That’s starting to work. It’s a little disconcerting when someone walks up to you holding a (rocket-propelled grenade),” he said.

For the most part, that has not been a problem. The Iraqi citizens have been very friendly and happy to see the ordnance removed, according to EOD technicians.

“I hope that impression will last,” said Staff Sgt. Justin Alonzo, deployed from the 452nd AMW.

The technicians said the material sometimes is challenging to retrieve, such as a cache of 122 mm surface-to-surface rockets found in a farmer’s culvert recently. The team had to wade into a mix of mud and crude oil to pull the rockets out of the ditch.

“When you’re here doing the job, you don’t think of it as tough or easy; you just do it. The days go by fast,” said Master Sgt. Dale Griffin, deployed from the 452nd AMW.

The technicians have worked with everything from improvised explosive devices -- in one case set to blow up an oil pipeline -- to short-range ballistic missiles. Not only are the jobs diverse, but there is an amazing variety to the ordnance they are finding.

Thousands of pounds of weapons are stored in a gloomy subterranean bunker the size of a high-school gymnasium, according to officials. In one corner, rests a pile of AK-47s and light machine guns. There is also a pallet of land mines, cases of mortar shells and tidy stacks of artillery rounds.

“This place was full up to the ceiling when we got here,” said Senior Airman Kristina Quintanilla, an EOD technician from the 349th AMW.

“I remember going through EOD school thinking ‘When am I going to see the foreign ordnance they’re teaching us about?’ Well, here it is,” she said.

From the storage areas, teams place the ordnance into boxes and onto pallets.

“(We) know (we are) really accomplishing something important,” Alonzo said. “(We are) helping the people here by cleaning up the country and getting them on the same page as the rest of the world. The more stuff we blow up, the safer everyone is.”