Military Officer - July 2006 - (Page 58) The requirements for entry into EOD training are strict. To test physical fitness, applicants must perform a variety of tasks while wearing a 70pound Kevlar bomb suit. ammo supply points in an effort to deny the enemy the munitions they need to make IEDs. Gray recalls one cleanup effort near Forward Operating Base Kalsu, Iraq, that recovered more than 30,000 pieces of ordnance, which the Army had learned were being smuggled out of the area and into the hands of insurgents. The second way bomb techs support the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan is by taking care of IEDs — either by neutralizing them before they can cause harm or by performing a postblast analysis. In many cases, the resulting information can be extremely beneficial to military intelligence. “When our soldiers neutralize a device, the components are brought Robots equipped with cameras assist soldiers in IED inspections and with other suspicious ordnance (left). The robots are controlled by remote, and the cameras mounted on top give soldiers a bird’s-eye view, without having to get dangerously close (as shown below). back to the Combined Exploitation Cell in Baghdad, which ships them back to the United States for forensic analysis,” explains Col. Paul R. Plemmons, deputy commander, U.S. Army 20th Support Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. “We’re able to get such things as DNA and biometrics off bomb components, and often technicians are able to look at a particular piece and detect a pattern. That information is then sent back to the war fighters in theater.” Peacetime missions also are an integral part of the job. These missions include clearing military ranges of unexploded ordnance and disposing of ordnance in the possession of civilians. “The standard scenario is ‘grandfather was in World War II and has some kind of ordnance in a chest in the attic,’ so we’ll go out and dispose of it,” says Gray. Most of the ordnance in civilian hands are souvenirs from World War II and Korea, Gray says, but EOD technicians have disposed of explosive devices dating to as far back as the Civil War and as recent as Operation Iraqi Freedom. Assisting local law enforcement is another aspect of EOD’s peacetime mission, notes Clifford. If a community does not have its own bomb squad, the police or sheriff’s office often will call in the closest EOD unit to handle explosive devices, such as pipe bombs. “But whether they have their own bomb squad or not, local law enforcement will always call us if they run into military ordnance,” Clifford says. And though most people don’t know it, EOD technicians also sup- 60 MILITARY OFFICER J U LY 2 0 0 6 PHOTOS: ABOVE, CPL. LANA D. WATERS, USMC; TOP, STAFF SGT. MATT MCGOVERN, USAF
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