By Pfc. Abel Trevino, 28th Public Affairs Detachment
LOGISTICS SUPPORT AREA ANACONDA, Balad, Iraq -- One unit at LSA Anaconda has the daunting task of getting up close and personal with the devices designed to kill Soldiers.
The 716th Ordnance Company is a 19-man unit with elements spread throughout Iraq minimizing the dangers to troops.
"Our primary mission is to ensure the battlefield is safe for the warfighters," said Master Sgt. John Bobich, explosive ordnance technician. "We go out and clear improvised explosive devices, unexploded ordnance and anything to do with explosives or explosive hazard."
Despite the tools of the trade " the bomb suit and a robot designed to detonate bombs " the mission is still dangerous.
"The bomb suit is not a cure all for everything," Bobich said. "If you're on top of something and it goes, you're going to die. That's it; you're not going to survive it."
Because of the nature of their mission and the danger, EOD units have shorter rotations.
"We only do six month rotations because our operations tempo is so high over here," Bobich said. "The last unit did over 1,200 incidents in 6 months; we are coming up on 800 incidents in 4 months."
An incident is anything the unit has to respond to, including IEDs and unexploded ordnance.
Regardless of the time of day, when the call comes in for EOD support, the team is ready to go within half an hour, taking technology with them to minimize the danger.
"Over here, it's a different mission than back in the states," Bobich said. "We want to save evidence [from attacks], but we don't want to risk it by getting close to anything. All of our stuff is remote using robots, or if it's some place we can't get to using robots, we're going to have to put a guy in a bomb suit."
The importance of the teams" missions can only be measured in lives, and as a result, the demand for EOD technicians here has increased for both military and civilian operations.
"EOD is short on personnel because there's a lot of money to be made over here, and we're losing a lot of guys to contractors," Bobich said. "We only have about 800 [people] in the whole Army field, in all ranks from officers to privates."
Training for all troops, from enlisted to officers, in all military branches is the same.
"We're a joint service organization really. It's a Navy school we attend, and all services have input in what the school teaches," Bobich said. "[In Iraq], we have Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine EOD teams, and we're all doing the same thing.
It makes no difference whether an Army security element is out with an Air Force team. It doesn't matter, because we do the same thing and know the same stuff."
EOD personnel learn not only how to handle themselves in the field, but also in their separate stateside missions, which typically include responding to emergency situations in the states as well as teaching civilian law enforcement classes on bomb threats and responses.
"We also do a lot of Southeast Asia and humanitarian missions," Bobich said. "We do a wider variety of things back home than we do here, although we're doing a whole lot more of [explosive response missions] here."
Highly trained and specialized, the biggest challenge for the unit was training up for a combat environment.
"The EOD field had to change the way that we approach IEDs for Iraq, because it's no longer take your time, go down and you've got time to mess with it. Here, we get there, we get our robots down and take care of it, because otherwise, we're going to start getting shot at, and we're going to take indirect fire," Bobich said.
Despite the harsh conditions and direct association with danger, Bobich has nothing but faith in the Soldiers of his unit.
"Coming over here, I wasn't worried about the EOD stuff and our guys doing well," he said. "If something blows up, it blows up and there's nothing we can do about it.
If something goes wrong, then it's on us. The team leader, if he does something wrong it's his fault, and he's going to pay. That's how seriously we have to take it when we go downrange."
Despite the dangers they face daily, the teams know that their reason for being here is for the best.
"If we weren't here, I don't know how [the ordnance problems] could be dealt with. I'm sure a lot more Soldiers would lose their lives because of IEDs," Bobich said. "That's our job, saving Soldiers" lives."
The 316th Ordnance Company is always recruiting Soldiers interested in reclassing into their field and frequently hosts open house classes and informative briefings on the process, benefits and requirements for reclassing.
Editor's Note: Pfc. Trevino is a member of the 28th Public Affairs Detachment from Fort Lewis, Wash. and is deployed to Iraq in support of units at LSA Anaconda.
| Date Taken: | 02.28.2005 |
| Date Posted: | 02.28.2005 17:05 |
| Story ID: | 1223 |
| Location: | BALAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 91 |
| Downloads: | 16 |
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