SrA Stephen Underwood, reporting: Members of Westover’s Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit recently participated in a similar attack over the UTA weekend. The yearly training includes an aerial attack with unexploded ordinances and practice clearing a runway.
SSgt Christopher Peterson, EOD technician: Our part of it as EOD is we are part of the ADAT team us and usually EA and us go out to the airfield and we plot damage and we send all of that back up to the EOC and the EOC decides where the minimum operating strip would be and once EOC passes that down they tell us where to clear and our goal in the Air Force is to get planes in the air and keep them flying.
Underwood: Members of EOD work through the possibility of bombs, boobytraps, unexploded bombs and IED’s to accomplish the mission. The sense of comradery is what makes the unit strong and teamwork is rewarded as a vital part of the process.
TSgt William Lee, EOD NCOIC: All the way to the day you retire, you’ll still be on a team working problems. Whether you’re in Afghanistan or on stateside missions or VIP missions you’re always out there as a team. So that’s the one thing you have to accept coming into the career field is that it’s not a one man show.
SSgt Christopher Peterson, EOD technician: We train together all the time and times like this you definitely get to know the guy standing beside you and that’s key when you are trusting your life in their hands on things like this. When we’re dealing with explosives and with a war time environment being able to trust the guy standing beside you is really important. And just knowing where he is at physically and mentally and what he can handle and I can handle so then we can pool our resources and get the mission done.
| Date Taken: | 07.23.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 12.05.2021 13:04 |
| Story ID: | 410467 |
| Location: | CHICOPEE, MASSACHUSETTS, US |
| Web Views: | 68 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Clearing the Runway: An EOD Exercise - Script, by SrA Stephen Underwood, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
