Photo By Senior Airman Jessica Sanchez-Chen | A Lithuanian Land Forces explosive ordnance disposal member disassembles an Improvised...... read more read more
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SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany – The 52nd Civil Engineer Squadron explosive ordnance disposal flight hosted EOD teams from seven countries for their yearly Improvised Explosive Device (IED) Rodeo here July 24 - Aug. 2.
The multilateral, competition-style training exercise challenged the teams on locating and disarming explosive devices, collaborating with partner nation teams to improve interoperability for possible conflicts and enhancing critical knowledge and skills through educational lessons.
“I think all these nations coming together at a training center is important for the interoperability of the future,” said Tech. Sgt. Ron Dawkins, 52 CES EOD operations and administration noncommissioned officer in charge. “If there were to be a future conflict in this theater, we have a leg up because we already know how to work with our Department of Defense brothers and sisters from these partner nations.”
The 52 CES EOD team invited NATO partners to experience different IED related scenarios. These different countries and branches competed to collect points as they went through the scenarios.
These partners included EOD teams from the Bundeswher, U.S Marine Corps, Estonian Defence Forces, Lithuanian Land Forces, Polish Air Force, the Latvian National Armed Forces, Belgian Defense Forces, and Army of the Czech Republic.
The EOD flight worked together as a whole to ensure the training ran as smoothly as possible.
Host EOD technicians served as observers for the different scenarios. The Airmen who built the IED were present during the scenario alongside another team leader and there were technicians at the EOD facility monitoring operations at each site.
There were also technicians moving munitions to the different sites, ensuring safety at the different locations and examining what kind of techniques were being used.
The exercise this year had some new aspects that were implemented due to new Airmen arriving and bringing forth new and innovative ideas.
“We have a little bit of everything. We have a hostage scenario, a classic vehicle borne IED, IEDs on a pathway, a really fun one with a water cooler and unmanned aerial systems,” said Dawkins. “Those are a few of the ones that we have, but we try to cover almost everything.”
For example, one of the scenarios involved an IED in a water cooler. This caused technicians to figure out innovative ways to deactivate the device.
Some took x-rays of the water cooler and used a robot to remove the power source. Others used a water bottle charge to disrupt the explosive and allow the water in the bottles to shred wires and other suspicious components located in the cooler.
Regardless of the branch or country, EOD members have the important job of taking care of any explosive hazard. That can mean anything from small arms to ammunition.
The annual rodeo serves as a way for these members to learn from each other and grow together to remain knowledgeable and proficient in their career field.
“It’s just a good time to get to see how these other countries work, we get to see how they do things differently from the way we do it,” said Dawkins. “We’re all EOD technicians. So at the end of the day, we're still going to get the job done and the basics are the same regardless of the flag that is on your shoulder.”
| Date Taken: | 08.02.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.02.2024 09:41 |
| Story ID: | 477622 |
| Location: | SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, RHEINLAND-PFALZ, DE |
| Hometown: | SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, RHEINLAND-PFALZ, DE |
| Web Views: | 72 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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Spangdahlem Air Base
