Safety vital component for EOD techs

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Tim Beckham
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  When thinking of safety in the workplace, hearing protection, goggles and latex gloves may come to mind. Sure, these are acceptable safety precautions for crew chiefs, maintenance back shop workers and even medical technicians, but for people who are playing with explosives all day, using just those items for protection could have explosive results. 

For the members of the 39th Civil Engineer Squadron explosive ordnance disposal flight, safety is key not only for their own protection but for the protection of everyone.
"Safety is the number one priority in our career field," said Staff Sgt. Kevin Hammer, 39th CES EOD craftsman. "There is absolutely no room for error when it comes down to performing our core mission and our motto sums that up 'Initial Success or Total Failure.' Some people believe that we are all glory hounds or thrill seekers and we have to be crazy to do our job, but our job is no more hazardous or unpredictable than a firefighter's or policeman's job in a peacetime environment. I believe that our job is actually safer and more predictable than theirs." 

For anyone who has been downrange, it's easy to see what these EOD technicians do on a day-to-day basis, but what do they do while at home station? "Practice, practice, practice." 

"Training at home station only takes a backseat to real world operations," Sergeant Hammer said. "We must remain proficient in all our skills to be effective as EOD technicians. An average EOD flight has approximately three million dollars worth of specialized equipment at its disposal. Everything from two hundred and fifty dollar robots to eighteen thousand dollar bomb suits to two thousand dollar IED disruption tools. It is every EOD technician's job to be proficient with all available tools because no two incidents are the same. In addition to home station training we also routinely go TDY to incident specific seminars to learn innovative ways of dealing with the current threats that we face." 

EOD technicians go through a grueling seven month technical school at the Navy School of Explosive Ordnance Disposal, which is a joint service school at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and every one of them is fighting to stave off the 30 percent washout rate. 

"Occupational safety is probably the reason why most people do not make it through the school," Sergeant Hammer said. "A practical test is instantly failed if a safety measure is violated during the course of testing. When I was going through the school, the minimum passing score was 86. Anything less than that and you failed. A safety violation was a 15-point deduction from your score. There really is no room for error in our AFSC and the instruction we receive at school really drives that point home.
Sergeant Hammer said EOD has a strict policy when it comes to safeguarding and destroying explosives. 

"Safeguarding explosives is a high priority," he said. "Some of the items that we routinely dispose of have the potential of causing great damage if they fall into the wrong hands. We don't routinely deal with the security requirements for storing and transporting explosives in this country due to host nation requirements. Disposing of explosives is a very simple process for us. It is the core of our job and every technician is proficient in this task. The hardest part about disposing of explosives is the paperwork you have to do after you've finished." 

Everyone has stress when it comes to messing up at their job, but when dealing with explosives one mistake may be disastrous. 

"The wartime EOD mission is very stressful and I have seen it affect some technicians returning from downrange," said Sergeant Hammer. "EOD techs are routinely exposed to enemy fire, roadside bombs and hidden devices targeted specifically at them. They see a lot of things they wish they never had. Just this past March the Air Force lost its first EOD technician in a wartime environment since the Vietnam War. Our motto really sums up what can happen if we do mess up." 

So the next time you become stressed out about a minor mistake you may have made at work just remember that for some, one minor mistake maybe the last.