The Hurt Locker

So last month I blogged about a suspected IED here at the base. In that blog I talked about my decision making on whether or not to call EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) out to an incident or not. Well, yesterday was the day I called them out.

I was just sitting down to dinner when the dispatch called me to check out an unattended package. I was annoyed, and expected to go over and it be nothing. So myself and two patrolman went over to check it out. It was a medium sized cardboard box with DHL labeling. It was sitting on texas barrier which divided the road from some barracks. The box was not addressed to anyone. Occasionally, if its addressed, I can contact the person to see if they accidentally left it there. I gave the box a nudge. It was heavy. The box was sealed, so I couldnt see what was inside. I felt the box again. I felt a vibration. I didn't feel comfortable at this point. I asked one of the patrolman to verify that it was vibrating, they both said no way and went to hide behind the car. At this point I decided I was going to call out EOD.

I requested more patrolman, EOD, medical, and the fire dept. to be safe. Once the patrolman arrived, we set a perimeter and evacuated nearby buildings and barracks. The bad part about this whole thing, was that most of the officers lived in these barracks, so they were most likely annoyed, and now all eyes are on me to see how I handle the situation. I was pretty nervous. Now if any of you have seen the movie hurt locker and you see how cocky and confident the main character is, thats how this EOD guy that came out was. This pick-up truck came rolling up blaring the song "Many Men" by rapper 50cent. The song lyrics open with "Many Men....Wish death upon me". Now I'm interested to see how this goes down. He jumps out of the truck with long (for the military) hair, disheveld uniform, oozing confidence. I brief him on the situation. When I get to the part about the box vibrating I see his eyes fill with excitement. He goes back to his truck to get his tools. I was hoping to see him get all suited up and bring out the cool robots they have. I should have known better. This guy just grabs some c-4 and det chord.

On base, we have a siren that goes off to warn people in the area to stay away. It's deafning. It goes off every few minutes until the all-clear is given. Maybe you see where this is going. Just as he approaches the package, the siren goes off. He jumps up and comes storming over. At this point there were about 10 people standing around, mostly officers. He starts screaming at all of us. Dropping f-bombs and everything. "Turn that damn thing off!", he says. He completely flipped out. He starts marching back over to the box. We're all looking at each other in shock. I just kind of smile and say "I guess that means we should turn the siren off". 2 minutes later BOOM! The box is destroyed. He walks back to the box. Sifts through the debris. He comes back to where we were standing and says "No explosive material. The scene is all clear. I'm sorry I flipped out. The siren scared the crap out of me". He jumped back into his truck, turned the 50cent back up and drove off.

I was a little disappointed with the explosion. I expected something louder and larger. I guess because of how close it was to the buildings it was how it should be.

After he leaves, everyone wants to see whats left of the box. I start hearing people say "I just want to see what was vibrating". Now I'm thinking to myself, there better be some type of electrical device in here or I'm going to look a little foolish in front of all these officers. So we get over to the whats left of the box. A can of beans, some shredded paper, a blanket, a bag of microwave popcorn, and some other stuff. None of which is electronic. No one said anything, but I couldn't help but think they all think I'm crazy. So I have no idea why the box was vibrating. There was a generator not too far away, that may have caused it, but who knows. In my defense, the bomb expert thought it was enough for him to blow it up, so it must have been the right call.

I had today off which was nice after that night.

IED PETTING ZOO?

Last Friday and Saturday we learned about IED's, ambush attacks, snipers, etc. They went over all of the ways terrorists are attacking us, how to identify them, how to counter them and things of that nature. The training was very informative. There are alot of things going on over there that we don't hear too much about here. So anyway, the petting zoo was basically set up something like a zoo, but instead of looking at animals, they had stations set up with mock-ups of the IED's and things of that nature. We then went on patrol in a mock Arab city to find IED's and to see how we react to them. Below is one of the stations at the IED petting zoo:

Note the taillight is hanging by a string.


This would be the haji with a sniper rifle sticking outside the hole from where the wires from the taillight would normally go. Fire a shot. Pull the string and we'd never know what hit us. This is very similar to what the DC sniper was doing, as well, I believe. This picture above was made up in reference to an actual set up that was used in Mosul, Iraq. The sniper supposedly had hundreds of kills using this method. He would also have a driver with him who would video tape his kills. Both have since been captured.

IN LIGHTER NEWS, I found out I got promoted today. I will soon go from an E-5 to an E-6 or as its called in the Navy, Petty Officer First Class. Also known as, with specific to my job, MA1. They promoted 58 out of 409 candidates, so roughly 14% I think. So I was pretty happy to be one of the lucky ones.