NAVAL STATION ROTA, Spain -- U.S. Marine Corps explosive ordnance disposal technicians with Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response- Africa conduct advanced Improvised Explosive Device and hand-entry training ar Naval Station Rota, Spain, Feb. 5, 2016.
“Normally, the safest procedures we’d do would be remotely [disable] where we would be away from the device to attack it,” said SSgt. Timothy Firestone, an EOD technician with SPMAGTF-CR-AF. “For the scenarios we built today, we forced ourselves to do hand entry to achieve more advanced [training and readiness] standards.”
While the preferred technique is a remote detonation the training received helps build upon the knowledge and expertise of the EOD technicians.
“It’s helping us get an idea of what we’re looking at when we’re downrange,” said Firestone. “It still helps us even if we’re going to do a remote procedure because we’re still going to have to expose components downrange.”
For this training exercise, each EOD technician assembled a mock improvised explosive device for their peers to disable. The Marines utilized x-ray imagery to analyze their training device before attempting to disable it in the demolition pit.
“This training is mostly a confidence builder for us,” said Firestone. “It’s not something we get to practice a lot. Only a few of the technicians here have been to the advanced course so today they were sharing knowledge with the group.”
This training prepares the EOD technicians to respond to more complicated and deadly IEDs, a threat that remains relevant in current conflicts and hostile areas. Handling and disposing of IEDs will be one of the skillsets shared with European and African partners during the deployment.