Tick, tick, boom -- on our terms

Airmen often look to their left and right and see their wingmen -- other men and women similar to themselves. In the dangerous realm of explosive ordnance disposal, however, Airmen rely heavily on each other, but also on a different type of wingman.

A robot— and downrange, the robot always goes first.

“The thing about EOD is, if we’re leaving the wire, either we’re going to something that has gone wrong, or is about to potentially go wrong,” explained Master Sgt. Greg Pauli, an EOD technician from the 439^th Civil Engineer Squadron. “It could be that a bomb has gone off, and now we are responding, or we are responding to something that has been found and could potentially detonate.”

It’s no question that being an EOD technician in the Air Force is risky business.  Their job description includes words like: live explosives, C4, and precision.

EOD technicians like Pauli and Senior Airman Troy Leatherman, also from the 439^th CES, go through extensive training prior to becoming an EOD technician—an entirely volunteer based career field. But, the training never stops.

Terrorists’ tactics are ever-changing and in order to stay proficient, EOD technicians must constantly maintain their high standards of precision, situational awareness, and tact by performing on-the-job training at home station.

“Everything is situational,” Leatherman said. “Sometimes there can be two or three different ways to initiate an explosive. One thing always stays the same; we never want explosives to function as designed.”

Recently, Leatherman and Pauli attended Patriot Warrior, an extensive exercise based at Fort MCcoy, Wis., that involved about 6,000 Airmen, Soldiers and Sailors as well as other nation’s forces.

“We brought back a lot of deployment knowledge to Westover,” Leatherman said. “The exercise was real-time, realistic, and the situations presented to us evolved naturally. Mistakes were made and no one stepped in to stop us. We were able to see how everything progressed and if our choices were good, not so good, or spot on.”

Leatherman, who was recognized for his efforts at the exercise by Chief Master Sgt. Bradley Mckinney, the EOD functional at Air Force Reserve Command, emphasized that he gained knowledge above and beyond his EOD duties while at Patriot Warrior.

“One day we spent time on a Blackhawk,” explained Leatherman. “The combat medic and crew chief actually sat down with us for better than an hour, and then we also practiced getting someone on the helicopter a couple different ways and learned what could be required from us on the ground if an emergency situation with injuries actually happened.”

Pauli, who has experience being deployed as an EOD technician, emphasized how multi-faceted working in the EOD career field really is.

“The likelihood of injuries, of firefights, of detonations, and anything else is extremely high,” Pauli said. “A lot of guys that have deployed within this flight would say ‘I had to shoot during my deployment,’ or ‘I had to help with medevac on my deployment.’”

Both Pauli and Leatherman agreed a strong sense of attention to detail, something that is instilled in Airmen from day one of basic military training, is essential for all aspects of EOD.

Photo Details / Download Hi-Res