October 17,2008:
The U.S. Air Force is going to
spend an additional $3.5 million a year for the next five years, in an effort
to keep its EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) force from fading away. Most of
the money will go to larger reenlistment bonuses. But there are also additional
special duty pay for those operating in a combat zone (from $150 to $375,
according to rank). In the last six years, the reenlistment rate for these
specialists has declined 30 percent. Mainly because air force EOD techs can get
better paid, and safer, jobs in the civilian sector. Too many tours in a combat
zone isn't good for family life either. It's not that air force EOD folks don't
want to do the work, but what they joined for was to do air force EOD, not the
army type stuff in Iraq and Afghanistan. Doing a tour with the army once or
twice is interesting, but doing it again and again is bad for morale. Air force
EOD is about dealing with aircraft bombs gone bad, or the occasional old buried
bomb that gets discovered, and needs to be taken care of. All those roadside
bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan get on your nerves after a while.
The U.S.
military, in general, is having a hard time keeping its EOD force (of about 5,000 technicians) up to
strength. Part of the problem has been casualties. Since September 11, 2001,
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have killed 56 EOD techs, and put several
hundred out of the business because of injuries. Many more have left the
service when their time was up. But the biggest problem is getting experienced
EOD techs to stay in uniform.
About a
thousand new EOD techs are trained each year (after surviving a 30-35 percent
failure rate in school). The Department of Defense has one EOD school, at Eglin
Air Force Base in Florida. Each service has special EOD needs that they take
care of themselves (navy techs, for example, have to sometimes work under
water, so they also go to diving school.) The thousands of combat experienced
EOD techs have left the military in the past five years has been a boon for
municipalities and security firms looking for such people. The civilian jobs
pay more, and are not as dangerous.
While the
military expects many of the newly trained techs to get out after four years,
they try real hard to hang on to the leaders (officers and senior NCOs) of EOD
teams (who are also techs). They are offered bonuses that add up to, in some
cases, over $25,000 a year. There are also several different bonuses paid to
EOD techs operating in a combat zone. There, EOD teams (usually eight people)
can average 3-4 calls a day, and lots of stress. You really work for the few
hundred extra dollars a month (it varies by service, a sore point in the EOD
community).
Because of
new technology, the job is actually a lot less dangerous than in the past. The
widespread use of special robots, which use a video camera and a mechanical arm
to allow the EOD technician to examine, and even disarm, an IED (improvised
explosive device, or roadside bomb) from a distance, is the most visible new
technology. But there are also new electronic devices, which enable EOD techs
to prevent wireless detonators on IEDs from going off. Details of many of the
new EOD electronic tools are kept secret, since the enemy can develop
countermeasures if they know too much about what EOD has in their tool kit. The
EOD technicians have also found remote control toy trucks useful, for
delivering explosives to an IED that could not be disarmed, and appears to
still be under the control of enemy operators. The toy truck carries an
explosive charge, and a wireless detonator, to destroy the IED. If the hidden
enemy can see all this, and decides to set off the IED as the toy truck
approaches, the EOD team has prevented the loss of a hundred thousand dollar
robot, in exchange for a hundred dollar toy truck.
For two
years, from late 2005 to late 2007, the use of IEDs skyrocketed. The U.S. Army
EOD teams were overwhelmed, and this is when the air force and navy sent nearly
half their EOD techs to help out. Still, the waiting time for an EOD team went
from 20 minutes in early 2005, to several hours a year later. To help ease the
strain on EOD, robots were handed out to combat and transportation units, with
instructions on how to use the simpler methods of dealing with IEDs (aside from
taking your troops around it, you can use the robot to look closely at the
suspicious object, and if it is an IED, have the robot drop some explosives,
move the droid away and blow the sucker up.)
Another
solution was training local troops to handle EOD work. Training Iraqi EOD teams
took time, even if they had already done that job in the old Iraqi army. Seems
that the old Iraqi army EOD standards were quite a bit different, and more
dangerous. So lots of retraining was needed. The Iraqi EOD specialists don't
mind, because they get the American robots and some of the other gear, to use.
This makes their work a lot safer, and they need all the help they can get. As
more Iraqi troops take control of security in parts of central Iraq (where
nearly all the IED activity has been), the Iraqis get hit with more IEDs.
Indeed, the terrorists and anti-government forces often concentrated on the Iraqi army and police., hitting them with
lots of IEDs, believing they would be easier targets than the Americans. Didn't
turn out that way, as the Iraqi security forces spoke the language, and had an
easier time spotting IEDs, or getting advance warning from local civilians.
Since the
Surge Offensive of 2007, the enemy IED campaign has basically collapsed. There
are still IEDs out there, but far fewer (as in over 80 percent fewer). Still,
the U.S. Army wants to double the number of new EOD techs it sends through the
Elgin school, for a while anyway, so as to give the weary EOD tech veterans of
Iraq, 2005-7, some more rest. That would increase the annual U.S. output to
1,500 EOD technicians.
All the
services have been encouraging more troops to volunteer for EOD school. To that
end, all but the marines have waived, for the moment, the old requirement that
you needed at least two years to active service (to make sure you had your
basic military discipline habits down cold) before going to EOD school. Now,
many EOD students are right out of basic. The attrition (in the school) is a
little higher with these kids, but they do about the same as everyone else once
they get through EOD school.
American EOD
has been dramatically changed by the war on terror, and has become a much more
high tech, and combat experienced, force. Never before has EOD been showered
with so much money and resources to develop new equipment. They are making the
most of it, because they know that, once Iraq and Afghanistan settle down,
their budget will shrink dramatically.