Staff Sgt. Michael Overton, left, and Airman 1st Class William Holliday prepare 500-pound inert training bombs for destruction Friday at the Draughon Range. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)
MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan — Misawa’s explosive ordnance disposal troops spent a day last week doing what they say they love best: blowing things up.
The effort was part of an annual cleanup at the nearby Draughon Range, 1,900 acres of sand, swamp and forest along the Pacific coastline where Misawa’s pilots drop practice bombs.
Master Sgt. Garet Vannes, chief of the explosive ordnance disposal flight, said the cleanups are key to keeping range personnel safe and the land up to Environmental Protection Agency standards.
But they also allow his troops hands-on training that they’ll put to use during downrange deployments, he said. EOD troops are on a one-to-one dwell time, meaning that for every six months they spend at a duty station like Misawa, they’ll spend six months in Iraq or Afghanistan.
They likely could find themselves destroying huge enemy weapons caches, he said.
“This is training for the guys to go down there and know how to place the explosives properly, how to do correct explosive trains and set-ups.”
Vannes said he’s lucky to have taken over a flight that includes experienced noncommissioned officers — like Tech. Sgt. Rory Stark — who have multiple combat deployments.
“As far as explosives go, it’s all about safety,” said Stark, recently awarded a Bronze Star for his ordnance disposal work downrange. “When you’re deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s easy to get complacent because you’re dealing with them every day.”
At Misawa, the goal is to build a “structure of safety” so each person’s job “becomes natural when you’re deployed,” he said.
Stark ran a tight range Friday, ensuring everyone understood their role, from who would attach the blasting caps to who would run security on the far ends of the beach during the detonations.
After BDU-33 and larger BDU-50 training bombs were rigged — each pile with more than 20 pounds of C-4 explosive — the techs and other support personnel retreated to a ridge about a mile from the detonation site.
With a quick shout of “fire in the hole,” the detonations ripped through the range, with each boom echoing loudly under heavy skies.
“This is the job that everyone loves, getting actually to use explosives,” said Staff Sgt. Michael Overton. “There are other good parts to it, but nothing beats working with explosives on a day-to-day basis.”
Staff Sgt. Michael Overton, left, and Airman 1st Class William Holliday prepare 500-pound inert training bombs for destruction Friday at the Draughon Range. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)
Bricks of C-4 explosives sit between old dummy training bombs during an annual clean-up on Draughon Range. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)
Airman 1st Class Matthew Thompson, left, and Tech. Sgt. Rory Stark work on preparing remote firing devices during a clean-up mission on Draughon Range. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)
About 20 pounds of C-4 explosive send a cloud of black smoke into the air on Draughon Range. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)
An explosive ordnance disposal tech lays bricks of C-4 explosives between old dummy training bombs during an annual clean-up on Draughon Range, near Misawa Air Base, Japan, on Friday. The C-4 was used to explode dummy training bombs that had not discharged their marking charges — about the same strength as a shotgun blast — upon impact at the range. (T.D. Flack / Stars and Stripes)
