Bomb Calls

Saudi Arabia, Operation Desert Shield, 1990

Throughout my EOD career I have been called to “disarm” some interesting bombs.  During the Gulf War was no exception.  When my team arrived in the Gulf, the troops were at a high state of alert and to be honest, we were all pretty nervous. It had been close to 15 years since the end of the Vietnam War and most of the Armed Forces, with a few exceptions, were not combat proven; we were ready but not proven.  On top of that, we knew we were dealing with fanatics, terrorists, and to us in EOD that meant only one thing: bombs.

During the first months of Desert Shield everyone was very nervous.  The uncertainty of what could happen, how and where, had every soldier, sailor, airman and marine extra cautious and suspicious of everything and everyone.

Our first bomb call came one night shortly after arrival.  It was like one of our training scenarios back home.  Someone saw a garbage truck stop behind a warehouse used for housing troops, the passenger got out, took a box from the rear of the truck and placed it in the corner of the building and left.  The situation worsened when we found out that the warehouse held about 5000 soldiers who needed to be evacuated for their safety in case the device detonated.  All of that, plus the fact that we were at war and the situation was at night, made for a great “cherry” situation for us.  What a way to start!

The site was approximately 500 yards behind our shop so we didn’t have far to travel.  As soon as we arrived, we identified a serious problem; the package was in the corner of the building, as stated, but also next to a second identical building.  That made for close to 10,000 soldiers, in the immediate area.  The evacuation did not take long, but it gave us enough time to formulate a plan.  Given the circumstances, the solution was easy: shoot it with a dearmer and try for a disruption.  John Carr and I went down, placed the dearmer, took cover behind some latrines and then shot the device.  We immediately went back to investigate and found very little of the cardboard box and a lot of inner tubes.  We looked everywhere for the remains of the killer bomb, a battery, a switch, explosives, anything, but all we found were inner tubes.  Of course we told everyone that we had saved the world by taking apart a very dangerous bomb.  All the Army folks around there thought we were some double bad dudes.  From their point of view, this is what they thought had happened: there is a killer bomb, 3 guys show up with longer hair than usual, in shorts and T-shirts, wearing no rank insignias, evacuating 10,000 soldiers with a snap of a finger. They run down to the bomb site and take it apart and then show up back at the command post laughing as if nothing had happened!  Some bad dudes.  My suggestion: let them believe it!

On another occasion, we received a call that “enemy” divers had been spotted in the water by the breakwater in front of our shop.  Since we were thought to be the only “special forces” in camp, we were requested to help.  From the front of the shop and across the channel to the breakwater was approximately 500 yards, but going around by vehicle took us 10 minutes.  When we departed the shop we could see the armored vehicles, APCs and Saudi and US troops moving into defensive positions.  By the time we got across to the breakwater, there were Saudi troops, in groups of three, positioned every 100 yards or so for the whole length of the breakwater.  The report we received, from an Army sergeant upon arrival, was that enemy divers with yellow scuba tanks were surfacing and looking at them.  He swore up and down that he had seen the yellow tanks.  After all, he was a PADI certified diver.  After we stopped laughing, we tried to calm everyone down and we ended up pointing out a few facts to these people.  First of all, enemy divers don’t wear yellow tanks; secondly, they don’t do this in the middle of the day, in front of 200 soldiers 50 yards away with weapons and tanks pointing at them.  It is not the method of choice for reckoning; and last, but certainly not least, we pointed out to a pod of dolphins that had light colored stripes on their backs, which incidentally looked sort of yellow when the sun hit them.

That poor sergeant didn’t know what to do or say.  On one hand he had a detachment of Navy EOD guys laughing their asses off at him, and on the other hand, there were 200 US and Saudi soldiers pretty pissed off for going on alert over dolphins.  We just laughed and left him behind before the lynching started.  I have often wondered what happened to the sergeant’s career, I’d bet he is a general by now!

One of the funniest incidents we had did not start humorously at all.  We got a call that a large package was ticking at the army post office.  Now, one thing is when someone says a package or device is found that looks suspicious and it’s another thing when he says the package is ticking.  Those words make every EOD tech jump into high gear because it means we don’t have too much time.  As a matter of fact it can blow up the second we get there.  When we got there, we noticed the unusual shape of the package; it was sort of triangular.  It measured approximately 4 feet long by 18 inches by 10 inches and was made of cardboard.  And sure enough, it was ticking, an electronic kind of beeping.  We immediately placed the dearmer, took cover and blew the package all over the area.  We had left the communications box close by and I remember a distinct “twang” when the shot went off. 

Bill and I proceeded downrange to investigate and were we surprised at what we saw!  Right there before our very eyes laid the remains of what looked to be a brand new Fender acoustic guitar.  Both Bill and I played guitar so we felt bad, really bad.  The ticking noise had come from an electronic metronome that had turned itself on during shipment.  That soldier must have been really pissed off, but what the hell, too bad.  That guitar was way beyond repair.