Sad Day....

[bmf]

April 15, 2002
RELEASE NUMBER 02-04-07

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EOD DISPOSAL ACCIDENT KILLS 4

MacDill AFB, FL - Four U.S. soldiers were killed and one wounded at approximately 3 a.m. EDT near Qandahar from an accidental explosion during an ordnance disposal operation involving 107mm rockets.

The injured was evacuated to the medical facility at Qandahar. The soldiers’ names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

More to come....

[mdb23]

My condolences.

Mike

[Navy5337]

My condolences.........

John

[Felix]

They will be dearly missed. I can only hope that all of us would do what's asked of us as well as they have. No one can ever question the commitment of our brothers to their mission or their teamates. God bless them and bring comfort to their families.

[DCH]

It rained unexpectedly today, now I know why.

[jw]

BMF, Stand tall for all of us.

[bmf]

Still awaiting the final count. I'm not sure what "missing" means....specially in this line of work.

[Felix]

Here are the names:
SSG Brian T. Craig
SSG Justin J. Galewski
SST Jamie O. Maugans
All of them were members of the 710th ORD CO (EOD)
The fourth was SFC Daniel Romero of 19th SFG(A)

[CTA]

May they rest in peace....

[bmf]

Army Times
April 29, 2002
Pg. 16
Booby-Trap Might Have Killed EOD Soldiers
By Matthew Cox, Times staff writer
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan - A booby trap may have caused an explosion
that killed four soldiers near Kandahar before they could detonate a pile
of abandoned 107 mm rockets.

The April 15 accident occurred when soldiers of the 710th Explosive Ordnance Detachment from San Diego prepared to dispose of about 250
Soviet-made rockets. The rockets were confiscated from Taliban ammunition
dumps in an area north of Kandahar known as "ammunition alley," said Maj.
Bryan Hilferty, spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
They were working near the former residence of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
The soldiers were stacking the rockets, by hand, in a pit along with C-4 explosive when the explosives went off. The blast killed Staff Sgt. Justin J. Galewski, 28, Staff Sgt. Brian T. Craig, 27, and Sgt. Jamie O. Maugans, 27, all from the 710th, and Sgt. 1st Class Daniel A. Romero, 30, of the 19th Special Forces Group out of Pueblo, Col.

A fifth soldier, whose name has not been released, was injured in the explosion and is listed in stable condition, Hilferty said.
They are the first EOD soldiers killed in Afghanistan while clearing the countless caches of unexploded munitions that have littered the ground from 20 years of war. Staff Sgt. Matthew Hess of the 744th Explosive Ordnance Detachment died Dec. 18 after he stepped on a land mine at Bagram Air Base. An investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the most recent explosion. While few details are known, a possible cause may be
that the rockets were booby-trapped before being abandoned, said Maj. Erik Stor, the senior U.S. combat engineer in Afghanistan.

"There is a technique in this country of booby-trapping munitions," Stor said. "That possibility exists only because that has been a precedent that has been set in the past."

American EOD troops have run into booby-trapped munition caches before, but have always detected signs of tampering before accidents like this could occur, Stor said. Some of the more common signs include exposed wiring or an appearance that the artillery shell or rocket has been dismantled and improperly re-assembled, he said.

"These guys are trained to look for things like this," Stor said. "Even if it looks suspicious, even remotely suspicious, EOD is trained to back off.

"It was a very solemn day around here. We all felt the pain. Terrible. It was a terrible loss of life." Disposing of explosives has always been a high-risk job, but the recent deaths of these four soldiers shocked the EOD community here and sent a sobering message that their job is far from over.

We are all quite shaken," said Capt. Rob Mitchell, commander of the 744th
EOD, which operates in Bagram. "We would like to know the roots of the cause, since we deal with this on a frequent basis."

The 710th has been in Afghanistan since October, charged with clearing explosives from what the United Nations has described as one of the world's most heavily mined countries.

The unit arrived Jan. 23 at the Kandahar Airfield after operations in the north and searching caves in the Tora Bora region. Over the next few months, the unit's soldiers destroyed ordnance ranging from old Soviet
fuel-air bombs to unexploded bombs dropped by U.S. pilots.

"We've done detonations almost every day we've been here," 1st Lt. Kevin Wynes told an Army journalist last month. "We can't get rid of all the stuff that's out here."

Wynes stepped in as interim commander when Capt. Keith Nelson stepped on a bomb fuse in February and injured his foot. Nelson has since returned to command, said Lt. Col. Howard Rudat, deputy commander of the Army's main
ordnance group in Georgia.

Back at home, the unit's primary duty is to help Southern California law enforcement authorities defuse military explosives.

[Felix]

Thanks BMF, that's the best, most in depth article I've seen on the subject so far. The coverage on the Army news website sucked. I hope the SO guys booby-trap the shit out of next ammo cache they come across (ala Vietnam) and leave in place for those fucks. As a matter of fact - I hope they request assistance in designing the best, most lethal traps for the enemy - double fuck 'em. EOD are working like crazy to make that shithole safe for our guys, and the locals. I'm pretty sure the guys over there don't mind risking their ass for decsent Afghans - that's the game, but some payback on the bad guys would be nice.

[neoprogressivedoraemon]

:( :( :( :( I feel regret about that and very very sad to their families too.:(
I hope they will go better places next world.:(
And I wiah god bless them all.