Airmen inspect exiled mail for hazardous material [Image 3 of 7]

AL-MUTHANA AIR BASE, IRAQ

04.24.2009

Photo by Staff Sgt. Tim Beckham 

U.S. Air Forces Central, Baghdad Media Outreach Team

Tech. Sgt. Steve Gaunt, 447th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron emergency management flight, looks through a bag of mail to see if there are any suspicious packages, Camp Stryker, Iraq, April 24. All mail that comes into Baghdad that is improperly labeled, doesn't have a return address or gets lost in the system has to be inspected before they can be processed and get it to the intended destination. The Iraqi government returns the mail to the Joint Military Mail Terminal on good faith but the military here has to take necessary precautions because the mail left the military postal system. When the JMMT gets the mail back from the Iraqi government it is ran through x-ray, inspected by military working dogs and then inspected by the 447th ECES emergency management flight for suspicious and/or hazardous materials which might have inadvertently come in contact with or intentionally added to the mail. The Airmen, armed with chemical suits and hazardous material sensors make their way downrange in teams of three, where the mail is stored and run test on the packages for radiological, chemical and biological material. The inspection process is a joint effort between emergency management team, readiness, the fire department, and biological engineers. Sgt. Gaunt is deployed from 117th Air Refueling Wing Alabama Air National Guard, is a native of Marietta, Ga.

• Date Taken: 04.24.2009
• Date Posted: 04.30.2009 03:46
• Photo ID: 168770
• VIRIN: 090424-F-0602B-066
• Resolution: 2412x3622
• Size: 915.86 KB
• Location: AL-MUTHANA AIR BASE, IQ