Photo By Lance Cpl. Isabelo Tabanguil | MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII – Marines with Explosive Ordnance Disposal of Headquarters...... read more read more
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The purpose of the sweep was to clear the area of any unexploded ordnance, also known as UXO, in order to create a safer environment for personnel and units conducting operations on the range.
“This was a joint effort between Headquarters Bn. and CLB-3’S EOD. The mission was to do a visual surface sweep of the high explosive impact area on K-Bay Range,” said Gunnery Sgt. Jarod Kluemper, an explosive ordnance disposal technician with Headquarters Bn., and a native of Jasper, Indiana. “Basically what we’re doing is, visually identifying all the explosive hazards that we’ve identified during our sweep of the area, and consolidating all that ordnance to destroy by detonation.”
Kluemper said EOD periodically clears the range in order to keep the amount of UXO to a minimum.
“We try to get out and do this every couple months after units have fired rockets or mortars,” Kluemper said. “There’s an inherent dud rate with all that ordnance. Eventually when we get enough of it out there, it starts to impose a threat to range personnel and units training.”
By clearing the range of unexploded ordnance, range personnel and other units can continue training in a safe environment.
“This helps bring down the saturation of UXO on the range,” said Sgt. Alexander Hanlon, an explosive ordnance technician with Combat Logistics Battalion 3, and a native of New Ark, Delaware. “When other units come out to set up target inserts for training or if range personnel needs to conduct maintenance, they can do so in a safe manner.”
Hanlon said conducting a range sweep also provides a training opportunity for the newer members of EOD.
“It allows the oldest members of our unit to teach the newer guys some tips and techniques they’ve learned from experience,” Hanlon said. “Training is definitely valuable for us, to be able to get out in the field and know what we’re doing as EOD technicians.”
New Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians get to work in a different environment compared to their training at their military occupational specialty school, and learn how to prevent accidents from happening.
“I know a few years back there was an accident at Camp Pendleton, and our job is to figure out what went wrong in order to prevent something like that from happening again,” said Capt. Isaac Tibayan, the officer in charge of EOD Headquarters Bn., and a native of Honolulu.
Tibayan said being able to operate in the field provides a more dynamic environment than in training.
“When you’re in school, it’s just like any other by the book military school, but when you get to the fleet it’s entirely different,” Tibayan said. “During training the ordnance is perfectly colored or it appears as if it fell off a truck. In the fleet, EOD technicians would see part of a mortar or a tail fin sticking out of the ground, and now they’ve got to use some of the skills they didn’t learn in school to figure out what’s the next step.”
Kluemper said that the range sweep ended up with good results and provided necessary training for the EOD Marines.
“It was a good training evolution for the technicians,” Kluemper said. “We found quite a bit of ordnance, maybe up to 15 60 millimeter mortars and some light anti-tank rockets. We had some excellent training dealing with UXO and the demolition work up. It’s good to continually know how to do our jobs and staying proficient.”
| Date Taken: | 03.02.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 03.08.2017 21:09 |
| Story ID: | 226239 |
| Location: | MARINE CORPS BASE HAWAII, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 204 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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