Local detachment prepares Airmen for EOD career

  • Published
  • By Lois Walsh
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --   Taking care of Airmen who attend arguably the most difficult technical school in the military is the critical role the 366th Training Squadron, Detachment 3 undertakes.

Det. 3 assists in offering specialized technical training for students attending Naval School Explosive Ordnance Disposal. Students are taught how to become EOD technicians in the joint environment and learn the most current procedures for the location, identification, render safe, recovery, technical evaluation, and disposal of conventional surface ordnance, both foreign and domestic. Det. 3 falls under the 82nd Training Wing at Sheppard AFB, Texas.

"The goal is to produce EOD technicians for a career field that is in very high demand and insufficiently manned," said Det. 3 commander, Major J. Warnick.

Major Warnick said there are two courses offered by NAVSCOLEOD available for the all-volunteer EOD force, the143-day basic course and the three-week Advanced Improvised Explosive Device Disposal course. The detachment provides fare-share instructors to the schoolhouse based on AF annual throughput.

"The basic course is the biggest course of interest, it's the qualification course," he said. "Non-prior service students make up three quarters of the 270-person quota we're afforded each year."

Basic military training graduates attend a six-day EOD prliminarycourse at Lackland AFB and then PCS to Eglin to begin their training at NAVSCOLEOD. The other categories of students are prior service enlisted retrainees and company grade officers.

There are more candidates than slots available for EOD students. One challenge the Detachment faces is a high attrition rate which exceeds 40 percent.

"The two leading reasons for attrition are performance based academic failure and voluntary disenrollment," said Major Warnick. "EOD is a 100 percent volunteer force and some students decide to voluntary disenroll before they begin training while others find out while they're in training it's just not for them. The right operator needs to be able to apply knowledge to hands, to complete any render-safe procedure whether on unexploded ordnance or improvised explosive devices."

The major said efforts are underway from the AF Civil Engineer in concert with the training commands to make more efficient use of quotas and reduce the attrition: First, concentrate efforts to identify and select the persons most likely to succeed at NAVSCOLEOD and relocate and expand preporatory/preliminary training to include more emphasis on physical fitness, teambuilding, EOD mentoring and immersion. When these improvements are in place over the next year, AF student attrition will undoubtedly decrease substantially.

"We will not at any time reduce our standards simply to make the numbers," Major Warnick stated emphatically.

Once students arrive on base, the detachment provides the services that "any unit commander does for his cadre." That includes inprocessing, training and general health and welfare. Promotions and presenting medals are some of the recognition students earn at monthly commander's calls. They also interact with the commander, first sergeant and superintendent during physical fitness training and inprocessing where they're given a two-page paper on "EOD School's Keys to Success." After graduation from the basic course at NAVSCOLEOD, AF students earn their three-level rating by attending a follow on AF EOD specific course. Eventually, EOD technicians come back in the grade of E-5 for a seven-level qualification course which allows them to be team chiefs in the field.

"When basic course students get here it's an eye opener for them," Major Warnick said. "It's a joint training environment and we do want them to succeed. The staff is very well versed on the do's and don'ts of NAVSCOLEOD." During NAVSCOLEOD basic course indoctrination, the commanding officer and command master chief give their own but similar versions of what it takes to be successful.

Det. 3 instructors are primarily volunteers. The instructor cadre is nearly 100 percent manned, a daunting feat since the EOD AF community is manned at approximantely 70 percent. Instructor deployment is not uncommon; there are four contractors who fill in for instructors who receive deployment orders.

"The career field manager has placed a big emphasis on training by actual AF members who have deployed, in many instances, several times," said Major Warnick. "Their ability to bring their experiences back and apply it in instruction is immense."

One such instructor, Staff Sgt. Kevin Beasley, was recently named Air Education and Training Command's NCO Instructor of the Year. Sergeant Beasley deployed to Kirkuk Air Base as a warfighter/instructor and led 72 combat missions which earned him a Bronze Star. He also earned a Navy Achievement Medal for his work with 200 EOD technicians and augmentees. Sergeant Beasley also trained 185 Iraqi EOD operators on robotic operations and evidence collection and led a team to construct Iraqi Army IED training facility which provided source to hone that Army's skills.

Major Warnick said perhaps the most significant event for the joint EOD community is its annual memorial which takes place the first Saturday in May.

"It is a time to honor our fallen and comfort our fallen family members, a time for healing and reflection by all. It's a perfect location outside the schoolhouse, it always serves as a reminder of what this career field contributes to our freedom."