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TRADOC deputy general visits EOD school

  • Published
  • By Samuel King Jr.
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The deputy commanding general of initial military training for the U.S. Army toured the Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal School Feb. 17.

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, got a glimpse of what his Soldiers experience during their 143-day schedule at the joint school, seeing a demonstration, EOD equipment, Soldier housing and talking with students and instructors alike.

"This training is some of the more important we execute in the Army, so I wanted to see it first hand," said the general in charge of the 47,000 Soldiers in initial training.

Nearly 1,700 students are in various stages of training at NAVSCOLEOD, 60 percent of those are newly enlisted soldiers. Based on the needs of the EOD mission, the Army's, and all services, have increased attendance at the school.

"With the need for the skills associated with this occupational specialty, the volume of troops has multiplied five times in five years," General Hertling said. "A few years ago only a few hundred were coming to EOD. Now we send over 1,000."

He went on to explain why there is a critical need for EOD.

"Because these Soldiers save lives," said the general, who has two sons and a daughter-in-law serving on active duty. "Unfortunately, IEDs are the biggest threat from our enemies now. Our military is seeing and dealing with these types of devices on the battlefield. But the training received here makes EOD key enablers to help the other fighters do what they need to do in a counter-insurgency environment."

The general is no stranger to the impact EOD has in the area of responsibility. During the general's tour with Task Force Iron in Iraq, he saw the Improvised Explosive Device detonations drop from approximately 1,800 to 200 a month over 15 months. He attributes the significant drop partly to the efforts of the two rotations of EOD teams (Army and Navy) during his tenure there.

The general expressed concern about the high attrition rate at the school and vowed he would look into how to better prepare his troops for what they face there.

"The thing we need to focus on is how we conduct better pre-training, so our Soldiers are prepared for the difficulties and challenges of the course," he said. "We have to find a way to mentally and physically prepare a Soldier fresh out of basic for this course and that is tough to do," he said.

Although the attrition rate is high, the general said he knows those who make it through are prepared for battlefield EOD.

"From my time as a division commander, I never had any doubt the most professional people on the battlefield were the guys wearing the EOD badge," said the former tank commander.

He cited the EOD demonstration given at the school as an example. During the demonstration, an EOD trainee had to step up and take charge of the scene from the on-scene commander, regardless of rank.

"To train a 19-year-old Soldier to do something like that is difficult, but it is part of the skill set they leave here with," the general said.

The NAVEOD School consists of 10 divisions of training: Core, Demolition, Tools & Methods, Ground Ordnance, Air Ordnance, Improvised Explosive Device, Biological/Chemical Ordnance, Nuclear Ordnance, Weapons of Mass Destruction and Underwater Ordnance for Navy students only. All DoD services, as well as international military (from 91 countries), send trainees through the course with a new class beginning every three days. More than 1,600 personnel graduated the EOD School in the last two years.