Dyess Air Force Base, Texas -- Bomb suits, Man Transportable Robot System II Robots and explosions recently occupied Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, as Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians from multiple bases across Air Force Global Strike Command came together for a competition.
The 7th Civil Engineer Squadron Explosive Ordnance Disposal Flight hosted the third annual AFGSC EOD Team of the Year competition from Oct. 18 – 22, 2021, at Dyess AFB. Each EOD team consisted of a team leader and two team members.
“This competition is an important event because it validates our core missions and tasks,” said John Medina, 7th CES EOD team leader. “Practicing and honing our skills enables us to become more prepared when we perform any of these tasks in the real-world.”
There were 14 events where each team was tested on all mission sets that focused on conventional munitions, improvised explosive devices, countering weapons of mass destruction, unexploded explosive ordnance recovery operations, irregular warfare, physical fitness assessments and EOD specific tools.
Subject matter experts within the EOD career field were used to administer the competition and evaluate teams on five of their nine core mission areas and over 150 career field education and training plan tasks.
“This was a great learning experience for the younger Airmen to allow them to see a lot of new techniques through different scenarios and learning different ways to think through situations,” said Airman 1st Class Paris Permenter, 2nd CES EOD team member. “This also drive back on the fundamentals of our career field to set us up for success in the future.”
The camaraderie within the EOD career field enables the Airmen to work closely with each other and strengthen their skillsets in every scenario.
“Being able to look at the various tasks we need to accomplish from the perspectives of other people has definitely helped myself and others improve our overall operations knowledge,” Permenter said. “Sometimes you can get tunnel vision over doing the same thing over and over, then getting a different perspective during competitions like this will make us better when performing our job in the field.”
U.S. Air Force EOD members continuously train to detect, disarm and dispose of explosive threats in the various environments throughout the world. Competitions like this allow the Airmen to strengthen their abilities to respond to a multitude of situations anytime, anywhere.
“We always train how we fight, and it’s imperative for us to be ready for any scenario that may arise,” Medina said. “The scenarios our members have gone through during this competition are mimicked after real-world scenarios that have happened in the past with some tweaks to coincide with our ever-changing flow of countering and re-countering ourselves with the enemy.”