European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - June 19, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Magazine Sis Uro by l Emmett 1�w1s or. I tilt d. Veith left Michael c. Hut examining a rocket wrench a used to remove fuses from bomb. If you Don t do it right by Don Tate staff writer t he face of the old whiskey breathing sergeant was  eyes. That s what they would remember. He really was t looking at them anyway. He seemed to be looking in warder the thing he had to do. Where is it he asked. A Soldier pointed to it the live Shell & big steel baby lying out there in the Earth of Shell pocked Grafe Wohr. Everybody else get Down Way Down. The sergeant turned strode out there alone and keeled beside it. What was going on inside his head nobody knew. But he looked As Calm As can be. It took about 20 minutes. The sergeant took care of the s Teel baby changed its diaper defused it. Rendered it Safe. Got up and left. Maybe in search of another blast of wild Turkey. The Man telling the Story did t know. But he knows he ii never forget the look on that sergeant s face those eyes 30 Odd years ago As he walked out there a one. Than and now it s a line of work not for the shaky of hand. The lain of heart. It s called Eod. Explosive ordnance disposal. Ii Means Boom if you Don t do in right a British team trying to remove an Argentine fired exocet missile irom one of its ships during the falklands action did t do it right Boom. Goodbye team. An american team faced with the same task on the frigate Stark in the persian Gulf recently did in High. At the 20th Eod Del 21st support come in Kaiserslautern a Veteran bomb Buster talks about the work and what in takes to keep from blowing one s career into the next world. Stainless steel nerves help fail Safe logic has value. Master sgt William Veith says there Are six Eod detachments in Europe. Indeed he says there Are Only Aboul b50 Eod specialists in the entire . Army. It is an All Volunteer outfit. Elite. They get incentive pay. They need in. People have never exactly banged Down our doors to join up Veith says with a laugh. He uses the word brotherhood to describe the close Kilness of Eod people. We know each other. We re so Small we slay together for years. The comradeship is. Close. In Many ways. We also know about1 each other. Your reputation precedes you. It s not easy to erase your mistakes. The mistakes erase  his work deals with detecting and identifying All types of hazardous ordnance foreign or Domestic nuclear chemical or biological including anything that s been fired Cut of a tube like a mortar howitzer or big Wunthal s been dropped like a bomb launched guided missile or placed homemade bombs Booby traps grenades then coming up with a plan of attack to Lake the Boom Oul of it. Veith says they do whatever it lakes to save me first properly second. Ever time an Eod team goes of whether it s to dig up a world War ii bomb in a housing area construe lion Sile or Render Safe a truckload of battleship 16-Inch rounds overturned and detonating on a Road it s caller cd an  big i reals to Lile in crowded areas like a bomb in a pm Are Calegory a incidents. As dangerous As it is. They say their work rarely lakes 1ha orm of whal you see on television culling wires and doing hand entries to disarm Tricky devices about 1o blow up in the last split second reality is risky enough without the juggling Nitro on a bumpy Road melodrama but their techniques Are classified because says veil once they terrorists and other adversaries know How we disarm something they devise a counter to in. It s constant Cal and mouse and we have to slay ahead of  because of fasl advancing technology staying ahead requires a suit and a half month raining course and regular refresher courses. Officers and enlisted troops receive the same training Al the same Timo. Eod Peoples talk about their work not As daring Guys having a Blasl but As Cool totally focused professionals dealing with logic problems following a series of Steps that gains them information into the inner Workings of explosive devices. From a to b to c until problems Are solved. Veith 41, has been at it Tor More than 20 years despite his wife s urging him to quit. She does t know Loo much about it. Because i Lead two lives. I Don i take this Job Home with  nor. Because of its sensitivity is it the kind of work one candies about with the boys Over Beers. Back in Eod school the attrition rate was considerable he says students blowing themselves to kingdom come. Fortunately the blowups were simulated raining devices wired Wilh Flash bulbs. Bui in took no great imagination to turn hat pop Inlo a thundering crunch in a student s head. The Lille St survived by the time they got out there doing it live he Odds were very High they would keep on surviving. When a detachment does get burned however the loss of workmates so close is devastating to the others. Veith says emotions of the survivors often go so utterly bloody that the unit has o be reorganized with new people with All his hands on experience this Veteran is asked whether tie work Ever becomes routine just another bomb sure he replies you get confident in your ability but there is no Way to make Zero Hazard out of explosives. Normally something won t go off unless you do something to make it go off. That is. Unless it s timed to go  or it s noted there s a Remote control device and somebody s just waiting for you to go near it to detonate it. Or like the viol Cong were so Apt 3l doing tripping the second explosion a Naif hour after the first blowing up the gathering crowd. Or does Veith Ever get spooked feel his Luck is about to run out you can t depend on Luck in Eod. It la catch up with you so Many of the Accident s. They were doing something not in sync with Eod procedures. Going with Luck. Taking Shor culs. Not taking the  Veith s philosophy is thai you control the things you can and Don t worry about the things you can t tha i s Why people get out o this Field. They let things work on them and work on them. Finally just get so nervous they  once years ago alcoholism was a problem among the old timers Veith acknowledges. Two of my first three senior supervisors were alcoholics. Back then we used to protect them. But we purged ourselves of alcoholics we had to. We had to be very critical of our evaluation of each other. We be come a Long Way in Eod in the last Twenty years. And most of our people Don t quit. They Slick. Thoy like the brotherhood .,." the brotherhood now includes the Sisters to says and the emotional Bond that holds Eod people together is As Strong As Ever. On most jobs in the workaday world Veith says Little goofs Small miscalculations Are allowable. But nol in the Boom business we lend to be perfectionists. I used o try to be a perfectionist at everything. I be Learned you can l do that. You won i last you have to to selective in your  Friday june 19, 1987 the stars and stripes Page 13