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What earned him an Army CAB wasn't his 'worst day in Iraq'

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Carolyn Viss
  • 376th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
TRANSIT CENTER AT MANAS, Kyrgyzstan --  "Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!"

These four words, shouted as loudly as possible three times in a row, are very familiar to any explosive ordnance disposal technician. But they carry heavy responsibility for EOD troops about to detonate high-powered explosives.

When James Bennett joined the Air Force at the age of 19, he had no idea he would become one of the first four EOD Airmen to earn an Army Combat Action Badge, but he knew he wanted to join a career field that would be challenging, exciting, and possibly very loud.

"Gunfire doesn't bother me," said Staff Sgt. Bennett, now deployed to the Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan.

His dad and stepmom were both Combat Arms Training and Maintenance instructors; in fact, his stepmom was one of the first female CATM instructors ever.

So, shortly after getting married, joining the Air Force, completing EOD school, and receiving some on-the-job training, then-Airman Bennett deployed to Kuwait.

At just 21, he was the father of a 2-year-old and tasked to defend the fighter, cargo, and coalition aircraft at Ali Al Salem Air Base. And if that wasn't enough responsibility for him to carry, from there he was sent forward to Iraq for a few days to open a new, expeditionary base.

"It was just me, the team chief, and a generator guy - we were the only people on the base, and we only had nine millimeter [hand guns] for defense," Sergeant Bennett remembered.

But it was fun, he said, and when he safely returned to Ali Al Salem, he started taking his job really seriously. Knowing how important fitness and strength are for his job, he started going to the gym regularly, and gained more than 40 pounds of muscle.

"I went from the skinny, scrawny dude I was at 6'1" and 160 pounds to the 200 pounds I am now," Sergeant Bennett said. "I got Airman of the Month; I started teaching security forces Airmen and brand-new civilian contractors how to conduct vehicle searches; and I studied my career development courses," all the while missing his baby boy back in New Mexico.

In his spare time, he played a lot of road racing video games, "which helped me drive in Kuwait," he said with a laugh.

His first deployment ended pretty quietly.

After that, national elections were happening in the U.S., and his team did all the VIP support from August to December, 2004.

"The longest I was home was 10 days," he said.

In September 2005, Senior Airman Bennett was notified on a Tuesday that he was deploying on Friday, and went to Iraq for another six months under Army orders.

It was there that Airman Bennett suffered his first improvised explosive device attack.

"We were rolling up for a post-blast at Army Forward Operating Base Summerall, and our security guys pulled up to the site where the first IED had blown off," he recounted. "The first blast had damaged the HUMVEE enough that they couldn't drive it. I turned around to tell the guys to back up, and an IED on my right hand side went off at 10-15 meters, at the most. Whoever placed it had buried it too deep under the sidewalk, so a little concrete and a little frag with some ringing in the ears were the worst effects."

Then they found another. There were three in the immediate area, actually - a primary, secondary, and tertiary. They were triggered by a radio-controlled device -- a long-range cordless phone.

For their quick reaction skills during incident, Bennett and his comrades were the first Air Force EOD members to earn the Army CAB.

But that wasn't his worst day in Iraq.

"One day, we were down at the vehicle yard. An [Army] logistics girl who drove tow trucks wanted to go out[side the wire] with us, so we agreed," he said.

They went out on a call involving a HUMVEE, a first for the young female Soldier driving behind them, ready to tow whatever they found.

What they found was gruesome. The enemy had placed landmines, with rounds underneath, that set the HUMVEE aflame.

"We put the fire out, but the tires were too hot," Sergeant Bennett said. "They kept re-igniting. We reached in and got the one guy's body out, put it on a tarp, and then we heard a sound far away. We were up on a hilltop, and about 8-10 miles away you could see a smoke cloud.

"A couple minutes later, the radio was crackling, saying we had a follow-on call. We cleared the area with mine detectors, and got the vehicle out. This was that girl's first call, and she had to pull a burned body out [with us]."

On the second call of the day, they showed up and saw a gaping hole, eight by 10 feet, on the top of a canal.

"We saw what was left of a HUMVEE," Sergeant Bennett continued. "From rear axle forward was just blown off, gone. They (the enemy) had buried [hundreds of] pounds of explosives, planning to pop the tank with the long-range cordless telephone. The guy in the turret was cut in half, and the two guys up front were gone."

Only one man survived, and he was in critical condition. Through all this, Bennett never feared for his own life.

"When IEDs go off, it's too quick to be scared, really," he said.

One time, he walked up on an IED just one step away in one of their old blast holes.

"It was white phosphorous," he said. "I ran pretty fast. It's not that I was scared, I just didn't want to be near the IED!"

Part of his fearlessness he attributes to his military lineage. In addition to his dad and stepmom's service, his grandfather was in the U.S. Navy. His uncle, Lt. Col. Tim Bennett, was in the Professional Development Guide for several years for his bravery during the Gulf War, during which, as an F-15 pilot, he took down an enemy helicopter using a Mark 84 bomb.

Sergeant Bennett is now a special-duty training instructor for Combat Airman Skills Training at Lackland Air Force, Texas, where he resides with his wife, Nicole, and his now 8-year-old son, Cory James. He teaches Airmen who are on their way downrange how to survive and operate in a combat environment. This assignment to the 376th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron is his third deployment.

"The camaraderie is cool," Sergeant Bennett said. "In this career field, you recognize almost everyone you see. There aren't a lot of EOD techs in the military, much less the Air Force."

Even the rivalry among different branches cools when he says he's an EOD troop, and because of recent mainstream media even civilians know who they are.

"We get a lot of respect," he attested. "Now we don't have to say 'bomb squad' in order for people to recognize our career field. Our job is to save people's lives."

Saving lives is what gets Sergeant Bennett excited about his career field.

"Taking down the IEDs not only protects others but also means that's one less IED that can kill me," he said. "That's a few less rounds the insurgents have to make another IED. That's one less payment someone's going to receive for killing a person. If we get enough evidence, we can catch the people involved in it, too!"

In his time as an EOD tech, Sergeant Bennett has responded to more than 255 IED calls, saving more than a thousand U.S., coalition, and local national lives. For his actions, he holds two Army commendation medals, an Air Force commendation medal, an achievement medal, and Army and Air Force Combat Action Badges.

"Doing something that saves people's lives gives some meaning to my own," he said.