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UXOs rise from depths, destroyed

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Nathan Gallahan
  • 407th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
ALI BASE, Iraq --  A six-Airman Explosive Ordnance Disposal team with an additional six augmentees began searching through 159 acres of unexploded ordnance fields here this week.

The team is looking for any type of dangerous items, from UXOs to shrapnel that could be mistaken as UXOs.

"The number one reason we do this is for safety on the flight-line," said Master Sgt. Curtis Keel, 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron EOD flight chief, deployed from Kirtland AFB, N.M. "It protects construction crews building or maintaining facilities as well as aircraft arriving and departing the area."

On March 26, the team detonated 13 piles of ordnance discovered during their walk the day prior.

"Each pile contains about five or six UXOs around each marker flag," said Staff Sgt. Molly Whitehurst, 407th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron EOD team chief, who is deployed from Kadena AB, Japan.

This isn't the first time an EOD team here has swept the base for dangerous items. When Sergeant Keel, first convoyed here from Kuwait in March, 2003, they spent a month clearing the flight line and base of UXOs.

"After Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein's regime left this place a complete and total mess because it was so far into the no fly zone -- he just abandoned it," he said. "There were blown up vehicles all up and down the runway and all over the roads when we first got here [in 2003]. The place was saturated with debris and unexploded ordnance. We brought 400 pounds of C4 with us, went through that and whatever the British [coalition forces] brought with them in 30 days."

More recently, EOD Airmen swept the base in 2005. According to a briefing presentation last modified in July of that year, the team discovered and cleared hundreds of assorted foreign fuses, rocket warheads and artillery projectiles - to name a few at the 30 separate sites the team cleared.

Some may question why five years in Operation Iraqi Freedom the EOD teams are still discovering more UXOs; Airmen here are walking all over the answer.

"It's the sand," said Master Sgt. Howard Hartz, 407th Expeditionary Medical Squadron bioenvironmental engineering technician, who volunteered to help search through the UXO fields.

"It's constantly moving and shifting here, because of the wind and soft clay underneath," said Sergeant Hartz who is deployed from Niagara Falls Joint Air Reserve Station, N.Y.

"A lot of these items may have been driven into the Earth as far as the water table, and slowly over time they just rise back up," Sergeant Whitehurst said.

"This is a constant ongoing effort," she continued. "Items will keep rising to the surface for years, and by constantly searching for these dangers we hope to one day have this area cleared as much as possible, so when it is turned back over to the Iraqis it will be as safe as we can possibly make it for them."