A bead of sweat trickles down his cheek as the bomb disposal technician kneels beside the makeshift bomb. With wire cutters ready in his hand, he struggles to decide between cutting the red and blue wires. He takes a deep breath and prepares to diffuse the bomb.

 Hollywood has painted a tense and vivid picture of bomb disposal but it pales in comparison to a day in the life of the 944th Civil Engineer Squadron’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal flight.

 Airmen from the flight travelled to Gila Bend March 12 to conduct proficiency training.

 “We go over techniques and procedures as well as general safety during proficiency training,” said Master Sgt. Dave Barrett, 944th CES EOD flight chief. “In the real world, we must decide if the situation requires us to diffuse or render safe the device or if complete disposal is in order. With disposal, we use as much explosives as necessary to get rid of the threat.”

 Gila Bend provides EOD a more favorable training environment than Luke AFB.

 “Coming to Gila Bend allows us to conduct deployment operations in a safe environment far from the general populace,” said Barrett.
The training is more than simply blowing up stuff.

 “It’s great exposure for our new Airmen coming to us fresh from technical school,” said Master Sgt. Guy Gates, 944th CES EOD flight quality assurance.

 
Although proficiency training gives EOD Airmen invaluable experience in a learning environment, other challenges and obligations make it difficult to conduct training more often.

 “Our functional manager would like us to have three weekends (apart from our usual Unit Training Assembly weekends) to conduct training, but with our civilian commitments we can only do this on an annual basis, sometimes twice a year,” said Barrett. “It’s really nice to have these non-UTA weekends and the wing supports us as best they can.”

 At the end of the day, after the proverbial and literal smoke has cleared, the EOD Airmen take pride in a successful mission.

 “Our primary mission is to protect people and property,” Barrett said. “When we see how explosives affect our equipment and we figure out how to protect our people from that, then we know we’ve done our job.”