Being A Bomb Disposal Specialist
What is a bomb disposal specialist?
Well basically, we render safe items of explosive ordnance. So everything from a sort of a criminal or a crank device that someone's rustled up in their garden shed. Right the way through to a sort of conventional piece of ordnance like mines and Second World War bombs. And then right the way through to the sort of the business and the high end of it which is counter-terrorist bomb disposal which is everything from a sort of a small shoe box sized device. Right the way through to a large sort of car bomb or something like that.
Who do bomb disposal specialists work for?
You have them across the entire armed forces; the Army, Navy and Air Force have them for example, but they all have different responsibilities. So the Air Force tend to focus on aircraft bombs convention ordinance. The Navy on maritime ordinance and anything where they've got to go dive for it and search divers and clearance and that sort of stuff. And then in the Army there are sort of two different branches if you like the royal engineers will do mines and second world war devices predominately. And the Royal Logistic core which I belong to focus on counter terrorist bomb disposal the sort of terrorist devices, but then also the sort of high end things like nuclear devices as well and that sort of stuff, so really we cover the whole gambit really.
What is the composition of an army disposal team?
What we have, the composition of the bomb disposal team, the way it works: There's a Number One, Operator, which would be myself, and then a Number Two, who's normally an enlisted soldier, who's a Corporal, usually, who is aspiring to become an actual Counter-Terrorist Bomb Disposal Operator. And the Number Two's role is really to prepare all the equipment, to command the incident control point when you leave it and go forward to deal with the bomb, and really make sure everything is cohesive, everyone is working together, and everyone knows what they are doing. So, he's the Chief of Staff, almost really, while you're doing the business down at the business end. He's watching you; he knows the language, knows the other technicalities, so that one day he's going to be stepping into your shoes. But if something goes wrong down there, his role is to come down and organize the rescue of you, but his role isn't to go and do bomb disposal itself, because you're the only person qualified to do that. They would call in another operator, if necessary, to go and deal with the bomb. And then in terms of the rest of the team, you've basically got a Counter-Measures Specialist, who deals with all the electronic side and focuses on everything required to stop the bomb from being able to function remotely. You've then got a series of Infantry escorts and their role is basically to provide the immediate security of your team. When I would walk down to a device, there would be what we would call a tactical boundary behind, 20 or 30 metres behind, and they would eventually peel off and go into fire positions and cover my back while I was down at the business end doing the actual neutralization of the bomb itself. So, it's very much a team effort. Everyone has a role to play; everyone mucks in, but the only person that is actually allowed to render safe a device is the Operator. Although, the Number Two does control the wheelbarrow robots and actually press the button that fires it and all that sort of stuff as well.
How many armed forces bomb disposal experts are there in the UK?
Basically, there's a dozen detachments around the UK that have got high-threat counter-terrorism bomb disposal operators. And then there's also about another half a dozen Royal Air Force and Navy detachments spread around the UK as well that can support and can be called to deal with a lower-level incident, or certainly provide a first response to any incident. And then, if it was something that was beyond their particular skill set, they would then call in a high-threat operator to come in and support them. But there's probably about close to 20 detachments around the UK capable of dealing with incidents, bombs and the like. And then, really, it would be a sort of graduated response, depending on the severity of that device.
Which training was harder, Sandhurst or the subsequent bomb disposal training?
Sandhurst training is very physical. It's intellectually demanding as well, but big emphasis on the physical side of things. Lots and lots of living out in the field, lots and lots of speed marches and runs and physical exercise. They try to put the pressure on you. It's very difficult to simulate the pressures of combat unless you physically practice combat. You can't do that in a training environment because it's far too dangerous, and people would obviously get killed. So the way they simulate the pressures of that, in order to test someone's leadership ability, are to deprive them of sleep, make sure they're exhausted. That's when you see the true caliber of a person. So they do so much physical exercise and so much... not sleep deprivation, as in standing on your tiptoes with water dripping in the background and that sort of stuff. But physically, you're constantly on-the-go all day long. And when you're not on military exercise or military maneuvers, you're learning how to shine boots and iron all your kit and that sort of stuff. So that's one type of demand, and it's quite challenging. But the bomb disposal side of it... everyone's a captain when they go there as well, so they're fairly experienced officers anyway. But it's very much an academic environment. It's very practical as well. There are over 200 exams; I think you can fail three exams before you're kicked off the course. You're constantly doing this cramming where you're learning as much information as you can to try and pass the exam. Then you almost discard that, temporarily, and then you learn for the next exam. What you find is that the teaching is very, very good. Because, years later, something that you thought was complete nonsense and had no idea why you were being taught it, someone would ask you about it. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it would come to the forefront of your mind again and you'd be able to give a sensible answer about it. So it obviously works. But two very different sort of challenges, one mostly physical with a bit of academia and a bit of intellectual demand, and the other one, very much intellectual with a bit of physical.
Why did you become a bomb disposal specialist?
I guess I joined the army at 16. I had done a series of different jobs. And they were all fairly interesting. I joined as a Russian linguist to start with, and I was the world's worst linguist. I was absolutely terrible. And I managed to sort of scrape through, but I was never going to be any good at it. It was never going to catch on. Unfortunately, the Cold War, and the Berlin Wall had just collapse anyway, so being a Russian linguist at the time really wasn't the way forward. So it was great. One way or another, I decided that wasn't the career for me. Then I went to Sandhurst, and it was really when I was at Sandhurst. I was going to join either the parachute regiment or, potentially, someone else. And it was then that I saw this demonstration of a counter terrorist bomb disposal operation. I just thought, I was absolutely fixated. I thought, this is fascinating. And from that point on, I was hooked, and decided that's it. Finally I've had my calling. I know what I want to do. That was it.
What type of person makes a good bomb disposal specialist?
They are looking for people that aren't these sort of crazy arse risk takers, that people would think synonymous with bomb disposal. But not only they are looking for people too of frightened step out of the front door in the morning.They are trying to find someone who has got a balance. Not the sort of people who are into adrenaline sports, base jumping and that sort of stuff. But certainly people that perhaps might try a bit of freefall parachuting, a lot of people have motor bikes for example, a lot of people rock climb. People who like a bit of a challenge but not too rock and roll. And once they've found this sort of people, they then look at their ability to come up with logical solutions to problems. They look at people who necessarily find the logical solution to the problem, and if there isn't a logical solution that sort of stands out, then someone who is able to sort of find the Plan B and say, “Well, OK, that is not going to work” and very, very quickly be able to find another solution without throwing their teddy in the corner and getting all upset about it and start ranting and raving because obviously as soon as you start ranting and raving, then everything goes horribly, horribly wrong. So, I think that's basically what they are looking for -- someone who is fairly intelligent who likes to take calculated risk but not really stupid risks and who can generally find a logical way around a problem.
Where have you served with the Army?
I started off in the Royal Signals and joined the Army when I went to Harrogate, to the Army Apprentice College up in Yorkshire. I had two very fine years there and then just went to a series of other postings and operational tours. And operationally I served in the last seventeen-and-a-half years in the Balkans, in Colombia, in Iraq, in Afghanistan and a couple of other cheeky places as well. And in terms of postings I've sort of been posted on the coast, I've been posted in London. But the main headquarters for bomb disposal in Didcot in Oxfordshire which isn't the most beautiful of towns you know with the big powerstation there, but its there because its quite central. You obviously can cover the whole UK base from that. So in terms of UK postings that's where I've been, and in several different countries around the world as well.
What was it like trying to maintain a relationship whilst in the army?
When we first met I was going through my training and therefore she had an idea of what the job was all about but a very rough idea. And you don't expect someone to have that intensity, that level of intensity, when it come to operations. Dealing with bombs is one thing -- getting shot during an ambush is an entirely different thing. But also the whole emotional side as well, it doesn't matter how hard you try. EOD, Explosive Ordinance Disposal, is also known as Everyone's Divorced. I think part of that problem is the sort of emotional detachment and the fact that you can't just phone up or Lucy could never phone me. There was no way of just phoning me up. So if there is a drama or a problem those people we leave behind just have to deal with it and don't get to bounce the idea off their nearest and dearest or their husband or wife. So that's hard in itself. The other problem, of course, is that when you have a phone call you might have twenty minutes if you're lucky. Invariably, you queue for an hour and find that the person's not in or something like that. But there is only so much information you can get across in twenty minutes and it almost becomes a briefing where you tell each other the important things, what bills need paying or where do I find xyz in the house, because I have lost it or mislaid it, I need to know, I need to pay this bill. And then yeah by the way how are you? Yeah not bad. Beep beep beep. That's the end of the call and you don't actually talk about any of the really important stuff, on both sides. And then we got, when I got back home it took quite a long time to get to know one another again and to get used to being in the same house and living together again and loving each other again.
You were ambushed whilst in Iraq, what went through your head when this happened?
An ambush is designed to kill everybody. And it seems very unnatural, because all you want to do is crawl into the foot well of the vehicle, when actually what you've got to do is actually sit there and start shooting back at people. And just pray to God that the person driving doesn't get shot and killed so that he can keep driving. And everyone else around you is going to be shooting and putting down as much effective fire as possible. And you just pray to God that a) you get out of there alive, and b) probably more importantly, the whole team gets out of there. Because what happened was this - initially there was only six of us that got out. It was terrible. You go from this feeling of complete elation that you've just survived something so incredibly dangerous, and you have no idea how you've all managed to survive it. And then you have this gut wrenching feeling where you realize that you haven't all survived it, and two are still left behind. And it's like, oh my goodness, you know. And then you think, well we're going to have to go back and get them. Because you think, there's no way I can physically look their family in the eyes and say to them with my hand on my heart, "I did everything I could." Even though you know that going back is suicidal and that they probably wouldn't expect you to go back, because they'd know it was suicidal. You still know in your heart of hearts, you have to look them in the face and say, "I'm sorry. I didn't do everything I could. I could've given my own life and tried to rescue them." And that's exactly what we were all going to do in the end, crucially and ultimately. But then we didn't need to, because they came driving out stuck in second gear with their lights off looking rather startled!
You contemplated returning to the ambush to help your colleagues, was that the right thing to do?
You fight for your mates and everything else but you know there's always this balance of risk and you now what you would try and do is keep some eyes on, you know go into a running point, perhaps put in an observation post and keep some eyes on and you call in for some support. But we didn't have any communications equipment that worked you know, don't get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with the equipment but I think it was probably being jammed because you know everything was working for the rest of the day. It was working as we started the journey, then as soon as we got into the ambush area suddenly it stopped working you know and there were no bullet holes in it you know so whatever happened to it, it didn't physically work when it counted. So we were sort of stuck there with no communications with the outside world. And six of us, and even if we did go back in two would have had to stay with the vehicles. Because driving back here would have been absolutely suicidal you know. So there were just all these other facts that were going through our minds really, really quickly as well. And then you start thinking well, ok I saw a car coming across from the other route you know we're going have to do something to that. There's people with rocket propane, were going to have to neutralize those immediately and there's the guys with the machine guns, there going to have to get it too. And you just sort of prioritizing who you are going to have to go in there and ultimately give the good news to before you go and get your guys out. So it was a nice sort of relieving moment when they came out and we thought yeah we never have to put our coach to the test.
What was the most shocking thing you saw whilst in Iraq?
The clash of the civilizations to use the very unfashionable term, but just the difference in our cultures, and the difference in cultures within Iraq itself. I think to sort of say, well the Muslims do this, and we don't. We, as what? We are British, and we've got Muslims in Britain, and I can guarantee those good Muslims in Britain wouldn't do that sort of thing either. It was very much a cultural, even a tribal thing, and some of the ways they behaved was just absolutely an athema to anything I've ever seen or experienced. There was one particular shocking incident where I saw, we'd just dealt with a device under a bridge, and there was a lady, sort of doing her washing, hanging out her washing in the back garden, and her hijab slipped, slightly revealing her face. We all sort of looked at her because she was incredibly beautiful. We'd not seem someone dressed in a burqa before, with the whole hijab coming down, and this beautiful heart shaped face, and these beautiful piercing brown eyes. We sort of all stared, without really thinking about it, wasn't in this sort of lecherous way, it was just, we're in the middle of the desert, and suddenly there's this beautiful woman there. It wasn't a sexual thing either, she wasn't dressed in a sexual, provocative way, shed just had this beautiful face that we not really seen any female Iraqis like this before. Her husband saw this, and just went absolutely apoplectic, and started laying into her, and started beating her. I was thinking to myself, this really, really, isn't right, I need go in there; I need to weigh it in there. I didn't, and the guys were saying, “Come on boss, we need to do something“, and we didn't because I told them not to, and eventually we noticed she revealed she was pregnant. I felt incredibly, incredibly, bad about it. Went back and spoke to the other boys, because they really weren't talking to me after about it, and I think most of us were fairly shocked by what we saw, it's fair to say. I went back and told the boys a story about a British infantry patrol the year previously, who had been patrolling through Bazaar, and just outside the area of the palace, where the Sunni area was. They'd spoken to this young eleven year old, girl, chatted to her, nothing improper or untoward, and her father had seen this, came outside, grabbed her, dragged her in the house, and beat her. You could hear her screams from outside, and the guys were incensed by this. The next day they went past, and saw him, and gave him a bit of summary justice. The way he responded to that beating was to go and grab his daughter and cut her throat to protect his honor. I explained this to the guys. I said, “We just can't, we're not here to play judge and jury, there's nothing we can do about this. We just have to except that our cultures are totally different, and there's thing that happen here that would ever happen back home, but we're not here to change the way they live and tell them what's right and what's wrong'. Although personally, whilst I would never dream of telling someone their religion is right or wrong, I still can't see how any tribe, or culture, or religion can accept that sort of behavior to defend someone honor. It's just astonishing.
What is the most dangerous situation you have been in?
A car bomb had been placed out specifically to target me. It had been booby trapped, placed outside a hospital, they were expecting me to go down there to do it by hand. But instead of going and doing it by hand, I actually evacuated the patients to the back of the hospital to move them out of danger, and then sent out the robots, and popped the boot with the robots. At that point the car exploded about three hundred kilos of high explosive. Afterward I just thought "This is getting silly now." It was the third time they had tried to target me. It was getting too much by that stage. So that was a bit dangerous, I suppose, yeah.
Did your wife realise how much danger you had been in whilst in Iraq?
When I wrote the book, there were bits that I'd told Lucy about but they tended to be the same bits that I'd sort of referred to. And it was when I'd write a chapter and I'd always read to it to Lucy to ask her thoughts and how it sounded, et cetera, et cetera. And there were times she'd just sit there crying, saying I didn't realize that had happened, I didn't realize you'd gone through this. And there's the bits as well where I talk about the relationship between the two of us and the conversations we'd had and tried to sort of capture those conversations accurately as they happened. And that again is quite an emotional thing as well, when the two of you are talking through it and reliving those arguments and reliving those difficult times as well. It was a really cathartic experience. It was a brilliantly, very emotional, but a really great release as well, which is great because I think that's why people have all sorts of post-traumatic stress and things like that because they just don't get a chance to talk about it or get it out of their system. And writing a book is obviously a brilliant way because you spend a lot of time getting it out of your system as you're tapping away at the keyboard.
What is it like being in a warzone?
Being in a warzone, it's very surreal actually but you actually adapt to it incredibly quickly. You can go from being in a normal town or city in the UK where you worry about what you're going to have for dinner tonight, or what you've got to do, clearing your e-mail in-box, that sort of stuff, your day-to-day sort of humdrum life activity. And you sort of go out for a drive in the car or something, you're going from A to B and someone cuts you up and you get really sort of irate about it; the normal sort of everyday things that happen in life. And then suddenly you get moved out of there and you go to a Third World country that's the absolute pits, where they don't have running water, they don't have electricity, or the sewage is piled up on the side of the roads, or the buildings are sort bombed out, people are begging on the streets, or they've reverted to crime to try to survive. And it's just absolute one extreme to the other. You go from a completely developed society to a completely undeveloped society. So you've got the physical landscape itself that's highly alien to what you're used to back home. But you actually adapt to that very, very quickly within a matter of hours or days, quite sort of quick. And then you've got the fact that every time you go out of the gates, even when you're in the compound, you've always got the threat of mortars and rockets. But certainly, when you physically leave those gates, you're switching from full off to full on and your senses are totally alert. And everywhere you drive, you're looking around you for threats, you're looking for people who might be throwing stones or hand grenades at you, people who might be shooting you, you're looking for areas of disturbed earth or the absence of the normal and the presence of the abnormal. Anything at all that looks really, really surreal, or out of place, or just not quite right, where they might be a roadside bomb, or a car that's randomly parked, basically displaying signs of being a car bomb or something; it's weighted down its axles, that sort of thing. And the whole time you're out there you're just constantly immersed in the possible threats that are facing you and the team before you even get to what it is you're going to do, whether you're going to go and get a resupply of equipment or whether you're going to go and deal with a bomb. So it's kind of a really strange experience, really, very, very high pressure. But on the flip side, the banter and the camaraderie is very extreme as well. So lots and lots of piss taking and nobody actually gets to take themselves seriously because as soon as they try doing it they get a relentless torrent of abuse from everybody else. And eventually, you either fight it, which is a futile effort or you just got with it and let it break you and then burst into laughter, which is what happens. So there's this kind of black humor, and this extreme sort of camaraderie and banter that goes on that compensates for the extremes of pressure and fear, in some cases, as well.
When you are on duty, are you on call 24-7?
24/7, yeah, and usually a week at a time but maybe as much as 4 weeks in a straight month. But yeah, 24 hours a day on immediate notice to move, so you literally-- you've got to have taken a tasking message, and you've got to be out in the gates on blue lights screaming down the motorway, within sort of 10 minutes. So it's a very, very quick turn amount.
How often can you be called out for bomb disposals in the UK?
I used to be based in the southeast of England. There would be all sorts of people who would go walking in the summer and you'd find that as the earth got churned up by the farmers ploughing the fields or just the way the earth moves naturally, Second World War shells would sort of resurface to the top. Builders when they are preparing the foundations on new building sites would find old Second World War bombs and the like so you'd constantly on a daily basis be called out to something. We also had all the ports there as well so the aggregate yards would trudge in old shells and ammunitions that had been dumped in the sea and things like that and you'd have to go and get and toss those. Then you would of course get criminal devices and occasionally in the UK, terrorist devices, so there was always a lot to do and I guess we would be called out on average about five times a week. I remember one day getting asked five times in a day, literally one task after another, after another, around again in the southeast of England.
How often were you called out for bomb disposals tasks in Iraq or Afhghanistan?
In Iraq and Afghanistan, you could go out to several jobs in one day. Then you could actually have two or three days of nothing. For us it averaged about one incident a day. Of course, they were always quite cheeky incidents at the very high end.
How do you deal with suicide bombers?
It's a very very complex subject, but effectively what you have is a human element delivering a bomb and people who are usually perceive their situations to be desperate. Desperate people facing overwhelming odds, and if you look in any period in history where suicide tactics has been used, these people are desperate; they're usually brainwashed or so convinced that what their doing is the way to go, there's no way to negotiate with them. Negotiation doesn't work. So usually the only option is lethal force. Suicide bombers have back up radio control, backup timers, and they have what's called a third-eye. A handler who's actually watching them, and if that mission is compromised in any way; If they're interdicted by security forces, that third eye will detonate the device remotely, or if they're shot they'll be in a backup tone that will run down and detonate anyway. So it's very very complicated, and you have to use lethal force and when you go in there if the public is physically there in proximity to the device you've got to physically go in there and neutralize the device by hand and evacuate the public and it's very very difficult to do the whole mechanics of it. Incredibly complicated. So you know. It's a hard one all you can do really is for force, and you got to learn all about suicide devices and how to get in there neutralize them. So one of the jobs I did we spent pretty much two years solidly doing nothing but practicing dealing with suicide devices and we were going to be the UK's response if there was a suicide bomber intelligence driven operation, but during my time it didn't actually happen.
Have you sustained many injuries during your service?
I've got quite a few scars and bumps. I've got very dodgy knees now from parachuting. I had all my toes broken last year as a result of an old injury in the course of a coring of the toes. And I've got a scar from a bullet hole in my shin as well from the ambush that night. But other than that I'm absolutely fine.
