Backtalk: EOD knights

EOD knights
By George C. Wilson

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — The biggest issue polarizing Congress is the Iraq war.

So I came to this sprawling base on the Florida Panhandle to find out why our uniformed young men and women are volunteering to do the most dangerous job in that war: finding and disarming bombs before they blow up and kill their military buddies and Iraqi civilians.

Their reasons make the so-called debate in Congress look all the more like petty partisanship.

What four Marines told me on their first day of schooling here on how to detect and disarm improvised explosive devices, which inflict 70 percent of the U.S. military casualties in Iraq, typified the views expressed by many other volunteers during interviews here.

They all had a sense of mission that seems to have gone AWOL among the hired hands in Washington.

I asked Marine Sgt. Daniel Murtagh, 21, for example, whether he was afraid of being killed or maimed by an IED that could blow up in his face when he picks it up to disarm it.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/community/opinion/marine_backtalk_eod_071126/



uhc comment: Good article. I recommend you read it.