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thedrifter
12-17-07, 03:25 AM
South Carolinia soldier seeks out Iraq's killer IEDs
By Savannah Morning News
Created 2007-12-17 00:30

AL-ASAD, Iraq - In the helter-skelter of the Iraq war there's a special breed of American who purposely seeks out danger every day, not to take life but to save it.

Among them are the men of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. But they can't do their job unless the mine or bomb is found. And that's where Anthony "Chase" Watson, a South Carolinian from Yemassee in northern Beaufort County, comes into the picture.

Watson, 23, is a member of a route clearance team of the Marine's 1st Combat Engineer Battalion and based at al-Asad in western Anbar province. By choice, he's the point man in a platoon that ferrets out improvised explosive devices.

IED is shorthand for terror. The makeshift bombs, planted in or along roads or packed in vehicles are the signature of al-Qaida terrorists and other insurgents in Iraq or hidden in vehicles

Since the start of the insurgency in 2003, they've killed more than 1,600 Americans - that's more than half of U.S. combat casualties.

No wonder, then, the U.S. military has fielded a number of high-tech and expensive counter-measures to the devices. But the end, it all still comes down to anxious men who must seek them out and destroy them.

"Mentally it doesn't bother me a lot, but my awareness certainly goes up" when out on a mission, said Pvt. Anthony "Chase" Watson. But "if you're afraid to do the job, you shouldn't be here."

Watson drives a vehicle called a Husky, which looks like an outsized, armor-plated dune buggy, His job is to drive slowly - sometimes just 10 to 30 mph - along the sides of roads. He uses visual abilities and highly sensitive and adjustable electronic sensors to find and mark mines for dismantling by other team members. They, in turn, use a larger Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected vehicle that has a huge hydraulic to dig out IEDs and cut their wires or crush their detonators if possible.

Watson says he was at first assigned to drive the behemoth Buffalo but chose the Husky because he "wanted to do things without people behind me, telling me what to do."

The Husky is a cramped, one-man vehicle.

Ideal candidate

By temperament, he appears ideal for the job - steady, focused, controlled.

He doesn't go into much detail, but it's clear he might not have always displayed those traits. At Wade Hampton High School, he was less than stellar academically. After graduation, he was "going nowhere fast, and I didn't want to end up in prison one day."

"Hanging with a bad crowed?" he was asked.

"You could say that," he deadpanned.

Like so many young men before him over the years, Watson decided to join the service to straighten out his life out and get a grip on a future. For Watson, he envisages a college education on the GI Bill when his enlistment ends and later a career as a graphic designer.

Meanwhile in Iraq, Watson's finding and marking explosive devices means he rolls right up to them, locates the device's center with sensors and then marks them with ink from a sprayer mounted under the elongated front of the Husky. A trailer sometimes is attached to the rear of the Husky to set off any mines the eyes and sensors missed.

If a Husky does set off an explosive device, it's designed so the front or rear portions of the vehicle absorb the blast and detach from the cab.

Watson has so far avoided the experience. A friend wasn't so lucky, but he suffered no serious injury from the incident.

"These hulls are designed to withstand a blast," Watson said.

Other mine-detection vehicles used by the battalion include the Cougar and the Buffalo, which look like gigantic boxes on wheels. The four-wheeled version of the Cougar is more than 19 feet long and has a curb weight of 32,000 pounds. The Buffalo is more than 6 feet longer than the Cougar and weighs in at more than 43,000 pounds. The Cougar carries the engineering crew, while the Buffalo not only carries team members but also is equipped with the de-mining arm.

"We've gotten a reputation, I guess," said Lt. Trevor Holmes, Watson's platoon leader. People keep asking for us to do stuff for them, so we keep pretty busy."


Active in Anbar

Nearly every day, Watson and his comrades are on the main roads that cross Area of Operations Denver in western Anbar.

"The first eight hours (of a mission), you're all pumped up,' Watson said. "But the last four, you can't wait for it to end."

On a recent short mission just outside al-Assad, the hub of U.S. military operations in the region, Watson drove and his comrades moved slowly down a main highway. Watson was up front on the right-hand side of the road, his Husky slightly on the tarmac, the rest of the vehicle on the verge.

A second Husky was on the other side.

Following down the middle of the road were the Cougars, a Buffalo and a truck to cart away any damaged or destroyed vehicle.

The paved ribbon through the desert was nearly deserted and the Marines riding as passengers in the air-conditioned Buffalo amused themselves with tall tales and statistical trivia, such as a beam of sunlight taking eight minutes to reach Earth, and that a person will spend an average of four hours of his life tying his shoelaces.

Several times the convoy stopped abruptly. One of the Huskys either got a warning ping off its console, or they were checking out a suspicious object, an unusual patch of freshly turned earth or a small pile of trash.

"It gets a little hectic the minute the detector lets out a high-pitched squeal," Watson said. "That's when I stop the convoy - fast."

Nothing dangerous was found on the patrol, however.


Urban suspicions

In villages and towns, the Marines grew quieter, scanning the streets for unusual behavior or situations, such as people moving away quickly, a suspicious vehicle, or a street being deserted when it shouldn't be.

The vehicles are so large they have difficulty maneuvering the narrow roadways of settlements without having to do at least one three-point turn, which leaves them more vulnerable to attack while doing so.

But despite the new set of factors in populated areas that day, the patrol sounded horns in greeting and tossed candy to children along the streets.

Then it was back out on the highway, back to business - tedious but essential life-protecting business - with Watson out front.

Ellie