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thedrifter
03-15-08, 08:04 AM
Navy specialists work to stop roadside bombs

By MELISSA NELSON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CORRY STATION NAVY BASE — Navy Lt. Mark Dye had not seen combat before a helicopter dropped him at the deadliest forward operating base for roadside bomb attacks in northern Iraq.

Twenty-two soldiers from the 101st Airborne at Forward Operating Base McHenry had been killed by improvised explosive devices in the previous seven months.

Other Army units were suffering similar casualties in May 2006 and it was getting worse. Troops were finding an average of 18 roadside bombs a day.

Dye and 300 other shipboard electronics warfare specialists had an urgent task: teach troops how to defuse the bombs by jamming the electronic signals the insurgents used to detonate them.

"They called on a Wednesday and told me I was leaving on Saturday," said Dye, 38, who had spent his career on ships. "It was the right decision. Electronic warfare was our background, what we did for a living."

They called themselves "sand sailors," and they did their job well by reducing IED fatalities at their bases.

Monthly American troop deaths from IEDs have dropped since reaching a high of 90 last May to 17 last month, largely because of their efforts, the military said in awarding Bronze Stars to Dye and others.

Army Capt. Matthew Rapp said soldiers had the jamming equipment, but no one had taught them to use it properly or ensured that it was being taken on patrols until Dye and the other sailors arrived.

"The equipment was being issued in theater and we were expected to take this thing and figure out what makes it work," said Rapp, whose platoon was enduring almost daily roadside bomb blasts. "It was a severe learning curve."

Electronic warfare specialists are trained at the Navy's electronic warfare and cryptological training headquarters at Corry Station.

It's an unassuming base on the outskirts of the more famous Pensacola Naval Air Station, home to the Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team.

"You are not going to see our people on the recruiting posters like you do the pilots," said Capt. Connie Frizzell, who oversees the training. "A lot of what we do is either behind the scenes or behind closed doors."

Increasingly, though, the sailors, who also called themselves the "Narmy," are being recognized for their heroic -- and effective -- efforts to save troops.

One honored was Senior Chief Terry Thomas, an electronic warfare specialist who is scheduled to return to Iraq next month. He was stationed at Forward Operating Base Kalsu in south central Iraq in spring 2006.

IEDs killed 56 soldiers and Marines from Kaslu during his tour, which ended last year, but the military says many more would have died if not for his determination to train troops, maintain equipment and adapt each time the enemy changed tactics.

When Thomas reported, the soldiers and Marines at Kalsu had several pieces of jamming equipment sitting unused.

In some cases, the soldiers took the jamming devices on patrols thinking that it was working when it was not because it had not been properly maintained.

In other cases, they left the equipment behind because they did not want to deal with complicated technology, he said.

"The biggest battle I faced was they didn't understand how it worked," he said. "We conducted the training on how to properly utilize it and made it a way of life."

While unable to describe exact details of the technology due to security reasons, the sailors said it works by "basically providing a protective bubble around a vehicle."

It jams incoming signals and blocks the remote detonation of bombs.

Thomas became the go-to man for soldiers before they left on missions.

"They would come and wake me up at 3 or 4 in the morning if they didn't have that warm, fuzzy feeling that everything was working," he said. "I was everyone's best friend."

Ellie