thedrifter
03-17-08, 07:03 AM
Published - March, 17, 2008
News
The Navy's electronics experts teaching Army to disarm IEDs
Melissa Nelson
Associated Press
Navy Lt. Mark Dye hadn't 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 Army's 101st Airborne at Forward Operating Base McHenry had been killed by improvised explosive devices in the previous seven months. Other 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 (for Iraq) 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. It was a severe learning curve," said Rapp, whose platoon was enduring almost daily roadside bomb blasts.
Electronic warfare specialists are trained at the Navy's electronic warfare and cryptological training headquarters here 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 and the initial training base for generations of Naval aviators, including U.S. Sen. John McCain and Pensacola Mayor John Fogg.
"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 Petty Officer 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, believing that they were working when they were not because of improper maintenance. In other cases, they left the equipment behind because they didn't want to hassle 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."
To convince the battle-hardened soldiers and Marines that the equipment could work, Thomas and Dye had to leave the relative safety of their bases and go on regular patrols with the troops into the surrounding towns.
"I'm not used to being that close to the bad guy," Thomas said. "The electronics, I understand that. The Army, they are used to putting bullets down range and seeing the results of what bullets do."
On Dye's first night outside of the base, his convoy hit a cluster of roadside bombs and the jamming technology stopped the chain-reaction explosion. Part of the first vehicle was hit, but no one was injured.
It was the first in a series of successes that led the troops to rely on the technology.
But the enemy always adapted, sometimes using simpler devices. Insurgents began placing various types of bombs common in Vietnam and World War II that detonate when stepped on or driven over.
"The only way you are going to be able to defeat it is to see it," Thomas said.
At Dye's base, he worked with the Army to increase the rate of discovering roadside bombs from 52 percent to 92 percent.
Despite the enemy's ability to adapt, both men believe the military is getting a handle on IED deaths by forcing insurgents to go back to more rudimentary technology.
"It was at first a situation where you just don't know what you don't know. Navy EOD (explosive ordnance disposal teams) were over there every day, but no one considered (blocking) the source that was actually detonating the bomb," Dye said.
But the 78 soldiers and Marines from their bases who died in roadside bomb explosions during their deployments provide a grim statistic that proves the job is not done, the men said.
"I took every death very personally. There's a competitive nature in me and that's my job, to save them from IEDs. If an IED got through, I lost," Dye said.
Ellie
News
The Navy's electronics experts teaching Army to disarm IEDs
Melissa Nelson
Associated Press
Navy Lt. Mark Dye hadn't 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 Army's 101st Airborne at Forward Operating Base McHenry had been killed by improvised explosive devices in the previous seven months. Other 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 (for Iraq) 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. It was a severe learning curve," said Rapp, whose platoon was enduring almost daily roadside bomb blasts.
Electronic warfare specialists are trained at the Navy's electronic warfare and cryptological training headquarters here 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 and the initial training base for generations of Naval aviators, including U.S. Sen. John McCain and Pensacola Mayor John Fogg.
"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 Petty Officer 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, believing that they were working when they were not because of improper maintenance. In other cases, they left the equipment behind because they didn't want to hassle 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."
To convince the battle-hardened soldiers and Marines that the equipment could work, Thomas and Dye had to leave the relative safety of their bases and go on regular patrols with the troops into the surrounding towns.
"I'm not used to being that close to the bad guy," Thomas said. "The electronics, I understand that. The Army, they are used to putting bullets down range and seeing the results of what bullets do."
On Dye's first night outside of the base, his convoy hit a cluster of roadside bombs and the jamming technology stopped the chain-reaction explosion. Part of the first vehicle was hit, but no one was injured.
It was the first in a series of successes that led the troops to rely on the technology.
But the enemy always adapted, sometimes using simpler devices. Insurgents began placing various types of bombs common in Vietnam and World War II that detonate when stepped on or driven over.
"The only way you are going to be able to defeat it is to see it," Thomas said.
At Dye's base, he worked with the Army to increase the rate of discovering roadside bombs from 52 percent to 92 percent.
Despite the enemy's ability to adapt, both men believe the military is getting a handle on IED deaths by forcing insurgents to go back to more rudimentary technology.
"It was at first a situation where you just don't know what you don't know. Navy EOD (explosive ordnance disposal teams) were over there every day, but no one considered (blocking) the source that was actually detonating the bomb," Dye said.
But the 78 soldiers and Marines from their bases who died in roadside bomb explosions during their deployments provide a grim statistic that proves the job is not done, the men said.
"I took every death very personally. There's a competitive nature in me and that's my job, to save them from IEDs. If an IED got through, I lost," Dye said.
Ellie