2nd Lt. Erich Schnee, 27, of Dayton, Ohio, left, leader of the 3rd Platoon, 84th Engineer Company, 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment, and Staff Sgt. Chester Wall, 34, of Rapid City, S.D., search for buried ordnance after finding a gallon of homemade explosives in Baghdad on Thursday.
Photos by Seth Robson, Stars & Stripes
Combat engineers in Baghdad on the job every day to keep highways, back roads clear
By Seth Robson, Stars & Stripes, Mideast edition
BAGHDAD — Trash, dead animals, concrete blocks and street rubble appear to fascinate soldiers from the 84th Engineer Company, 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment.On daily route-clearance missions, the engineers roll out of Camp Liberty, part of a sprawling complex of bases connected to Baghdad International Airport, and drive for hours paying close attention to what they find by the side of the road.“Was that Coke bottle there yesterday? How about that plastic bag? Is that a piece of wire running out of that hole in the ground? That’s really strange … weird. Let’s grid-reference that lump of concrete. Let’s take a closer look at that piece of half-buried metal,” the soldiers say as they make their way through traffic-clogged urban streets or along dirt back roads in search of roadside bombs.Their missions are one of several measures the Army takes to defeat roadside bombs, which have killed hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq over the past four years.
One of the platoon soldiers, Staff Sgt. Chester Wall, 34, of Rapid City, S.D., did this work when the unit was last in Iraq, in Mosul in 2005.
Back then, the engineers would mount combat patrols and drive 35 to 40 mph searching for roadside bombs. Now, Wall said, route-clearance missions travel at 5 to 10 mph and rely on a mix of Strykers with plows, a Husky observation platform and the Buffalo — a heavily armored vehicle with a robotic arm used to “interrogate” suspected bombs.
Insurgents have gotten better at disguising their bombs, but engineers have gotten better at finding them, Wall said. And when the soldiers spot something suspicious, they can use the Buffalo to roll up to it and use the robotic arm to roll it over or dig it up to see what it is.
“A lot of people think we are crazy, but that’s what combat engineers do,” he said. “It is no different than back in World War II when they cleared with mine detectors, except now we have all this equipment and vehicles.”
Sometimes the bombs explode in front of the Buffalo.
“It isn’t cool. It’s like if you are hit by an NFL linebacker with no pads on,” said Wall, who despite being the victim of one such blast still presses his face close to the Buffalo’s shrapnel-proof windows to get a close look at objects as they are inspected.
The 84th has found eight roadside bombs during two months in Baghdad. Only one has struck the engineers so far — an explosively formed penetrator that shot in front of a Stryker during an Oct. 8 ambush that involved mortars, small arms and a rocket-propelled grenade. The unit killed a three-man enemy RPG team during the encounter, Wall said.
Occasionally, the engineers dismount to inspect things such as ditches and culverts. On this day, Spc. Michael Stevens, 24, of Warren, Mich., climbed out to check inside a drain, crawling into the darkness with a flashlight to see what was down there.
They also dismounted to look for weapons hidden behind berms or in prickly bushes.
During one search, Wall spotted a plastic container filled with what an explosive ordnance disposal team confirmed was homemade explosives. Former Sunni insurgents who have turned against al-Qaida often dump weapons in the area, soldiers said.
But as Wall probed around the explosives for other buried ordnance, an RPG fired from nearby forced the platoon to set up a defensive position while EOD soldiers came to detonate the homemade explosives.
For 30 minutes, Apache attack helicopters circled overhead until the explosives were disposed of.
Second Lt. Erich Schnee, 27, of Dayton, Ohio, the 3rd Platoon leader, said his unit takes its time on route-clearance missions. Thursday’s took seven hours.
“This is what engineers do out here. We go out and clear routes nice and slow and make sure they are safe for coalition forces,” he said.
The explosives find was a small but satisfying one, he said.
“It wasn’t a huge find, but we feel like we could possibly have saved someone’s life today,” he said.
Third Platoon, 84th Engineer Company, 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment leader 2nd Lt. Erich Schnee and Staff Sgt. Chester Wall take cover after a rocket-propelled grenade was fired near their patrol in Baghdad on Thursday.
Third Platoon, 84th Engineer Company, 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment search for weapons caches in Baghdad on Thursday.
Spc. Michael Stevens, 24, of Warren, Mich. and the 84th Engineer Company, 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment, searches the inside of a drain pipe in Baghdad on Thursday.
A homemade explosive found by 3rd Platoon, 84th Engineer Company, 2nd Cavalry (Stryker) Regiment is detonated safely on Thursday.
