Dr. Wolff visits EOD School and Memorial

By myadmin on Aug 14, 2012 | 0 comments

While at Eglin AFB, Fla., at the end of July, SAME Executive Director, Robert D. Wolff, Ph.D., P.E., F.SAME, visited the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) School and EOD Memorial. The EOD School trains 76 classes of 25 students each—a class starting every three days. The school has a staff of 189 military and 11 contract instructors. Training is intense, and the EOD mission daunting. The attrition rate varies from 14 percent up to 41 percent.

Our nation should be extremely grateful that young men and women continue to sign up for EOD training and pursue an EOD career. The school has as much realism as is feasible, including defusing munitions and operating the robots that have saved many lives.

After visiting the school, Dr. Wolff went to the EOD Memorial, which honors the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have given their lives as EOD specialists. As a result of the introduction of IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of names on the wall since 2001 is significant.

Each issue of SAME’s magazine, The Military Engineer (TME) honors those who have given their lives in service to our country; names of individuals are listed in the memorial section in “Engineers In Action.” You can find the information online in each issue of TME at www.same.org/tme.