Most Dangerous Job In The World?

Movie Seeks to put a Human Face on Unit that Dismantles IEDs

(CBS)  In seven plus years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than five thousand American servicemen and women have been killed. The toll would certainly be much higher, were it not for a group of volunteers with a special brand of courage as CBS News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts reports.

Improvised Explosive Device attacks have killed more than 2,300 Americans and injured nearly 23,000.

Timothy Colomer suffered head and spine injuries when his vehicle ran over an IED in Iraq.

"We were blown up. It knocked us all out. Everybody in the vehicle was knocked out. However after a few minutes, we regained consciousness and we continued on with the mission," said Timothy Colomer, USMC retired.

Colamer made his living as a Marine Corp E.O.D. tech, or Explosive Ordinance Disposal technician.

His job? Dismantle bombs before they explode.

According to the Pentagon, it's a certainty: the casualty numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been much higher if not for the E.O.D. technicians.

"I did over two hundred calls but I know that I disarmed over 150 bombs," said Colomer.

It's the life of an E.O.D. tech that's told in gripping and often graphic detail in the movie "The Hurt Locker."

For Information on the "The Hurt Locker" Movie Click Here

Director Kathryn Bigelow said she wants to put a human face on the E.O.D. techs, and see "their heroism and their bravery and their courage and perhaps, the cost of that heroism."

At least seven E.O.D. Techs have been killed in action this year. Dozens more injured. It's dangerous work that "60 MINUTES" will document from Afghanistan next fall.

Journalist Mark Boal was embedded with an E.O.D. Team in Iraq. After he returned he said what he saw would make a great movie.

"You have to have the physical ability to wear the bomb suit," said Boal. "Even more importantly, they have to have a mind set that enables them to be calm under extreme stress."

Stress Timothy Colomer knows all too well.

"It's just like playing roulette. You really don't know when they are going to pop up or where they are going to pop up. But eventually one is going to go off one is going to detonate either injure or kill somebody," said Colomer.

Colomer, like every other bomb tech, volunteered for the job. It's not about the adrenaline rush or Hollywood he says. It's about saving lives.

"Until this war you could even argue that a lot of people in the military didn't know E.O.D. existed and then all of a sudden they became one of the most critical units in the war because of the role that they play," said Boal.

The movie gets its title from an old E.O.D expression. Get too close to the explosion, and you might end up in "The Hurt Locker."

[zenia2000]

There's a good thing that we are all entitle to our opinion since we live in the USA. My husband is an EOD Tech in the Air Force. This has been his job for the last 17 years. He has been deployed over 11 times to places like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and now Afghanistan. He has seen fellow EOD Techs die trying to disable IEDs on supply routes. Before the war EOD Techs were unknown; now many lives depend on them or have been save by them. No one likes the war, in particular the family memebers of those serving. For an EOD family like mine the worries double, not only because of the war but because we know that our love one is not trying to duck and cover when it encounters an IED but because they tend to it whether it exploded or not. For your information "mcintoshlou" an EOD Tech has more training and education that you can imagine. I do believe that staying in school and having a degree is important; but I also know that not just anyone is cutout for this job. My children and I are very proud of my husband and what he do. I know he is doing his job and making sure that others are safe while doing their jobs. So next time you want to make a comment like "'WAR MONGER' PROPAGANDA" or "stay in school", "big deal"; remember that there is more to it than what meets the eye; or whatever you think you can see with your close minded attitude.

[jdi99]

Minor note: in the article above, "Ordinance" should be corrected to read "Ordnance."

[Aldymac]

mcintoshlou, Nobody hates war more than those who have been there, and all the propaganda you are talking about is the crap people like you spew all against war. Nothing keeps a war going more than all the supporters of the anti-war crowd, that is the kind of crap they like to hear, it keeps the enemy going because those who are easy to beat are telling those who are doing the fighting that they are fighting for the wrong thing. The anti-war crowd are the losers of the nation because they are aiding and abetting the enemy. The anti-war crowd are encouraging our enemy to keep killing Americans, in the end it isn't those who weren't afraid to fight our enemy who makes the decision to quit and lose, it's those who cower down because they are afraid for themselves who ultimately cause a war to be lost.
I'm proud to be one of those who wasn't afraid to fight, I did my part back then and if I have to again, as long as I have breath, I will do my part again. Semper Fi

[mcintoshlou]

JUST A LITTLE MORE 'WAR MONGER' PROPAGANDA.

BIG DEAL,

STAY IN SCHOOL

[morriseod]

To your comment "Stay in school" I have these things to ask:
What test have you ever taken that could be failed in the first ten seconds?
Can you walk into a room and by reading the labels of chemical compounds determine whether the person is making meth, biological agents, chemical agents, or homemade explosives?
Do you know the difference between the three?
Would you know what to do if a rocket was imbedded in the side of a truck and hadn't gone off?
At your school did they teach you how to swim up to a bottom laid sea mine in the straight of hormuz in 175 feet of water with out "waking it up"?
What about having to be called out to do a post blast on the one that got your buddy? Did they teach you how to do that where you went to school?
Where I went, that's what they taught me. And that just scratches the surface. I went to that school because I knew that there would always be someone like you that was too afraid to get off the couch and stop living for themselves and start living for something bigger.
You say "BIG DEAL". I say "SEND ME"

[larrryshrine]

Impressive, very impressive. Even though I am against this war, I support the men and women who serve. These people are very brave, and this articles shows that. Keep up your spirit, soldiers, you'll be home soon.

[mcintoshlou]

NOT IF THE BUSH/CHENEY REPUBLI'CON's HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT

[Aldymac]

I was driving a load of powder for eight inch howitzers from Hue in So. Viet Nam to Phu Bai one night, just before the base at Phu Bai was a Chu Hoi village. Chu Hoi's were VC who repatriated to the So. Vietmanese government. As I entered the ville there were shots fired at me and I heard a clunk in the back of my truck, nothing else happened. When I was in the ammo dump I dropped the sides of my truck so they could unload, as the fork lift raised the first pallet a grenade fell off the pallet onto the bed of my truck. Life and everything else in that small space came to a total halt, all eyes were rivited on that grenade. There was six tons of powder on my truck, we were in the middle of close to a thousand metric tons of ammo, that grenade could have set it all off. After a few seconds, seemed like an eternity, the EOD guy with us reached out and picked up the grenade and carefully unscrewed the top, then laughed and showed us that the guy who threw it into my truck had tried to short fuse it and instead ruined the fuse altogether.
The VC was thinking of blowing up the Chu Hoi ville, instead he gave me and five other guys a lesson on being thankfull. I loved those EOD guys.

[Solarrays247]

Thanks for this article, CBS. I first heard of the term EOD Tech last Friday evening. Prior I had never heard of the term, just like so many others.

A young man whom I've come to think of as a son, called me to proudly announce that he had just graduated boot camp the day before, and was on a bus heading for Alabama for ten weeks, and then to Florida for approx. six months, I believe. He then proceeded to tell me about being chosen for this EOD training. That he wanted to help save lives. The Army is getting a phenomenal young man with the intellect and character to do an outstanding job.

Although this young man was slated for college, and had his heart set on studying criminal justice....he instead enlisted in order to have an income to keep the family homestead of six generations...in the family. Jobs are scarce, and he had to decide to study, or save the home.

When he called me last Friday, he started off by apologizing that he was not here to help me this past spring. Everyone here in this little town adores this proud young man. If only he could have known that we would have helped him keep the homestead, but he was too proud to let us know of his difficulty.

You got a good man there, Army.

[babooph]

With the new GPS & camera control,we will not lose all those officers ,like in Nam-they can now watch from the secure Green zone-"leading the men has a whole new meaning"fragging is almost obsolete.

[Rico_S]

Umm...no.