Standing next to me in formation during the infamous “two left shoes” incident had been Tyler Trahan. At that point in time, he was a seaman apprentice fresh out of US Navy boot camp, while I was the aforementioned, green-as-can-be ensign straight out of the Academy.
It didn’t take long for everyone to admire Tyler and for us to become good friends. Before we even knew each other’s names, Tyler was cracking jokes and gently ribbing his classmates. He was sharp and rarely screwed up, often picking up the slack for his lesser-talented classmates. This frequently prevented our class from being punished for silly infractions. No matter how hard we tried, though, we would almost always find ourselves knocking out push-ups after violating some obscure rule. Tyler seemed to have an endless reserve available for such exertions, however, and was able to call out military work songs—or cadence—for the class without betraying an ounce of fatigue.
Soon after initial examinations, Tyler proved himself to be a consistent, top performer. As the junior man, he was often singled out by the instructors and called upon to sing cadence as we ran mile after mile in the Florida heat. We would all make attempts to relieve Tyler on the outside of the running formation, but no one could do it as well as him. I jumped out on occasion, and would attempt to freestyle different cadences to make the class laugh.
The instructors didn’t find me funny, and I was usually shut down quickly, replaced by the rock solid ballads of Tyler Trahan. Due to his booming voice and his innate ability to quickly learn and identify approaching instructors, Tyler became our “hooyah man,” assigned to utter a booming “HOOYAH!” as we moved through the daily training exercises.
Every morning at 0800, the national anthem was played over loudspeakers across the base while the flag was hoisted. No matter what we were doing, every trainee was required to drop everything, come to attention, and render honors to our flag. At the conclusion of the anthem, with the flag happily flapping at the top of its mast, it would be the hooyah man’s responsibility to call out a “HOOYAH!” to our beloved country. Upon hearing this call, our class would reply in unison with a loud and bellowing “HOOYAH AMERICA!” This is one of my fondest memories of Dive School.
ON A FRIDAY MORNING, after six weeks in Panama City, our class completed the Dive School portion of our training. The following Monday morning, EOD School would start at Fort Eglin Air Force Base, which was about an hour’s drive to the west.
While we had been required to live on base during Dive School, we were allowed to live outside the base during EOD School, so I decided to split rent with a few of the other officers in my class. The four of us moved into a large house adjacent to a golf course, located a short drive from the schoolhouse. One of my roommates was my good friend Rex, and the other two, Pete and Slider, would also become dear friends.
That Friday night, in a house that was empty except for four mattresses on the floor, we had a party to celebrate our accomplishments. This was largely instigated by Tyler, who showed up just before sundown with half our class in tow, and a pickup truck that held a quantity of beer that would make any frat boy or sorority sister proud.
Wasting no time, Tyler scrounged together a beer pong table out of scrap wood that had been left in our garage, and immediately started trash talking. Rex and I squared off against Tyler and Pete, and instantly, Rex and I were outmatched. Tyler, of course, was a natural, while Pete had four years at Vanderbilt under his belt. Admittedly, one of the shortcomings of a Naval Academy education is lack of beer pong experience.
Tyler excitedly chanted, “Nuke it!” or “takin’ out the trash!” as he and Pete sank ball after ball, while Rex and I threw up one air ball after another. As the night progressed and the number of beers left in the cooler shrank, our fellow partiers either made their respective ways home or found a quiet corner of the house to pass out in. I am certain that Tyler was the last to give up and turn in that night, though, adding life to the party until there was no party left.
THE HOT SUN BEAT down on me, turning my bomb suit helmet into an oven. Sweat flowed out of my pores, soaking every square inch of my thick, green suit of armor. The urge to wipe my eyes was unrelenting, but I did my best to ignore it and focus on an eighteen-inch steel pipe with caps at either end.
I noted the size, shape, and dimensions of the small pipe bomb; paying special attention to two small wires that protruded from one end and disappeared into the sandy ground. I struggled under the weight of the bomb suit as I slowly rose up from my kneeling position and began to walk backward. The armor of the bomb suit is strongest across the front, so it was safest for me to face the potentially lethal device for as long as possible.
At a safe distance away from the device, Tyler and the rest of my small team helped me take off the heavy helmet. Tyler offered a water bottle, which I gratefully accepted. I chugged some cool water with hopes of preventing impending fatigue, heat stress, and overall discomfort from clouding my judgment.
At EOD School, where my team and I were taking this important pipe bomb test, a slogan of “initial success or total failure” was beat into our heads. When the consequences of your decisions and actions are potentially life-threatening, there is no room for errors or mistakes.
I relayed everything I could recall about the small bomb to the team. We discussed initial assessments, and then I solicited inputs for a plan of action. This time, I was the team leader, and the decisions were ultimately mine, but every member of my team was every bit as capable as I was, and had taken their turn as the one in the hot seat. In the EOD community, we realize and appreciate the fact that individuals are fallible and make mistakes. We try to curb that tendency by working in teams.
After a few moments of deliberation, we agreed upon an appropriate procedure, and I again donned my helmet. Tyler and the team loaded the tools I would need into a small wagon, much like a child’s Radio Flyer. With my mobility constrained by the bulky bomb suit, I awkwardly dragged the wagon back “down range” to a raised bank near the pipe bomb. From the wagon, I retrieved some portable X-ray equipment and much like at the dentist’s office, snapped a few X-rays of the pipe bomb.
In 2007, we were still using wet film, so I had to run the negatives back “up range” to my team to have them developed. Tyler rolled the film through a developer before holding up the exposed images so we could take a look. It was easy to see that the wire ran into a blasting cap, which was nestled tightly amongst some sort of explosive inside the length of pipe.
I waddled back down range, and removed a “disruption” tool from my wagon. The tool is essentially a shotgun barrel on an adjustable stand that can be fired remotely. Our plan was to use a shotgun blast of a clay-like substance to apply pressure to one of the end caps, effectively popping the top off, much like you would open a pill bottle with your thumb. In doing this, I was hoping to safely separate all the components of the bomb without an explosion.
I walked around the raised bank, and like a golfer at the Masters, lined up what I hoped to be an optimum shot angle. If the angle was too steep, I might shoot the explosive, which would probably detonate the bomb. If the shot was too shallow, I might miss the bomb altogether.
Finally content with my angle, I walked back behind the raised bank, unspooling my firing wire as I went. Crouching down for cover, I shouted “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” as loud as I could, and initiated the “disruptor.” I heard a loud “pop,” but not an explosion. A smile crept across my face as I returned to the bomb site and found that the disruptor had worked perfectly!
In my excitement, I momentarily failed to notice the approach of a grim-faced instructor. His age and experience had worn creases into his face, hiding scars that were probably from shrapnel. A thick wad of chew was tucked into his lip, and he spit a glistening glob of saliva into an open water bottle, uttering a unique “pssst” sound. Hearing this sound immediately extinguished my jubilation, and I turned to face my seasoned mentor.
“Lieutenant Snyder,” he calmly began in an apathetic Southern drawl. “You executed that drill perfectly, right up until the part where you shot the wrong end of the pipe bomb.”
He docked me sixteen points, which meant that I failed the test and would have to return the next day to take it over again.
Just like that, I went from being elated to being deflated. Students were only offered two chances to pass each respective test, and should you fail twice—a “double-tap,” as it was called—you would be dropped from the class, or perhaps from EOD School altogether.
I hung my head in disappointment. I knew there was no room for error, and yet I had made a crucial mistake.
THANKFULLY, WE WERE ABLE to pass the retest, which was just one of the nearly once-a-week tests of EOD School. We studied and practiced, then were tested on all manners of explosives: from IEDs and grenades to guided missiles. After earning our clearances, we studied nuclear weapons, and if we passed, moved on to chemical weapons, biological hazards, and eventually underwater explosive ordnance.
By design, the training regimen was extremely intense. Over time, however, I learned how to manage the stress. Eventually, the tests and training became fun, and my EOD School teammates and I learned to thrive under pressure. As our class size shrunk, we grew even closer to one another. By graduation, we were a close-knit, dynamic group of budding warriors.
As we studied and sweat through our training, Tyler became the emotional center of gravity for our class. His incessant optimism and sense of humor kept us all smiling despite the stresses of constant testing.
ALL OF US AT EOD SCHOOL experienced a bad day or two, like my encounter with the pipe bomb. Some of us were evaluated by the staff and put back into training, while in most cases we lost classmates.
Tyler never struggled. He laughed, smiled, and joked just as much on test day as he did at our backyard barbeques, the beach, or while we blew off steam at the many watering holes in nearby Destin, Florida.
On one such occasion, however, when the instructors came in our classroom to announce passes and failures, Tyler’s name was listed among the latter. The entire class was shocked, and silently turned to gauge Tyler’s reaction to the announcement.
Tyler didn’t flinch. He smiled and requested that his performance be re-evaluated. As he discussed his procedures with two different instructors, with all the panache and acumen of a seasoned defense attorney, he pointed out that there was a discrepancy in the reference publications, resulting in the difference of opinion between himself and the instructors.
The instructors had never noticed the error and, upon scrutiny, realized that Tyler was in fact correct, and had not failed the test in the manner they had originally thought. For the remainder of EOD School, Tyler’s name was announced among those who had passed each successive evaluation.
FROM A KNEELING POSITION, I slowly reached out with both hands, evaluating my underwater surroundings. My left hand then hit something large and metallic protruding from the floor of the Intracoastal Waterway along the Gulf Coast. This was my team’s final examination at EOD School.
I moved my hands across the object’s corroded, yet distinctly man-made skin. On either end of the long cylinder, I found tightly nestled loops of thick rope that met in the middle of the large object. I traced out the entire length of the thick rope, ensuring that the “timber hitch” knot was securely and correctly tied.
I traced the rope back to the middle, where it was looped through a heavy metal ring. Attached to the ring was a canvas bag stuffed with an enormous balloon and a set of two SCUBA jugs. The whole ensemble wavered gently, floating in the water column above the large cylinder. I traced out every detail of the gear, at times struggling to feel small details with my gloved fingers. At the junction of the SCUBA tanks and the stuffed canvas bag was a brass fitting about the size of a dinner plate.
At the center of the fitting was a valve that contained a small explosive charge. When a current was run through the valve, the explosive would be triggered, forcefully opening the valve, allowing the three thousand psi of air contained in the SCUBA jugs to fill the enormous balloon. The balloon would then rocket to the surface, lifting the large cylinder, which was an inert training mine. This would allow my team to tow the mine safely ashore, and pass our last test of EOD School.
We couldn’t have been training at a more important time. In addition to the ongoing war in Afghanistan, the US military was sending more troops to Iraq in 2007, with the “surge” reaching its peak of one hundred sixty-eight thousand troops just as I was wrapping up my training. That year was also the deadliest of the entire Iraq war for coalition forces, with nine hundred sixty-one troops (nine hundred four of them American) killed in 2007, according to icasualties.org. The same source notes that by the end of 2007, a staggering sixty-three percent of troop deaths were being caused by IEDs. Considering that stark reality, along with the fact that so many innocent civilians were also being killed and maimed by IEDs, EOD School took on an even greater sense of urgency.
Back underwater, I could barely see while trying to inspect my work. The murky depths of the Intracoastal Waterway were filled with massive amounts of silt, which floated all around my mask and gear. Despite the filth, I mentally checked off each step of my procedures as I went about tying knots and piecing together the system that would remove the explosive. Finally content with my setup and ensuing inspection, I found a small reel of firing wire attached to the explosive valve, and began unspooling it as I ascended toward the surface.
As my head broke the surface of the water, I saw Tyler smiling above me as he offered his hand from the side of a rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB). I grabbed hold, and Tyler yanked me out of the water. As I reported the successful attachment of the “lift balloon apparatus,” Tyler inserted the two electric leads of the wire into a small firing device. We had already cleared the area, but Tyler scanned the water around us to ensure there were no other boats present.
“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” Tyler shouted three times.
With my vision finally clearing after exiting the silt-filled waterway, my eyes anxiously darted around the bay waiting to see the giant balloon shoot up. Tyler and I glanced nervously at one another, and finally decided to try the firing device again. Nothing happened, and Tyler shot me a questioning look.
I was sure that I hadn’t messed anything up. But either way, I was going back in the water.
I jammed my regulator back in my mouth and flipped over the side of the boat. Just before I reached the bottom of the waterway, the small amount of light I had to work with suddenly disappeared, and I immediately knew it wasn’t because of the silt. All of a sudden, a large, looming shadow appeared right in front of me.
The darkness created by the shadow and the silt left me with a sensation I had never felt before. I sensed danger, but couldn’t see a thing. It was almost as terrifying as when I imagined the monsters of Weeki Wachee Springs during my first real dive as a little boy. There were no scary sea monsters in Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, either, but not being able to see had me on the verge of panic. Instinctively, I reached for my knife, imagining that the shadow was actually a great white shark, even though I knew it was impossible.
After calming down, I put my knife away and began searching with my hands, as if I were blind. What I found shocked me. The brass fitting at the bottom of the balloon had not been tight enough, and only a small amount of air had made it inside the balloon, which was now out of its bag.
I returned to the surface and reported my findings. After replacing the tanks on my back to make sure I had enough oxygen, I dove back to the depths with a new lift balloon.
While making Darth Vader–like breathing sounds and still battling darkness and silt, I started my meticulous setup and inspection routine all over again. I traced each detail with my fingers before eventually finding the small reel of firing wire. Very carefully, I began unspooling the wire as I once again ascended to the surface.
After another booming set of “fire in the holes,” Tyler pressed the fire button with his thumb. Again, I silently scanned the blue water. Nothing happened at first, but before long, I heard Tyler cheer as the giant white balloon burst out of the water on our starboard side. I smiled and let out a sigh of relief as I stripped off my dive gear. My job was done. I enjoyed the short boat ride as my team towed the mine ashore, and thus passed our final exam of EOD School.
We had started the eighteen-month curriculum at Dive School with fifty or so prospective EOD candidates. By the time our class graduated EOD School in September 2007, we had been whittled down to only eight original members, including Tyler, Slider, Pete, Rex, and me. We beamed with pride that morning as we pinned on our EOD “crabs,” which signified our joining this elite community as newly minted EOD technicians.