12 Years of Grit and Glory: A Journey in Active Service

For 12 unforgettable years, I served on active duty, defusing 136 improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Yet nothing compares to the sheer adrenaline rush of dismantling my first live bomb.

It was early winter, not long after the world-altering events of 9/11. I was embedded with a Navy Special Operations Team patrolling a volatile border region. Our mission? To stop insurgents infiltrating villages aligned with U.S. forces. Back then, IEDs weren’t the omnipresent menace they would later become, so we operated with a freedom that felt fleeting—because it was.

Walking Into Danger: An Encounter With the Unknown

One day, we stopped in a friendly village for lunch before investigating reports of a nearby town hoarding old Russian munitions. These stockpiles weren’t just relics—they were deadly tools being prepped to strike U.S. forces. My job was to neutralize any traps and destroy the weapons.

The moment we entered the targeted house, it was obvious we were late to the party. The place was packed with 120mm, 152mm, and 80mm shells—each a potential disaster waiting to happen. As I scanned the piles for booby traps, I found my first challenge: two munitions rigged upright beside the doorframe, linked by a pink detonation cord. Inside the fuze wells, Russian-made C4 lay compressed, ready to blow.

A Game of Life and Death

Training screamed in my head: Never cut anything until you understand the whole circuit. Carefully, I traced the det cord. Across the room, a teammate spotted the other end, connected to a mousetrap trigger wired to a battery. Primitive? Sure. Effective? Deadly.

Sweat trickled down my face, despite the brisk 50-degree air. Slowly and methodically, I neutralized the battery and blasting cap, dismantling the immediate threat. Only then could we safely sever the det cord and prepare to consolidate the munitions for destruction.

But the danger wasn’t done with us yet.

More Traps, More Risks

As I moved to the next pile, I found another deadly setup—a mousetrap-triggered device tied to two smaller bombs. By the time I disarmed the third trap, two hours had vanished. The sun was dipping below the horizon, and the gathering darkness upped the stakes.

The final trap was too complex to tackle in fading light. So we stacked the munitions inside the house, rigged them together using explosives already on-site, and set a timer. Retreating to a safe distance, we watched as the blast tore through the structure, leaving a crater large enough for all eight of us to stand in.

“Initial Success or Total Failure”

As the months passed, the bombs grew more intricate, offering no shortage of challenges. Intelligence gathering often demanded we handle these devices up close—a nerve-wracking necessity. The mantra for our work was as brutal as it was true: “Initial success or total failure.” Personally, I twisted it into dark humor: “Initial success, or it’s someone else’s problem.”

That gallows humor became a shield against the high-stakes reality we lived daily. Whether disarming a bomb or facing enemy fire, our focus was clear: protect the mission, safeguard the team.

A Legacy of Service

In those tense moments before cutting a wire or isolating a battery, my mind wasn’t on the what-ifs. It was on the men beside me, the teammates counting on me to get it right. It was always about the mission and the brothers in arms who trusted me with their lives.

I may not recall the exact number of missions or every detail of each operation. Four concussions have left parts of my memory clouded. But I remember the 136 devices I defused, the lives they might have claimed, and the scars—visible and invisible—they left behind. Those memories are my legacy, etched forever in the fabric of my service.