EOD team completes ‘amazing experience’ with KMOD

By Lieutenant Junior Grade John Hayes

Note: Lieutenant Hayes is the officer in charge of the explosive ordnance disposal team for
Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. His team recently completed partnering with the Kenyan
Defense Military during the Humanitarian Mine Action Train-the Train course in Kenya.

NAIROBI, Kenya (October 22, 2010) -- My team and I successfully completed our Humanitarian

Mine Action “Train-the-Trainer” course at the Humanitarian Peace Support School in Nairobi, Kenya.

During our final week, we saw the product of our 28 students’ hard work during the previous two weeks

in the classroom.

In the second week of the course, the students learned to safely calculate the burning rate of

safety fuse as well as the corresponding length to cut to match a required transit time to bring all

members of a disposal operation to a safe area.

Before actually proceeding to live demolition operations, the students had to pass a practical

examination, which required each student to safely demonstrate the ability to properly build an electric

and non-electric firing system from start to finish. The students, relishing in the fact that they were no

longer required to spend eight hours in a classroom, by that point had enough training and were ready

to show us they could be explosive ordnance disposal level I technicians.

One of my team members, Petty Officer 3rd Class Timothy Smith, said to me one day: “What

amazed me was that day in, day out, the students continually showed such an eagerness to learn—you

just don’t find that anywhere else but here.”

In the final week, we spent three days at the demolition range. On the first day, the students

separated into groups of four, and each group worked with one Kenyan instructor and one U.S.

instructor to oversee a test burn and finally an actual non-electric fire. The second day was spent

showing them various methods of electric demolition and the students each got to wire in an initiation.
The final day was a black powder burn demonstration followed by showing the students various ways to

branch into detonating cord.

The demolition days were by far the most enjoyable parts of the training. It was extremely

rewarding to watch the students demonstrate their new skills and be able to show us they could be

trusted to perform in a safe manner. I remembered back to the first week when they had difficulty

learning because we spoke too quickly for them to understand. “Polle, Polle,” they would plead for us

to slow down in Swahili, and then we would break for five minutes for both students and instructors to

drink some Chai to ease our combined frustrations. But that final week, the lines of students and

instructors blurred and combined into one big team.

U.S. Army Specialist Austin Drake of the 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 137th Infantry told me

about his experience with KMOD: “What was most exciting for me was the opportunity I had to interact

with the students on a more cultural level. By the time we were leaving, I felt that any cultural barrier

that existed between the Kenyans and me was breached, and I left here feeling that I had learned from

the students just as much as they had learned from me."

The final day was amazing because our students were performing what they had learned as if

they had been doing it for several years (which some of them had, but now they liked the new way they

had been taught because it was safer). We never lost control of the operation, but at the end we were

just there as safety observers, we were peripheral, our students were professional and competent, and

we could not have been prouder.

”It was such a satisfying moment for me to see the huge progression the students made in only

three weeks’ time and to see them performing independent of my team or any of the other Kenyan

instructors’ assistance,” Petty Officer 1st Class Robert Arrowsmith said to me about our students.

The final day was the graduation ceremony. U.S. Africa Command provided us with electronic

templates and elegant paper, but the rest was up to us to create the certificates. My team acquired
beautiful vinyl folders and managed to take a group photograph to include with the certificate. The hard

work paid off in dividends because when it came time for us to hand out certificates, we could all tell the

students appreciated it. The result, as corny as it sounds, was that I hardly shook the hand of a Kenyan

student without looking into tear-stained cheeks inset with glassy eyes. Each and every student, I

realized, was probably prouder of this moment than just about any other in their life and it was such an

honor for us to be able to give them that. However, in reality, they gave it to themselves through their

hard work and determination to get selected for the course and finally graduate.

I am also very proud to announce that the class honor graduate was Lance Corporal Chelan,gat

Belion, the first female student to ever go through this training. She was such a pleasure to work with

because she was funny, positive, helpful to her classmates, and brutally, wickedly, doggedly determined

to be the best student in the class

This was an amazing experience for my team and myself and we think this story is pure gold!