Pat Craig Blows Stuff Up!
“Every grenade is live; we don’t want people touching them,” said Vietnam veteran Pat Craig to the Cambridge Lions Club. “Once I carried a grenade out of a hospital. We put sand bags around it and blew it up. Of course, we warned the hospital when we were about to set it off.”
“I got into this line of work when I was in the army,” Craig said. “In 1969 I got a letter from the President inviting me to join the army. I was drafted in September and went to basic training. I was interested in electronics and thought being a radio relay and carrier person might be interesting. I didn’t really know what that meant.”
“I got into this line of work when I was in the army,” Craig said. “In 1969 I got a letter from the President inviting me to join the army. I was drafted in September and went to basic training. I was interested in electronics and thought being a radio relay and carrier person might be interesting. I didn’t really know what that meant.”
Pictured: left Pat Craig with program chair Gary Lyons
“I had a friend in Vietnam at the time. He told me that I would be out in the bush carrying radio equipment. I had high test scores so I was asked if I wanted to get training in explosive ordinance disposal.”
“It was Friday afternoon; I saw some of the guys sitting around playing pinochle and drinking beer,” Craig said. “I liked to play pinochle and drink beer so I signed up for the training.”
“That’s how I got started being part of the explosive ordinance disposal team, otherwise known as the bomb squad,” Craig said. “You got ten weeks of training in chemical and war gases. Then you got four to five months of training in conventional explosives, both ours and theirs.”
“You learned how to disarm explosives to make them safe. Our mission was to keep us safe. We had manuals for some of the explosives. You had to keep the manuals covered because satellites can read a manual.”
Craig has continued working in ordinance disposal after his twenty-year military career. There are about eight hundred people nationwide who are trained in ordinance disposal. “We get calls from the police when they find something that might look like an explosive device,” Craig said.
Craig showed one device that looked suspicious. “We didn’t know what it was. The top looked like it could be some kind of detonator. We took the top off and found that it was a military flare.”
“We have been called to remove picric acid from high schools.” Picric acid can become highly explosive over time and can be sensitive to friction and shock.
“We work with the secret service to clear all the places where the president might go. We did a sweep when Obama was in Zanesville. We probe plants and seat cushions; we look above the ceiling tile in rooms; we check all the electric switches.”
“I worked in Plains, Georgia, for two weeks when Carter was President,” Craig said. “We checked all the mail with x-rays and a fluoroscope. We also had to check out the church there.”
“There are some bomb sniffing dogs. They are trained differently from drug dogs. Sometimes drug dogs are trained to paw at packages. You don’t want bomb sniffing dogs to be pawing at packages.”
“If you find some old military ordinance we want you to leave it alone until we can make sure it is safe,” Craig said. “We don’t want people touching it. Some explosive devices are sensitive to heat, some are sensitive to movement.”
“We would rather say, ‘You called; we hauled,’ than to have anyone hurt by military souvenirs that have not been made safe.”
“I had a friend in Vietnam at the time. He told me that I would be out in the bush carrying radio equipment. I had high test scores so I was asked if I wanted to get training in explosive ordinance disposal.”
“It was Friday afternoon; I saw some of the guys sitting around playing pinochle and drinking beer,” Craig said. “I liked to play pinochle and drink beer so I signed up for the training.”
“That’s how I got started being part of the explosive ordinance disposal team, otherwise known as the bomb squad,” Craig said. “You got ten weeks of training in chemical and war gases. Then you got four to five months of training in conventional explosives, both ours and theirs.”
“You learned how to disarm explosives to make them safe. Our mission was to keep us safe. We had manuals for some of the explosives. You had to keep the manuals covered because satellites can read a manual.”
Craig has continued working in ordinance disposal after his twenty-year military career. There are about eight hundred people nationwide who are trained in ordinance disposal. “We get calls from the police when they find something that might look like an explosive device,” Craig said.
Craig showed one device that looked suspicious. “We didn’t know what it was. The top looked like it could be some kind of detonator. We took the top off and found that it was a military flare.”
“We have been called to remove picric acid from high schools.” Picric acid can become highly explosive over time and can be sensitive to friction and shock.
“We work with the secret service to clear all the places where the president might go. We did a sweep when Obama was in Zanesville. We probe plants and seat cushions; we look above the ceiling tile in rooms; we check all the electric switches.”
“I worked in Plains, Georgia, for two weeks when Carter was President,” Craig said. “We checked all the mail with x-rays and a fluoroscope. We also had to check out the church there.”
“There are some bomb sniffing dogs. They are trained differently from drug dogs. Sometimes drug dogs are trained to paw at packages. You don’t want bomb sniffing dogs to be pawing at packages.”
“If you find some old military ordinance we want you to leave it alone until we can make sure it is safe,” Craig said. “We don’t want people touching it. Some explosive devices are sensitive to heat, some are sensitive to movement.”
“We would rather say, ‘You called; we hauled,’ than to have anyone hurt by military souvenirs that have not been made safe.”
posted by Mane Lion at
11:46 AM
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