“Help, I’ve got a bomb strapped to me!” the hostage yelled to the explosive ordnance disposal technician as he gingerly stepped over a booby-trapped victim to approach the hostage on the stairs.
This is just one of the many realistic scenarios U.S. and Belgian service members and federal, state and local public safety bomb squads face during the Raven’s Challenge XI exercise here this week.
Raven’s Challenge is an international full-scale, live-fire, counter-improvised-explosive-device interoperability exercise that presents participating military EOD technicians and civilian public safety bomb squads with the opportunity to coalesce as a team, develop a plan and respond to an IED problem set, said John Simpson, Raven’s Challenge exercise program manager. Simpson served in the Army as an EOD technician for 22 years and has been with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Atlanta for 15 years.
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Source: U.S. Department of Defense.
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