Defusing the situation: Deployed Published May 8, 2012 By Senior Airman Jacob Morgan 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- From the Delmarva Peninsula to the mountains of Afghanistan to a park in Botswana, the footsteps of Team Dover's Explosive Ordnance Disposal team can be found on almost every continent. Whether they are traveling with the President of the United States, disposing of antique and possibly deadly military munitions recovered from the ocean, or rendering roadside bombs safe in contingency operations overseas, the men and women of Team Dover EOD keep motivated by one thought - they get rid of something that could take a life. This motivation pushes them to accomplish nine percent of the Air Force EOD mission while comprising less than two percent of the manpower - making Team Dover's EOD a force multiplier with a global reach. Their exploits will be examined in 'Defusing the situation,' - a series about the training, tactics and trials of one of the Air Force's riskiest jobs. On a deployment In a job that is inherently dangerous, the prospect of encountering danger is exponentially increased while in a warzone. With a dwell-to-deploy ratio of one-to-one, Team Dover EOD has made a routine out of the extreme. Short-notice deployments throughout the globe are common, and their mission set covers terrain from desert sand to jungles and everything in between. Spending most of their time outside the wire in harm's way - has given EOD a few stories. However, EOD members keep their stories closely guarded because they are typically serious in nature. "We are quiet professionals," said Staff Sgt. Clay Gorham, EOD craftsman with the 436th Civil Engineer Squadron. "Nothing is going to be gained by talking about ourselves." The following story is a small taste of the challenges these service members face daily while overseas, one that was shared simply because it was deemed "less serious" than most. In six years of service to the Air Force, Gorham has been deployed three times. His favorite story is what he called the "explosive dismantling" of a Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle just north of Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. While returning from a mission to blow up a cache of unexploded ordnance consisting of a rocket-propelled grenade and an 82 mm mortar, Gorham's EOD team and their U.S. Army escorts were traveling in a convoy on broken roads in the mountains. Gorham's MRAP vehicle hit shifting soil on the side of the road and immediately fell more than 20 feet, flipping several times and landing into a creek bed. The MRAP carrying the Army members followed. During the incident, the rear axle of one of the MRAP snapped in half. Luckily, only one service member suffered a broken pinky. Several days later, after determining the MRAP vehicle was immobile either by fixing it in the field or lifting it with a crane, the EOD team was sent back out to dismantle the vehicle. "The Army had a team waiting on us, they sat on the truck for five days," said Gorham. "There was security everywhere." After arriving at the site, Gorham realized this would be a long operation. They started by using C4 plastic explosives to blow off individual parts of the MRAP vehicle and loading them into trucks headed back to the base. This included the springs on the rear axle, the wiring wall in the engine compartment and all of the doors. After waking up from a night sleeping on the ground with his rifle next to him, Gorham and his team went back to work; this time unbolting all of the glass and blowing the roof off. They placed every combustible item together to light on fire with Thermite, which focuses extremely high temperatures on a small area. By the end of the mission, the MRAP had been completely divided into pieces by more than 18 hours worth of work. The technology and hardware of the vehicle was successfully kept out of terrorists' hands - a war story to most, just another day to Gorham. The team returned to Bagram AB to prepare for their next mission.