EOD Airman Gets Bronze Star

The Air Force has awarded the Bronze Star to MSgt. Al Schneider, the command explosive ordnance disposal superintendent for Pacific Air Forces, for his efforts while deployed to Iraq. Schneider served at Forward Operating Base Paliwoda, near Baghdad, as team leader for a Weapons Intelligence Team. According to a PACAF release, Schneider’s team of two airmen and one soldier logged more than 300 missions with no errors and no coalition troop deaths in his area of responsibility. During one incident in which an improvised explosive device went off near his team’s vehicle without much success, the bomb-makers opened fire on them, but Schneider’s team returned fire, disabling their vehicle. He said, “We were responsible for one of the biggest decreases in IED activity along an alternate supply route near Paliwoda.”