Leftovers

Airmen deployed to Bagram AB, Afghanistan have gotten used to finding buried ordnance left by the departing Soviet army as the US military restored and upgraded the base’s facilities and expanded its flightline. Although the ordnance generally has been small in size, recently airmen found an old bomb with 92.5 pounds of high explosives that had probably been in place for some 30 years but now posed a problem for the main taxiway used for passenger and cargo aircraft. “There was a pretty good chance that it wasn’t going to explode just because we found it,” said Capt. Michael Mayo, current operations officer for the 455th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron at Bagram. But it had to come out, and that would mean shutting down the airfield, which Mayo said would cause a “ripple effect all around the country,” because Bagram is the Afghan hub. A scheduled runway closure helped, but it took a week to plan and prepare, including moving the tactical air navigation system, which Mayo said, “is something you don’t do.” Explosive ordnance disposal airmen used a thermite grenade to destroy the old bomb in place. (Bagram report by SSgt. Samuel Morse)