The 52nd Ordnance Group (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and high-yield Explosives Command, started off 2017 with its headquarters officially returning to Fort Campbell from a nine-month deployment Jan. 10. An uncasing ceremony took place in the 101st Airborne Division Headquarters.
The unit deployed as Task Force Atlas with 19 members and were tasked with setting up the EOD presence and executing the counter improvised explosive device mission for the Operation Inherent Resolve area of operations.
The unit also had the bittersweet honor of inactivating the 63rd Ordnance Battalion (EOD) out of Fort Drum, New York, just a few days later on Jan. 19.
The 63rd Ord. Bn. (EOD), had been assigned to Fort Drum since 2005. The Soldiers of the battalion remained at Fort Drum, dispersing into two separate EOD companies and one chemical company.
The group also found time to welcome James Dearth, former NFL player, on May 31 as a guest speaker for a unit prayer breakfast.
Dearth spoke to his audience about the difference between being hurt and injured. This concept, if implemented properly, could help the unit and the U.S. Army as a whole maintain readiness.
Not only did the unit have to contend with shutting down a unit, it also had a relatively large turn over in key positions across the command.
On June 2, Command Sgt. Maj. Jeremiah Raemhild, the the unit’s senior enlisted adviser, relinquished responsibility to Command Sgt. Maj. Gregory Miller.
The group’s two battalions held change of command ceremonies this year. The 192nd Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ord. Grp. (EOD), 20th CBRNE Cmd., had a limited amount of time to allow Lt. Col. Matthew Kuhns to take over command of the battalion from Lt. Col. Benjamin Lipari, on June 8 before the battalion’s headquarters deployed to Afghanistan on July 20 to relieve the group’s other battalion, the 184th Ordnance Battalion, 52nd Ord. Grp (EOD), 20th CBRNE Cmd. Then on Sept. 21 the 184th had its own change of command with Lt. Col. Michael Tyler being replaced by Lt. Col. Brennan Fitzgerald.
As if changing commands and deploying or redeploying its two battalions was not enough, the group also started 2017 with three of the companies on Fort Campbell deployed. The 717th Ordnance Company (EOD) and the 49th Ordnance Company (EOD) both returned in April following deployments in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel and Operation Inherent Resolve, respectively.
In August the 744th Ordnance Company (EOD) also returned from its own deployment in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.
The 723rd Ordnance Company (EOD) had its own share of deployments but on a smaller scale. The company sent multiple teams to Africa in support of the humanitarian mine assistance program.
This program allows experts to travel to different nations in Africa and teach their EOD technicians how to properly dispose of various threats discovered in their respective countries. The challenge of teaching was not the willingness of the students but instead the constraints of the local technology. The teams had to determine what the local technicians would be able to get and then how to use them as safely as possible. The company handed this mission over to an EOD company out of Fort Carson, Colorado, in October.
The group did all of this while still managing to accomplish more than 1,200 EOD incident responses as part of the units at home mission. These responses resulted in more than 190,000 work hours for the Soldiers of the unit. Most of these individual responses ranged from the random object thought to be explosive found in an old dresser to more than 700 Civil War-era cannonballs found near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Eleven Soldiers with the 55th Ordnance Company (EOD), and its parent battalion, the 192nd Ord. Bn. (EOD), 52nd Ordnance Group (EOD), 20th CBRNE Cmd., traveled to Fort Indiantown Gap Training Center, Pennsylvania, July 12-17, to dispose of more than 700 cannonballs from the Civil War.
The cannonballs were originally found on March 27, at the former site of Allegheny Arsenal. On March 31, the reports of the incident at Allegheny Arsenal indicated approximately 60 6-inch and 4-inch cannonballs were at the site. The number then climbed until June 28, when all rounds were inspected bringing total munition count of 719.
“The weeklong disposal operation on Fort Indiantown Gap was the culmination of almost three months of coordination, planning and various levels of approval required before we could execute,” said Capt. Dan DelloRusso, commander of the 55th Ord. Co. (EOD). “[Of the] 719 total pieces of ordnance, 707 were disposed of and 12 were left in the custody of Fort Indiantown Gap.”
The Soldiers, out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, were called in to support the city of Pittsburgh under the Defense Support for Civilian Authority’s regulations to safely dispose of the unexploded ordnance.
Not all of the responses were to handle discovered threats, more than 400 of the responses were in support of the Secret Service or U.S. State Department to help ensure the safety of people including the president, vice president or foreign dignitaries.
Even with all of these activities, the unit was able to put a big feather in its cap by winning the Department of the Army EOD team of the year competition for the second year in a row. Two Fort Campbell Soldiers with the 744th Ordnance Company (EOD), 184th Ord. Bn. (EOD), 52nd Ord. Grp. (EOD), 20th CBRNE Cmd., won the EOD portion of the Ordnance Crucible that lasted Sept. 11-15.
Sergeant First Class Joshua Tygret, EOD team leader, and Sergeant Austin Murphy, EOD team member, competed against five other teams, over five days in a series of events that tested their physical fitness, tactical and technical skills, mental agility, teamwork, and performance under duress. It included an Army physical fitness test, a 12-mile foot march with 35 pounds of equipment and a multitude of EOD specific tasks.
“Winning this competition is a pinnacle achievement for an EOD Soldier, it is a goal everyone in the EOD community strives to achieve,” said Master Sgt. Randall Markgraf, operations noncommissioned officer and EOD technician with the 52nd Ord. Grp., 20th CBRNE Cmd.
The 52nd Ord. Grp (EOD) looks forward to building on the successes of 2017 as it moves forward in 2018.