Col. Thomas Magness, Los Angeles District Commander, and Jim Reed, ordnance and explosives safety technician, stand over one of several bins of ordnance scrap collected from the ranges at the National Training Center, Ft. Irwin, Calif. Photo by Daniel Calderon

Every year, more than 50,000 Soldiers visit the desert here to train before heading to the deserts of Iraq.  Training centers around the dozen Corps-built Iraqi-style villages and includes a variety of explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and sniper fire to accurately portray the threats Soldiers will face overseas.

While troops keep a watchful eye for snipers, suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices, the Corps’ Jim Reed looks for munitions and explosives material.

“You name it.  If it’s been fired at Ft. Irwin, we take care of it and process it,” said Reed.

A 25-year Navy Explosives and Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician and 10-year Corps employee, Reed oversees the contract with the environmental restoration company American Technologies, Inc. that clears the NTC’s training ranges of ordnance and explosives (OE) debris.

Reed and his contracted crews go to the ranges and first mark all live ordnance for the Army’s EOD unit to “blow up” or render safe.  Reed’s crews then go to work retrieving and processing all ordnance scrap.

“During this task order, we’ve picked up over two million pounds of OE scrap,” Reed said.

Jim Reed, ordnance and explosives safety technician, displays a few pieces of ordnance and explosives debris collected from one of the many training ranges at Ft. Irwin’s National Training Center. Photo by Daniel Calderon

Col. Thomas Magness, Los Angeles District Commander, twice assigned to the NTC as an observer-controller, said Reed’s crews take care of OE debris that would otherwise hinder the training of troops.

“I’ve been out there and when you run into something you’re not sure of you stop training to call for somebody to help, only to find out it’s scrap,” Magness said.  “You could see how important this mission is to the training that goes on at the NTC.”

Magness said the scope of the project is sizeable no matter how one measures it:  a $30M contract over five years, with tons of scrap ordnance sold as scrap metal, clearing the way for critical training for troops headed to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ft. Irwin, with the help of the Corps and Reed’s crews, stands out as a leading example of the Army’s commitment to environmental stewardship of the more than 16 million acres of land it manages while it prepares Soldiers to fight the global war on terrorism.