There I was Published April 1, 2011 By Staff Sgt. Carl Disher 6th Civil Engineer Squadron MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Staff Sgt. Carl Disher, an explosive ordnance disposal technician with the 6th Civil Engineer Squadron, spent his first deployment to Sather, Iraq, leaving MacDill in 2009 and returning recently. He had cross-trained into EOD from the maintenance field. The following is an account of his deployment as told to Nick Stubbs, Thunderbolt editor. There I was, enroute to assist a most delicate explosive ordinance disposal task - remove an RPG that was lodged in a person's body. The rocket propelled grenade is something we encounter, and we trained in dealing with them, even if they are unexploded in a human body, so I expected that it was something I might see at some point. The RPG victim turned out to be a local contract guard, who was working the tower on base. A van outside the base had stopped, its doors flung open and the RPG fired at the tower, striking the guard. It just didn't detonate. Myself and another team member were called to help. Unfortunately, the victim died prior to our arrival, but we still had to deal with the unexploded ordnance. The sight made my other team member queasy, but the job was not all that bad to me. There was the danger that the round could have gone off with a tap on the nose, but we just had to be careful with it. X-Rays showed the type of RPG and that it could be safely removed from the body. Everything worked out and we removed it and transported it to the demo range to dispose of it. Overall, this deployment was a good experience for me. I was able to be effective in the mission and helped prepare Iraqi members for the kinds of things they will have to face. One of the things I did to help was repair and rebuild robots (remote bomb recovery robots) and give them to Iraqi forces through our Army liaison.