I have several questions for you but first I will give you a little info about me. I am 25 years old and married with two kids, 6 months and 2 years old. My wife supports me in my decision to enlist in the Army, as an EOD. The bonus has no configuration into my MOS choice although I will happily take it. I have chosen this MOS because it is challenging, interesting, saves lives, and has a small and tighter community than most MOS. I like the Idea of learning about ordinance made in 50's to present from the U.S. to Germany to Korea. When I saw ammunition specialist I said oh yea until I found out it is more of a warehouse job. Then a little latter as I continued my MOS search I found 89D and I knew how I could serve my Country. I have already filled out my basic personal paperwork with my recruiter and I am awaiting confirmation on medical, so I can go to Ft.Jackson for my physical.

Q1 - When do you find out if your cleared for the top secret security clearance?
Q2 - How many times are you allowed to roll back in phase II?
Q3 - How long do you stay state side afterwards? Main question being how long are you given to mesh with your unit before heading to the sandbox?
Q4 - I know every unit is different so let me ask my question this way. What is your day to day when stateside and when deployed?
Q5 - What do you like most about being an EOD?
Q6 - How long is a class day and and long is study hall? Is It Monday through Friday?
Q7 - How many soldiers will there be in the average EOD Unit?
Q8 - Will I go Straight from BCT to AIT phase I and same question concerning from phase I to phase II? I want to know if b/t Phase I and II if I will have to come home and move my family to FL.

Are you tired of me asking questions?

Thanks for to taking the time to read this let alone answer any questions. Any advice or additional information will be greatly appreciated.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: toneal5,

CZSteve is EOD but to be honest there is a crapload of EOD threads he responded to in this Forum and probably in the Engineers Forum on top so you might want to try and use that FIND button at the top of this forum to see what questions were already answered then repost what your still looking for answers to. That would be my advice here.

Thank you for your suggestion and I know members get tired of people asking the same questions over and over instead of researching. That is why before I posted this I throughly searched military.com, so I thought, on EOD. Some of my questions were answered but many where not and that is why I posted these questions. The only question I could prob remove is Q6, because I believe it is M-F but just wanted to double check. Once more thank you for your opinion but after having already searched both the wannabe forum and other army forums I believe I will leave my original post as is.

Engineer forum? I don't go near that place, they're all crazy. Besides, there's some odd bad blood that's supposed to exist between us and them, so I don't go poking potential hornets' nests. They aren't us, we aren't them, but we work together here and there.

Now then, onto the query. Answered or not, I'll re-hash answers. Some may have changed, after all. That said, these answers may be out-dated, now. Take with a grain of salt.

1) Depends on how jacked up you are. I got my interim secret pretty quickly and my TS/SCI very shortly after arriving at Eglin for Phase II. Everybody is different, your mileage may vary.

2) Ah, here's a tricky one. You might not get any if you're a complete tool. Usually, people get one, lately, some have gotten two or three (others more, but there's always much gnashing of teeth and screams of anguish after the second one). Don't rely on a roll, though. At Eglin, an 84 is a failing grade, strive for a 100 regardless.

3) I've been in my unit for two years without deploying yet. I know people who graduated, in-processed at their duty station, then hopped on a plane to meet their unit in country. It depends on where you're needed most, there's no fixed answer.

4) Stateside varies. You have your PMCS day (make sure your truck hasn't been stolen in the last week and that it still runs), but other than that it's sitting around the shop training, driving the 'bots around, reading publications, learning weird trick from the older guys, and doing various, non-EOD related work (why are we moving these boxes over there? We just TOOK them from there.) Then there are duty months where you actually may run calls on post and off. You'll still do the usual stuff, but have to respond to incidents. Rounds that don't fire or go off, people having stuff they shouldn't, rounds getting dug up places, suspicious items, etc. You will also, most likely, go on VIPs now and then.

In-country, well, why stop training just because you're in a country that hasn't yet discovered the joys of toilet paper? Train when you can, work out when you can, run calls in trucks, dismounted when needed, run route clearance (ask the engineers about that wonderful bit of fun. ) You may run site exploitation, weapons caches, post blasts, all manner of things.

5) They pay me extra money to blow things up legally. What's not to love? Besides that, there's other training, forensics, homemade explosives, post blast analysis, random little things like that.

6) Here, I can be of little help, as they've changed things around since I graduated. Redstone, you'll get up way too early, do PT, shower, eat breakfast, then go to class. You'll break for lunch and go back to class. Then you'll go to dinner, go back for study hall, then go back to the barracks for the night. It doesn't matter if Redstone's study hall is voluntary and you don't think you need it, GO. Even if you don't need it, someone else might. As much as it kills me, a diehard individual, you cannot possibly get by in this job except as part of a team. It starts at school, so get used to it.

Eglin, they've changed up completely, from what I've heard. PT in the morning, class, stay out at the school house and eat lunch there (the Navy chow at the range sucks. The AF chow mainside is freakin' awesome) and stay until study hall is done at whatever hour of the night it lasts until. Even if your class ends at noon, you have to wait at the range for study hall to start. I don't know why they do this now, but apparently it's the current schedule. Class is M-F, study hall length, I can't recall.

7) Presently, the army is modularizing EOD companies to 44 people per company, including command structure and support personnel.

8) You will go from Basic to Redstone unless you get some bizzare, sweetheart deal. You can take leave between Redstone and Eglin. You cannot bring your family to Redstone as it is considered TDY. You can bring your family to Eglin, as it is a PCS move.

No. How else are you supposed to learn?

Any other questions, fire away.

Thanks czsteve for taking the time to answer my questions. I"m sure I'll have few more questions for you later on. Thanks again.

No problem.

Q9: Just out of curiosity if I graduate from phase II, deploy and just decide this is not for me what happens, since it is volunteer? very doubtful but my wife wants to know.
Q10: Do you have to take a polygraph for TS clearance? And are they accurate? Can I fail by telling the truth and just be nervous?
Q11: Is EOD deployment 12 months or is it longer due to the high need for EOD?
Q12: What is the biggest threat to EOD techs, actual IEDs or insurgents trying to snipe and/or target EOD?
Q13: DO you ever have to "cut the wire" or is everything done with robots?
Q14(a): How long have you been an EOD tech? Was this your first MOS or did you re-enlist as EOD?
Q14(b): Would you say it is better to enlist in the army then re-enlist into EOD or doesn't matter?
Q15(a): My recruiter told me to lie about having a broke arm and having smoked marijuana before, years previous before I got married and had two kids. HE actually scratched out yes and circled no. I signed the paper but today told him I want to set my record straight before going to MEPS. Have I hurt my chances for TS clearance with the marijuana? (Few long question)
Q15(b): I kind of felt taken advantage of because after telling him I wanted all my info to be true he was like ok thats no big deal so was him trying to get me to lie just to save him from extra paperwork?
Q16: Is there an EOD unit at Ft. Jackson?
Q17: In your opinon what are the three most dangerous MOS? In order from most dangerous to least.

If your not tired of answering questions yet you surely must be tired of typing them.

Czsteve thanks again for all your answers and I look forward to your response. Also this might end up being very informative to others looking into EOD. I have spent many hours searching only to find small tidbits here and there.

Veterans need to stay out of this thread unless they have something positive to add to the conversation underway. Forum rules. I removed the last response. Thanks.

If anyone has info on these questions feel free to personal message me or email me with the answers at toneal5@gmail.com. I understand the reasoning for the rule but I came her looking for answers not sugar coating. SO if it's not an inconvience you can PM me and everyone will be happy.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: toneal5,

quote:

Originally posted by toneal5:
If anyone has info on these questions feel free to personal message me or email me with the answers at toneal5@gmail.com. I understand the reasoning for the rule but I came her looking for answers not sugar coating. SO if it's not an inconvience you can PM me and everyone will be happy.

No your fine, it wasn't a valid answer someone was ridiculing two of your questions, which I think were valid given you never served in uniform before. It wasn't anyone with EOD experience and it wasn't Czsteve, just someone passing by.

Every so often the sarcasm gets a little out of control and the reins have to be pulled back. Veterans sometimes forget they were in your shoes a while back.

It's better if your answers are publicly posted because then future posters can benefit.

9) You may, at any time in your career, even during school, pull your volunteer statement. At that point, you'll be given a list of the top (I think) 25 high-need MOSes and be told to pick your top five. You may or may not get one you've picked. Coincidentally, this is also what happens should you fail out or get kicked out.

10) I did not have to take a polygraph, nor do I think you are required to take one as part of the general background check. If you volunteer for some secret squirrel gig, though, who knows.

11) Currently, EOD companies are attached to a Brigade Combat Team (BCT). The EOD unit will stay as long as the BCT stays unless something alters this setup for whatever reason.

12) OPSEC keeps me from answering this one fully, but getting complacent or just plain un- friggin' lucky is what's gotten most techs hurt or killed.

13) Every call is different, but we still receive training for hand-entry. We try to use the robots as much as possible, but sometimes reality keeps that from happening.

14a) Just over two years, first choice MOS.

14b) Honestly, re-classing into EOD may be best, as it provides you with an additional skill set that helps you operate tactically.

15a) I know people that did a whole lot of drugs and admitted it and still have their clearances. Just be honest on the form. If you lie and they find out, you're screwed.

15b) At some point, you'll meet a security person at MEPS. If the paperwork still isn't correct, tell them what happened. The recruiter shouldn't be screwing with paperwork like that for any reason.

16) Not any more, no. They cycle a platoon through Jackson on a monthly basis to handle the call load and deal with the calls there in what's called a backstop mission. The backstopping units are from all over the Eastern US at this point, a different unit each month.

17) This is the simplest way I can put it; the guys kicking in doors, looking for trouble are in the most dangerous spots. EOD is way down that list. There have been too many techs killed, but the numbers are among the lowest of any MOS.


Hey, ask away, I'll answer what I can. Trust me, I know how little there is out there, I looked once, too.

ErichG2 thanks for clarifying on the previous censorship. That seems more reasonable, sorry for assuming negatively about the forum. The reason I may have more questions is I have no direct friends or family in the military to ask. So if I seem like I don't know what I'm talking about it is probably just that. Thanks again to everyone involved with this thread.

quote:

Originally posted by toneal5:
ErichG2 thanks for clarifying on the previous censorship. That seems more reasonable, sorry for assuming negatively about the forum. The reason I may have more questions is I have no direct friends or family in the military to ask. So if I seem like I don't know what I'm talking about it is probably just that. Thanks again to everyone involved with this thread.

Well...

Your questions were average actually.

You'll understand this all better once you get in the Army and the guy next to you starts parsing everything you say for exact meaning and preciseness it's very irritating when your a new Private. You'll want to say STFU but then eventually you will learn the behavior and start parsing what the guy next to you says.

It's a Military thing.

I'm glad your answers stayed public on here because I'm waiting to ship off for basic in october and I have enlisted as EOD and I can't find any info about it except on here.

I would also like to thank toneal5 (for asking pretty much every question I've had) and Czsteve (for answering pretty much every question he/I've had).

I've only got one remaining question. How many women do you see in this MOS?

How many women? Very, very few. The field isn't terribly diverse.

My boyfriend just arrived at Redstone the other day. This discussion has answered A LOT of questions I have and my boyfriend has. I'm wondering...
1) Will he get time between graduating from AIT and being stationed?
2) What are the chances of him getting deployed overseas?
3) Once he graduates from AIT, what will he be doing most likely?

1) He'll probably get the opportunity to take leave between Redstone and Eglin and again between Eglin and his first duty station. I say probably, because there's always that chance that someone somewhere has gone mad, started chewing on the furniture, and changed things. Both of those moves are considered PCS moves, so he should get the opportunity to take leave for them.

2) His odds are lower for OCONUS than CONUS. He can request, through the official ways, to go to Germany, Korea, Alaska, or Hawaii. There is no army EOD in Italy, so Vicenza is right out. There are other overseas assignments available, but I don't think they're available for a first duty station.

3) This is the way it usually goes. He'll get pinpoint orders at Eglin. This means he'll know which company he is going to and where it is. Once he arrives at his duty station and asks the gate guard where he's supposed to go to in-process, he'll sit around for a week or two before he goes to his unit. He'll in-process at his unit, probably be assigned to a team, and start training, learning the ropes, and taking out the trash. I can almost guarantee taking out the trash.

I hope you dont mind me popping in for a quick question. I failed out in 2008 and i heard i can go back. Because it wasnt for something stupid like clearance or something. So im just wandering how long i would have to wait.

3 days, 2 weeks, 6 months? Who knows.