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NEWSSTAND
News from Iraq.:
15 Jan 2006
RAMADI, Iraq — For Marine Gunnery Sgt. Michael Burghardt, the business
of hunting down and defusing roadside bombs is something of a deadly
chess game.
Burghardt, 36, of Fountain Valley, Calif., is probably one of the best-known
and most well-respected improvised bomb experts in Iraq, where his skills
are in constant demand.
Last September, an embedded journalist snapped a photo of Burghardt
moments after a roadside bomb exploded on him in a notoriously troubled
corner of western Ramadi — a city that Burghardt describes as “the
scariest place on Earth.” The image shows Burghardt with bloodied legs
and shredded uniform, flipping the bird to an unseen insurgent who
triggered the bomb.
The photo has circulated widely among military personnel in Iraq, who view
it as a powerful symbol of resolve and fighting spirit.
“It’s one hell of a picture,” said Col. John L. Gronski, commander of U.S.
Troops in and around Ramadi.
The 2-28 Brigade Combat Team commander keeps an enlarged,
autographed copy on his office wall.
Whether Burghardt is using a Mars rover-type robot or a knife blade to
probe for bombs, or searching for them in a heavily armored Buffalo mine-
clearing vehicle, his goal is to outmaneuver the fertile yet deadly
imagination of the unseen bomb-maker and, he hopes, save the lives of
fellow soldiers and Marines.
Now, with roughly two months remaining in his third Iraq tour, Burghardt
shakes his head in wonder at the variety and evolution of the roadside
bombs he has encountered and the relentlessness with which they’re
planted.
Washing machine timers, cordless telephone docking stations, battery
acid, shaped charges and artillery rounds seemingly scrounged from all
corners of the globe are the insurgents’ currently preferred tools. Yet
Burghardt said it’s only a matter of time before they move on to newer and
deadlier devices.
“It’s a big game of chess,” Burghardt said. “They’re thinking their steps
through on how to beat us, and we’re doing the same thing.”
In the hierarchy of roadside bombers, Burghardt said insurgents are
divided into three groups: those who plant bombs; those who design them;
and those who finance the process.
The lowest rungs, those who plant the improvised explosive devices, or
IEDs, are most likely doing it for financial reasons as opposed to any
ideology, he said.
“It’s almost like a drug habit,” Burghardt said. “There are the guys on the
top who have the money and do the planning, and then there are the crack
addicts down below. They make their living planting IED after IED until
somebody puts a bullet in them.”
While roadside bombs remain the No. 1 killer of U.S. Troops in Iraq,
aggressive efforts at finding improvised explosive devices in and around
Ramadi have reduced the number of attacks here from a September high
of 45 a week to fewer than 15 currently, the U.S. Military reports.
Burghardt earned the Bronze Star for disabling 64 roadside bombs and
destroying more than 1,500 pieces of ordnance during his second Iraq tour.
But he and his fellow explosive ordnance disposal technicians do not
always beat the bomb-makers and planters.
Already, five EOD technicians Burghardt has worked with have been killed,
the most recent death occurring three weeks ago when the technician
sunk his knife into a dirt berm and activated the pressure switch on a
buried bomb.

“Pink mist,” Burghardt said gravely, using the term familiar to Marines to
describe the aftermath of a person being blown up.

The day Burghardt found himself checkmated by a roadside bomber was
Sept. 19. He was in Ramadi’s wild Tammim neighborhood as part of a
team of bomb technicians responding to the scene of a chaotic ambush in
which four U.S. Personnel were killed.

Burghardt, who was looking to clear an evacuation route for the vehicles,
hopped into what he thought was a recent bomb crater. He said he saw an
interesting piece of shrapnel in the 4½-foot- deep hole and wanted to
investigate. As he took a closer look, the shattered gravel beneath his foot
suddenly shifted, revealing a package wrapped in orange plastic and a
cordless telephone base station.

Realizing that he had just stumbled onto a primed explosive, Burghardt
stuck his knife in the dirt and dredged up a red detonating cord that led to
a pair of 122 mm artillery shells. He cut the cord with scissors and told the
rest of his team to stay back.

“I thought I had done good,” Burghardt said.

But what he didn’t realize was that a second detonating cord ran from the
base station to a third artillery shell buried behind him. The trigger man,
figuring perhaps that he wouldn’t lure anyone else into the trap that day,
placed a telephone call to the base station.

“That’s when I heard the distinct crack of that artillery shell,” Burghardt
said.

The explosion sent Burghardt 10 feet into the air and dropped him in a
heap on the road as his team watched in horror.

“All I remember is opening my eyes and hearing a ringing in my ears,” he
said. “They all thought I was dead, but when I started to move I could hear
them yell, ‘He’s alive!’”

Burghardt could not feel his legs. Trying not to look below his waist —
afraid of what he might see — he was struck by an image of his father.
The retired Marine spent three tours in Vietnam, earning three Bronze
Stars and three Purple Hearts by the time he was shot by a sniper and
paralyzed from the waist down.

“I didn’t want my dad to see me in a wheelchair next to him,” Burghardt
said.

But relief came quickly. Burghardt was able to wiggle his toes.

Medics cut away his bloody pants to reveal that the backs of his legs had
been studded with shrapnel and bruised from the top of his boots to his
waist. As they prepared to place him in a stretcher, Burghardt shouted,
“No.” He didn’t want his teammates or the insurgents to see him carried
from the scene. He was going to walk.

As he was helped to his feet, Burghardt said, he felt a wave of anger and
adrenaline flow through his system. He had just extended his Iraq tour that
morning and he was livid that he had been bested by the bomber.

“I was really pissed off that they got me, that after all this time, they got
me,” Burghardt said. “I figured the trigger man was still watching, so I
flipped him off. I yelled, ‘[Expletive] you! I’ll be out here next week!’”

It was at this moment that photographer Jeff Bundy of the Omaha (Neb.)
World-Herald snapped the photo that would be seen on office walls,
refrigerators, screen savers, Web sites and newspapers throughout Iraq
and the U.S.


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