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Military

Camp Pendleton Opens Training Course To Help Marines Detect IEDs

By Alison St John / Reporter
Published March 25, 2010 at 4:06 PM PDT
This story was published more than 14 years ago.
The new $13 million training course on Camp Pendleton is a road that loops over rolling terrain and teaches Marines how to detect and survive Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), which are the primary cause of death and injury to service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, March 25, 2010.
Alison St John
The new $13 million training course on Camp Pendleton is a road that loops over rolling terrain and teaches Marines how to detect and survive Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), which are the primary cause of death and injury to service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, March 25, 2010.
Camp Pendleton Opens Training Course To Detect Improvised Explosive Devices
Officers on Camp Pendleton cut the ribbon yesterday on a new training facility that should help save lives. The course teaches Marines how to detect and survive Improvised Explosive Devices, which are the primary cause of death and injury to service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

New USMC IED Training Center

Officers on Camp Pendleton cut the ribbon yesterday on a new training facility that should help save lives. The course teaches Marines how to detect and survive Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), which are the primary cause of death and injury to service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The $13 million training course is a road that loops over the hills of Camp Pendleton.

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Trainer John Bell describes an exercise as vehicles approach an overpass that marks the entrance to a city. “They’re coming into the city at a moderate speed,” he says, "observing the right flank, the left flank, "they’re looking for anything that looks different."

The convoy doesn’t spot the tell-tale signs in time. An explosion rings out and clouds of gray smoke billow over the vehicle at the side of the road. Bell points out a small pile of rocks nearby that should have alerted the Marines to check the area.

Down by the classrooms, Aaron Pluff gingerly controls a so-called “Pack Bot” robot toward a cell phone on the ground

“I’m going to try to maneuver closer and go pick it up,” he says, his tongue between his teeth, “if I can get my claws in the right spot.”

Learning to use robots to identify bombs could save lives.

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Base Commander Col. Nick Marano says the new training course on Camp Pendleton prepares Marines for higher level training at Twentynine Palms, and recreates many of the risky situations they’ll face in Afghanistan.

“It really gives that entire feel that a unit’s going to come across when they deploy,” he said, “urban, rural or village, in a convoy or on foot.”

The training course is only one of several new courses on base: another prepares Marines to drive convoys safely on the kind of steep mountainous roads they’ll find in Afghanistan.

Marine officials say they are developing more and more comprehensive training for wars that are becoming more and more complex.

Military
Alison St John
Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.
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