Major Kevin Farris
Kevin Farris, a burly, 39-year-old redhead from Lone Star, Texas, is
called out one day when a couple of GIs, smoking in the sunshine outside
the old aircraft hangar that houses the U.S. military command, get to wondering,
what-in-hell’s that stickin’ out of the wall up there? Maj. Farris
is with EOD, Explosive Ordnance Disposal. He peers up at the thing embedded
in the outside wall of the commanding general’s bedroom. It’s a powerful
Russian rocket, dating back probably to the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s.
Farris can disarm it, all right. But first he goes inside the command center
and tells the brass that if the thing goes off, “I can protect you against
shrapnel but not against blast.” The commanders scurry out and take cover.
Worst case, Farris confides, that missile could blow up the command post,
all the communications equipment, the mess tent, a row of helicopters—even
the latrines. Gingerly, he and his men have a look. The thing is harmlessly
inert. Another day, another dud.
But Farris does find plenty of stuff around here to blow up. He drags
it out to the far side of the runway and cooks it off with a piece of C-4
explosive. You locate Farris on this sprawling base by the sound of explosions.
“Fun?” he asks incredulously. “If didn’t have a wife and sailboat, I’d
never go home!”
Staff
Sergeant Dirk Sheffer
PFC
Ryan Odom
Staff
Sergeant George Smith
Major
Kevin Farris
Command
Sgt. Maj. Frank Grippe
Maj.
Gen. Franklin L. “Buster” Hagenbeck
Lt.
Col. Fred Hoadley
Specialist
Steven Merkley
Maj.
Jerry Curran, M.D.
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