Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego -- MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — One event Company H Marines faced during the Crucible, a 54-hour test of endurance where recruits must conquer more than 30 obstacles while they experience food and sleep deprivation, was the Improvised Explosive Device course where they were trained to locate and react to hidden explosive devices.
Marines of Co. H, 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, walked in a combat patrol formation through an IED course during the Crucible at Edson Range, April 1.
“Being narrowed minded such as only looking at the ground closest to them will make them miss the IEDs. Marines have to observe and have an overall view of what is going on around them,” said Cpl. Nicholas J. Lacarra, field instructor, Weapons and Field Training Battalion. “Once recruits graduate recruit training, they should take the basics they’ve learned here and build off of it once they reach the fleet.”
The course helps teach the recruits key things to look for that can indicate any small sign of an IED, explained 22-year-old Lacarra, a Huntington Beach, Calif. native.
Before starting the course, Marines received a brief on what to do if an IED was located. A Marine must give the command halt while giving the proper hand signal to show all the Marines that one was located. If the simulated IED exploded on them, the Marines hit by it had to lie down to indicate injury while the rest of the Marines evacuated them from the area while providing security.
The road, which resembled a third-world country environment, consisted of several suspicious objects such as a totaled car on the side of the road and an area that resembled a small town with pedestrians.
There were three simulated IEDs along the road the Marines were patrolling through. It was the Marines’ mission to locate them, but if they didn’t the IEDs would explode, releasing a cloud of smoke and powder. If Marines were covered by the smoke or powder; they were indicated as casualties.
Marines had approximately 60 seconds to evacuate the simulated injured Marines out of the area of the explosion.
Once Marines were hit with the first IED, they realized they needed to keep a keen eye out for them, explained Pvt. Thomas M. Hoover, Platoon 2171.
After each IED went off, the course instructor would brief them on things they should be looking for such as: wires, land markings, freshly dug up dirt and several other indicators.
The course taught Marines that attention to the small details is extremely important between life and death. After Marines reached the end of the course, they circled around the instructor and went over areas they could have performed better on.
“Seeing and practicing it first hand is an eye opener to what will be expected in a live situation,” said 23-year-old Hoover, a Richmond, Texas native. “I feel a lot more confident in my abilities to be able to locate an IED if I was to be put in this situation on a deployment.”