Making War Zones Safe Again (Bomb Disposal Expert)

Bomb disposal expert and former British Army engineer Ben Remfrey joins No Ordinary Monday to share what it is really like working in landmine clearance and explosive ordnance disposal in war zones around the world. 

During the first Gulf War, Ben was deployed to Kuwait to deal with the deadly aftermath of the conflict. Oil fields burned for months, unexploded munitions littered the ground, and anti personnel landmines were scattered across the desert. In one moment he still remembers vividly, Ben looked down and realised an anti personnel mine was sitting directly in his own footprint. 

Today Ben runs an IMAS compliant explosive ordnance disposal training school in Kosovo, training the next generation of humanitarian deminers. In this conversation he explains how modern mine action and bomb disposal work behind the scenes, from equipment and safety standards to the discipline required to survive around explosives. 

We also discuss the challenge of clearing landmines while war is still ongoing, and why Ukraine now faces one of the most complex mine clearance operations in modern history. Ben also shares the story of the “Great Eight”, the first group of Ukrainian women he helped train in humanitarian demining. If you are interested in bomb disposal, explosive ordnance disposal, humanitarian demining, and landmine clearance, this episode offers a rare look inside one of the most dangerous professions in the world.

Links: 

https://www.pcm-erw.com/about-mk/

https://www.instagram.com/matkosovo_eod_erw_training/

https://www.youtube.com/@pcmerw8387

Credits: 

Produced, hosted and edited by Chris Baron 

Images and Videos: 

MAT Kosovo, Neil Gibson, U.S Army, National Science Foundation, U.S. Navy, EdJF, Jonas Jordan, NASA

Topics covered:

Bomb disposal, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), landmine clearance, humanitarian demining, war zones, Ukraine mine clearance, Gulf War, unexploded ordnance, mine action.

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Transcript

A Footprint Hiding A Mine

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Approaching the oil fields was like Dante's Inferno. It was literally you entered into a black space.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

In the aftermath of the first Gulf War, bomb disposal technician Ben Renfrey was part of a specialist team sent into QA's burning oil fields.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

They set charges on all of the wellheads so that you had a detonation which then broke open the wellhead and spewed oil, gas, fire. And they I think they did that to about 780 wellheads.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And one day, as Ben walked back from diffusing a device on a wellhead, he noticed something in one of his footprints.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

And as I walked back, I looked at one of my footprints and I saw that there was an anti-personnel mine that I'd actually trodden on. We weren't equipped to get me out of there properly. If it would have been heavily mined, you know, some of those guys trying to get in and and get me out would have become casualties themselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Hey folks and welcome back to another episode of No Ordinary Monday. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm your host, Chris Barron, and each week I invite a guest onto the show to relive their No Ordinary Monday story. An extraordinary event or experience that stands out across their entire career. And like any good story, we'll reveal the path that led them there, we'll hear what the job is really like behind the scenes, and at the end we'll discover the lessons that our guest has learned along the way. Now, today's episode takes us into the world of bomb disposal and humanitarian mining. My guest is Ben Renfrey. Ben is a former British Army engineer and bomb disposal expert who spent decades working in some of the most dangerous environments on Earth, clearing unexploded bombs, landmines, and other remnants of war from conflict zones across the planet. Today he runs one of the world's leading training organizations for explosive ordnance disposal, or EOD. They train and certify new EOD operators from more than 70 countries to safely deal with these threats. But as you heard at the start of this episode, this line of work can also be extremely dangerous. In Ben's case, one of these moments happened in Kuwait shortly after the first Gulf War when he realized that he had just stepped directly onto an anti-personnel landline. Quick note: this episode includes a brief discussion of the psychological toll that working conflict zones can take, including references to alcohol abuse and suicide among veterans and others in this line of work. It's not the main line of focus of this conversation, but if these topics are sensitive for you, just a heads up before we begin. You're listening to No Ordinary Monday? Let's get into the show. Ben, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Well, I'm I'm fine, Chris. And and look, first and foremost, thank you for inviting me on to No Ordinary Monday. And you know, I've I've followed some of the podcasts and the individuals and the incredible stories that they have to tell. And um it's it's intriguing, and and again, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

No, an absolute pleasure. And uh look, we we've already chatted off camera about your story, and I'm really excited to jump into it because I think it's it's uh another great one. Um but I always like to start where um sort of where people are calling in from today. Where where are you at?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Uh at the moment I'm uh actually at home in the office in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Um my my work takes me obviously to many, many places, and generally um my office and place of work is both in the Maltese Islands and also in Kosovo, where we have our explosive ordinance disposal training establishment.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Fantastic. I I was half expecting if you're calling from your um your facility in Kosovo to sort of hear booms in the background from from our recording today. Would would we hear anything if we were um recording your offices?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

You'd you'd hear a lot of people going about their business, and yes, there there is the odd sound unit that we use at the school, but when it comes to live demolitions and dealing with explosives and destroying ammunition, we actually do that at a uh range in Montenegro where we have an agreement with a a demilitar demilitarization uh company that are that uh uh are basically responsible to the UN DP for disposal of aging stockpiles in the region. So that's where we do our demolitions with live ordnance and and we and different techniques.

What Bomb Disposal Really Involves

SPEAKER_01 4:38

I wanted to start out um because as you're saying before, we've interviewed a bunch of interesting people um on the on the show before. And particularly with jobs like yours, which kind of stand out as is you know atypical or a bit unusual, I mean typically when you're uh meeting people for the first time, what kind of reaction do they have about when you say, Oh, I'm a bomb disposal expert, or you know, in some sort of explosive remnants of war disposal? What what are people's reactions typically?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Well, that clearly they're interested and they're in intrigued because it's very much out of the normal, isn't it? Uh I guess you know, I came into this industry. I was a boy soldier, I joined the Royal Engineers, you know, I was involved in in doing basic uh demolitions as as a young soldier, and then through and to to today, where you know my my career has taken me through many different manifestations of uh of a humanitarian D miner, um, uh and also where we are now, where you know we are the world's specialist organization that that trains people to international mine action standards. And the word mine is is a generic for for all on an exploded ordinance in our industry. Um, and it covers the counter-ID side, it covers airdrop weapons, guided weapons, land service ammunition, and everything else, and the safe disposal. So people are really interested in what got me into this uh this job, if you like, um, and also you know, sort of trace my career and and some of the interesting and fortunate um situations I've been and unfortunate, but also the incredibly amazing people I get to work with.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

I would love to just for the listeners to to give them a sense of what it's like, what you've done, you know. Obviously, we'll go into what you're doing in um in Kosovo in the training facility, but before that, as a you know, as a bomb disposal expert uh expert or someone in that field, what are the sort of most notable, memorable sort of items, you know, whether it's IEDs, you know, improvised explosives, or whether large sort of caliber weapons that you've disposed uh you know made safe. Can you just run us through some of those different uh weird and wonderful things that uh you've rendered safe?

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Uh from things as simple as a hand grenade, you know, something like a mill yeah, you can picture a MILS bomb, you know, the British segmented hand grenade. You pull the pin out, you throw it. Generally it functions by design after several seconds, you know, and and detonates. A lot of the time, though, um, especially with aging um land service ammunition and small arms, you know, that people throw these things and they don't go bang. But it doesn't mean they're not going to go bang. Um, and therefore, you know, you you have to deal with something as simple as that in a similar way to the way that you would deal with a large aircraft bomb that's uh maybe a thousand pounds that's been dropped, you know. Again, it hasn't functioned as designed. Why hasn't it functioned? There's a fuse, there's an issue with the fusing system, but then the the way that you render, safe, a thousand-pound bomb is similar to the way that you would render, safe, a small item like a hand grenade. Um, and there are a number of ways that you can render safe a device either by destroying the fuse, taking the fuse off remotely, or um using what we call a low-order technique to defigrate the item without causing too much collateral damage. But again, you know, it's for guided weapons. A guided weapon looks massive, doesn't it? It's you've got a you've got a guidance unit, you've got the warhead, you've got uh the propulsion unit. Um so it looks absolutely enormous. Um but when it comes down to the warhead and the fusing system, you know, it's it's generally similar to a lot of other ammunition that that is guided in terms of how you would also render safe that proximity fuses and the likes.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Do you feel more intimidated defusing, you know, if you're face to face with a with a hand grenade or or a large um bomb, or is it kind of the same, they're kind of both just uh as dangerous as the next?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

In my personal experience, I guess I feel a little bit more intimidated by the smaller items, cluster munitions, um booby traps. Interesting. Booby traps is is the one thing, you know. When I was, and again, we'll go back to Kuwait, we'll we'll hop around on different countries, but when I was in Kuwait, I always remember hopping into an ammunition storage that was full of 155mm projectiles, and I thought I just looked around and saw all these boxes, they were full of ammunition. What I'd failed to see was that under one of the boxes, which was slightly elevated on one side, was something as simple as a hand grenade that had been placed in there with the box resting on the fly-off handle. The guy pulled the fuse uh the pin out. So when the box was lifted up, the fly-off handle would come off the grenade, and they there was actually an instantaneous fuse on uh detonator, which would have then gone off immediately and killed everybody in in that confined area. So, you know, when people talk about improvised devices, they they're they're the real scary ones. When you when you when you're dealing with land service ammunition, um uh even up to guided including airdrop weapons and guided weapons, you know, you know how to deal with these things. The thing when it comes to improvised devices is the the item and the situation is as complex as the person that actually um laid it and and devised it and built the device because that the technology curve these days as well, you know, people can use uh PIR switches and other things. Um and you know, they could put a con on and there could be a crush wire, or there could be a tripwire, or it could be light activated, you know, with a with a light uh panel. So it's it's very it's very, very complex.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

I mean one of the things that I remember reading about in the in the research was um and this may not even be the latest technology, but there's these type of of anti-personnel mines that I think you drop them from an aircraft and they're kind of like a spike and they sit in the ground with a seismic sensor, and they can detect they can detect between wildlife and military and infantry the this the way that the pacing and stuff, and then once they detect the right kind of target, that's only when they go off.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

That's right. They that you're right. They they hit the ground, they deploy themselves, they flip themselves into an upright position, they fire out trip wires, they have the whole seismic um sensors, so that when an uh an armored vehicle or uh infantry or even people get close enough, then they they do spin and fire exactly at the target. Um and and yeah, it they're very very difficult to deal with. A lot of the times they do have the sort of lithium battery charge that only lasts for say 20, 30 days. But some of them have light unit, uh light sensitive um units that can then re-power them up. But yeah, it's a concern. Um and especially in advanced warfare like we've got in Ukraine.

The Scale Of Unexploded Ordnance

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, absolutely. And again, like you know, reading into a little bit of this stuff, what blew me away was you know, we kind of mentioned a little bit before, when you are an army and you're going to war and on a large scale and you are equipping your combatants with stuff, you're typically not giving them the stuff that's come fresh off the manufacturing line. You're giving them the stuff that might have been in the warehouse for uh, I don't know, 10 years, 20 years. And you know, reading that I think the average fail rate can be about 30% uh in some of these cases. And uh so what that you end up with, as you said before, is you end up with you mass uh deploying a lot of this weaponry and uh potentially up to a third of it just sits in the ground, you know, um for for someone to come across at the wrong time, but possibly and even likely after the war has ended. And I guess this kind of comes on to what you guys are doing in in Kosovo, which is training uh people all over the world to deal with this problem of contamination. Um and I guess just maybe start us off with the scale. I mean people might not be aware listening to this, how big a problem it is, and then what you guys are doing um with the uh the Mine Action Trust in in Kosovo.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

That's a really good point, and it's a fundamental issue is ammunition stockpiles and aging ammunition stockpiles. If I if you know for viewers and listeners, if you can imagine you have a massive warehouse and you have big sliding doors at either end, and everything that goes in is palletized on wheels. Okay, every time they have a conflict, a lot of these uh First World nations or whomever else is they don't take out the ammunition that's been recently manufactured. Okay, they take out all the stuff that is aging and they drop that first because they want to get rid of it. Instead of going through an elaborate and expensive process of amuna ammunition stockpile destruction, it's far easier to drop it on somebody else and then pass the problem on somebody else. And you're right, sometimes there is a hundred percent failure rate in a munition that says has 202 submunitions in it, or it's 20%, or it's sixty percent. Okay, the estimate in Ukraine at the moment is from what the Russians have been dropping, 60% failure. But the issue is a lot of these munitions have very sensitive fusing systems, and although they haven't gone bang when they when they were deployed, there's a high probability if you deal with them in the wrong way, they will function and they will kill you. You know, a lot of our graduates who train with us, you know, they'll they'll go out and they'll deal with an item that was fired yesterday that could have been manufactured 70 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

So, you know, it failed to function because of its age.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

That's extraordinary. Yeah. And I guess that brings us on to what you know take us through what uh Matt or the Mine Action Trust in in Kosovo, you guys' big training facility. I mean, you guys are basically, if not the premier, you know, training facility in the world for this kind of stuff, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

We are. Um we're actually uh the parent unit is called Pradium Consulting Malta, because we set it up when we were working a lot in Libya after the the revolution, after they ousted Gaddafi, and we were doing a lot of stuff um in the oil and gas side of things and the energy sector. Uh we set up PCM, um, but a few years prior to that, I had set up Matt Kosovo EOD and ERW training establishment. ERW means explosive remnants of war. With an idea that, you know, a lot of people don't have the time to conduct in-house training of their national staff or even increasing the capacity and competence of their own international expatriate staff. So I saw a niche, an area where we could improve the standard of training. And this goes all the way back, I'm gonna say Kuwait again. When I went into Kuwait in 1990, 91, 92, we were given equipment, we weren't even given uh personal protective body armor or anything else, we were given exploders, um, firing cable, debts, and explosives, and we cut around in the oil fields, blowing stuff up, literally, not really giving a care to safety and standards, um, and therefore, you know, we had a 10 to 15% casualty rate, and a lot of the time that was just down to people doing things that weren't weren't advisable. I mean and complacency, when when you're doing a job, any job, Chris, for 18 months, you start cutting corners, you start taking risks, uh, and that's when people get killed, that's when people get injured. With a ruggedized standard, as we do now have with the international mine action standards, that hardly ever happens. If there's an incident, then it's down to operator negligence, or it's down to failure of the equipment they're using rather than uh the process that they use. So that international standard is very important, and that's why we set the school up initially with an idea of doing a little bit of training um within Kosovo itself for some of the organizations and more regionally, but now we have a training establishment that has clients from over 70 different countries. We have all of the equipment you could imagine that you would need from free from explosive training aids to ground probing radar, digital digital geophysical mapping systems, every EOD tool and weapon you can think of. We have all of that there at our disposal, but we also deploy CADAs to different countries. We've deployed CADAs to Libya, to Syria, to Ukraine, to many different countries to deliver what it is we do. And you're right, we are recognized as the world's number one or premier IMAS compliant training establishment in the civilian sector when we cover the humanitarian side and also the commercial side, but increasingly we're training a lot of military and police as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

And you say, as I said, you've got a big staff there now, and there are so many different kinds of ordinance out there. I mean, do you have to be like you know, have an encyclopedic sort of memory to sort of understand? I mean, I guess it kind of comes down to the countries because typical countries will be contaminated by different things, but um your sort of staff's knowledge base must be having to know the difference between like an Italian-made mine or uh, you know, uh something made in Africa or China or India or wherever it might be, it must be huge.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Yes, you're right. Uh do I know them all? Absolutely not. I couldn't even scratch the surface of it. And and the reason that we we know what we're doing is because we have subject matter experts within the organization who are bang up today on a lot of the munitions. But as I said earlier in the in this interview, in this podcast, every day's a school day. You're always learning. And you know, when we're teaching, it's always open book. When people are doing exams, it's always open book. We're not expecting people to remember everything. Every group that we've had through uh our training, there are WhatsApp groups. So when they go operational on the ground and they see something or they they encounter something they're unfamiliar with, they're encouraged to reach out to the group and say, Look, wow, I've not dealt with this before. It's something I'm concerned about. Does anybody have any information on it? And within seconds, with it with the you know the beauty of technology these days, you they can positively they can positively ID it through one of their contacts, and then they can deal with it safely.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

That's really cool.

Kuwait’s Oil Fields Like Hell

SPEAKER_00 20:54

And that's what we encourage, Chris. You know, that yeah are no experts. We we're we're always learning, and there is always something new. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Um now on this podcast, if you as you've listened to a few other episodes, um, we always like the guests to to come on and sort of r recount and relive sort of one of the most extraordinary experiences of their career. Now, we talked a little bit about Q8 and and this story, and I know it takes place there, but I wonder if you sort of wouldn't mind just setting the scene for us, you know, in Q8, what it was there a little bit, what it smelt like, what it was like, you know, working in that environment, and then take us into the story.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Well, Kuwait, look, after the first Gulf uh war was one of the warmest, brightest countries on the planet, obviously, in the desert, um, relied on um minerals, relied on oil and gas. Um, and the withdrawing um Iraqi forces, they they destroyed as much as they possibly could, whether it In infrastructure, um, and in particular, they wanted to destroy the um ability of the Kuwaitis, Kuwait Oil Company of producing oil and gas. So they set um charges on on all of the wellheads in the oil fields, and they fired them so that you had a detonation which then broke open the the well head and spewed oil, gas, fire, and everything else around the desert. And they I think they did that to about 780 wellheads.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Um, and our job, and literally, you can imagine with prevailing winds, um, approaching the oil fields was like Dante's Inferno. It was literally you entered into a black space that was lit here and there by some of the wells that were flaring up because they were oil and gas, so they were spewing oil, then the they were gas, then they were igniting, then they were going out, and you had this process going on for months and months and months. So you had oil and sand stuck to everything, you had oil all over yourself every time you entered into the area. But our job was to go in as a small team of five guys, and there were about I suppose 20 teams, and we would be given a task dossier to go and deal with a well that was a light or that was spewing oil, and we'd have to clear from a known safe route, uh the the main supply route, the road, we'd have to um do a 50-meter wide lane into the well, 500 meters around the well, clear it, mark it, and then hand it over to the firefighting team who would then come in, dig a lagoon, fill it with water, use the water to fight the fire if it was flaming, and then they'd cap the well, and then we'd move on to the next one. One incident that I had, I suppose, that lives long in my memory because you know it's something that that happened to me, is that one day we came across a well that wasn't a light and it wasn't spewing oil. So I got my binoculars out and I looked, and I could see that it was undamaged, but I could see that there was something set up like a demolitions charge. So I said to my guys, stay where you are, and I then approached the well on my own, walking quite steadily directly towards the the um the well head.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Was there a non-safe route at this point or an I'm being identified?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

I was off the safe route, so I was walking across sandy, oily um surface. So you could literally, I was getting taller as I approached because of all the other burning wells around and and all of the um the oil and gas all oil on and sand. So I got to the well, I dealt with it, so I I um I took the the detonators out, the explosive charges, made it safe, and when I was walking back out to my team, I I could see all of my footsteps. So I was I was retracing my footsteps as you do, and there wasn't a known mine threat in that area. And as I walked back, I looked at one of my footprints and I saw that there was an anti-personnel mine that I'd actually trodden on. I'd actually trodden on this mine, it's an Italian DS-50 anti-personnel.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

That's the actual mine.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

That is the mine I trod on, and I flipped the mine over, and I saw that the guy that had laid it had not put the uh the detonator in it. He'd not put the fuse in it. So I I I'd actually activated it. So I picked it up. I picked it up, I removed the explosive from it, and I put it in my pocket, and one day that will be a doorbell on my uh on my on my forever home, put it that way. Um I was very lucky. Oh my god. There are lots of guys in my industry, lot and a couple of guys that actually worked for me that have lost limbs because they'd stepped on or or they'd have been um seriously injured by an exploded ordnance. So look, that reminds me of a time I I was lucky. I I could now not have the lower half of my right leg and would have lived with that for 30 odd years now, 37 years. But as it so happens, look, I I I was lucky, I was fortunate. Um I never take anything for granted now, though, Chris. If somebody says there's no mixed threat in an area, there's only airdrop munitions, always expect something else, always be aware and don't take anything for granted. And that was one of those situations, I guess, in life where it didn't really affect me until later on that I could have been a casualty when we started losing people from some of those teams that we had in Kuwait. Then, you know, it was but for the grace of God go I, literally.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

I uh you sound so casual about it. I know you're you're a very sort of, you know, sound like a layback kind of guy, but the fact that you're walking back and you look inside your footprint to see an anti-personnel mine and then confirm that you had actually previously triggered the mechanism, what went through your mind at that particular did you just kind of pick it up and go, Oh, that was lucky and and go about your day, or did it sort of take a bit of time to sit with you and then maybe that night or in the following days you it really sort of you know came to light in your head what what how lucky you had been?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

The first thing that came to mind was report and record and make sure that we clear whatever else is in that area because somebody was going to go back and and and um check that well head and and it just so happens that once we'd we'd done a full survey of the area, there wasn't one other item there. It was it was just bizarre. So I guess it was like, you know, how could I have stepped on the only item within thousands of square meters of that well when there was so much contamination in the rest of the oil fields? And I guess it it it was it was not a divine moment, you can't call it that, but maybe I was spared, maybe I I don't know. Um and you're right, I sort of sat sat on the beach in Kuwait where we used to live. It was the first area we cleared when when we got to Kuwait was where we could uh actually um subsist and exist, and uh and it dawned on me that I was a very lucky fellow indeed.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Absolutely incredible. And you must have gone over this you know so many times in your mind, but do you speculate was it incompetence? Did the guy forget? Did he not know what he was doing? Did it drop out of someone's pocket? Like what was it doing there? Do you can you did you what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 29:37

I just couldn't comprehend it. Why would he lay one mine and why would he not put a a um a fuse or a detonator in the in the mine? Uh I just can't fathom it. It it would have definitely been the guy that had set the demolition, but the demolition didn't go off either. So I think you know, a certain degree of incompetence of that individual was was my lucky day, really. Yeah. Maybe he was having a Friday moment, I don't know. Um but anyway, yeah. Lucky man indeed. Lucky.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't even imagine. Um because you know, as you said, a lot of the other places where I've come across mines being laid is there are you know, I I just visualised if it had gone off, you know, your colleagues would have obviously seen seen what had happened to you, and they would have had to assume that it was a a a live minefield. Absolutely and would have had to go to great pains to recover you because they can't just go running in to you know, so what what would it what would have happened in that situation that would be a good thing?

SPEAKER_00 30:43

But we weren't equipped, we weren't equipped to get me out of there properly.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

You would have to drag yourself out, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 30:50

The guys would have manually tried to clear the ground with their knives and whatever else. We didn't have detectors, we didn't have locators, we didn't have body armor. You know, these were the days before there was any proper standards in the industry that there are now. Um there wasn't even a proper procedure for for casualty evacuation out of a known mined area. So, you know, if it would have been heavily mined, you know, some of those guys trying to get in and and get me out would have become casualty casualties themselves. You know, this is all trained. So, you know, the you know, all of this is in um in uh the the training these days, and everybody knows how to conduct a casualty evacuation from a minefield. Back in the day, there was no no real idea apart from manually looking using your Mark I eyeball and and prodding the ground at 30 degrees with a knife to try and find the other mines. And and clearing a route up to the casualty. Generally, you know, I wouldn't have bled to death. Um the you know, when when you step on an AP mine, you know, it generally takes the front of your foot off and and quarterizes it as well with a blast. So you're not gonna bleed to death. You know, you you're gonna be there for a for a wee while. Um, therefore, people need to take their time and do things properly when they when they come to uh evacuate you from the area.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

God, it's unimaginable what uh some of these victims go through. Again, a lot of victims of AP mines are civilians. They're not um they're not trained personnel.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

But um hold that mine up again for me, because I wasn't sure because uh on on the the Docker did you know is that a plastic a plastic one so it's even hard to detect with the metal detector?

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yeah, it's rubber, pressure pad, and the rest of the mine is plastic unscrews. Obviously, I'm handling a free from explosive item, you know. Yep. And then you've got everything inside in terms of if you look at there, then you have Oh wow, it's all plastic. And you've got the firing pin. And the firing pin is literally the only metallic part of that mine, so it's very, very hard to detect even with a minimum metal detector. Okay, it's no such thing as a mine detector. It's a minimum met you know, it's a metal detector that's been optimized to find minimum metal within anti-personnel devices. These days you do have GPR as well, ground probing radar, so you can sweep the ground and it will find the shape rather than even if it's non-metallic, because some mines do have chemical fuses rather than metal.

The Personal Cost Of The Job

SPEAKER_01 33:43

And for for anyone listening just on the audio version of this, I'll put the um the pictures and and the image of of Ben walking through that on the on the website and the socials so you can have a look as well. But um unbelievable, unbelievable story. Um and I guess just sort of going out a little bit more big picture, you know, the career that you've had, you know, you've seen and done some pretty tough stuff across across your career. What kind of personal toll does uh you know those experiences have on you? Is it um uh is it being tough or is it um you know how do you manage this kind of stuff personally?

SPEAKER_00 34:19

I uh look, I'm I'm in my 63rd year, Chris. Um I've been fortunate to get to 63, considering, you know, I've been a soldier and I've been in involved in this industry for many years, and I I hold myself lucky that you know that I'm still in one piece um physically. Mentally, it it does take its toll on you, I suppose, in periods of your life. Um when I was younger, when I was in Kuwait, I was a single man. Um, I really didn't have to care about a family. Um I had to be mindful about my parents who were alive at the time and and not causing them any stress and and making sure that they knew everything was fine. And uh when sometimes it wasn't, you know, you're putting yourself in harm's way regularly. You don't, you know, the a lot of people don't like to talk about their experiences. You you you just have to hear testimonies from the first and second world wars and incredible individuals who had done unimaginable things and never wanted to talk about it after conflict. You know, in our industry, it's very much an un unspoken thing that you know we've all seen stuff that's happened, we've all been involved, we've we've all been deeply affected at one time or another. Some guys some guys take the obvious routes, you know, some guys drink, some guys actually commit suicide. Um and and again, I you know, I I guess it comes down to their own personal circumstances and how deeply affected they have been. Um I know that my first marriage was affected ultimately by what I'd been through um prior to to getting married, prior to having my my two sons in my first marriage, you know, I turned to drink. I had a drinking problem. Um and it was devastating in terms of how it affected my family at the time. Um, and I managed to sort myself out, but not before my marriage broke down and and the family unit split apart. I'm very lucky now that my two sons from my first marriage actually worked for me, um, and that I'm able to give something back. But I wasn't a very good father first time round, Chris. And and um and I regret that. Um I'm I'm fortunate enough to have had a second chance. I have a lovely wife, I have two young children who I'm very much more involved with. Um and look, I'm not at the sharp end anymore. I fly it, I fly in a plane as a passenger, or I fly a desk as the head of the organization. I don't even do any demolitions anymore. I don't go anywhere near it. I'll go to the range and watch my staff and students dealing with and and and dealing with things. I'll go to co I'll go to Ukraine and I'll see all see these amazing people from the police, from the military, from the rescue services, from NGOs. I see all of them dealing with items uh from afar. Um and you know that that's what I used to do in a in a previous life almost. Um I I'm not deeply affected. I don't suffer from PTSD. I don't believe, I don't like loud bangs. Anytime I hear a loud bang, it it pisses me off or it upsets me. And people say, Well, you know, you deal with exploded. Yeah, but if you hear a loud bang, probably you're not doing things properly, are you? So there are the odd things that will set me off. Um, and I've had to experience um people that I knew very well and respected being killed. Um it's just part and parcel of of what it is we do in the industry, you know, to to release land back to communities takes a lot of effort and a lot of sacrifice, and unfortunately, sometimes it's the ultimate sacrifice. Obviously, as a soldier, obviously working in war zones, you do see this thing go on, um, and you are exposed to the threat, whether it be driving down the road um or whether it be on site, you know, people do target you. And and unfortunately, these days, when when you're dealing with you, you've got to think about what's going on in Ukraine at the moment because generally, when we train people to deal with um things within our industry, whether it's mine clearance, bomb disposal, they're doing it in a safe environment. You know, nobody's trying to kill you, okay? So it's a permissive environment. What's happening in Ukraine is we're training guys and girls who are going back to Ukraine, and while they're trying to deal with the items, people are trying to kill them. It's a non-permissive environment because the war's ongoing. And I really do feel for those people, those Ukrainians who are incredibly brave, versatile people, um, who have a wonderful sense of humour and a sense of right, what's right and what's wrong. Um, but you know, the millions of people are subject to the most unbelievable conditions in Ukraine at the moment. As we as you and I are sat here now chatting, you know, people are dying trying to deal with um an aggressive invader of their country. And uh so in an area in in Ukraine the size of Syria is suspected of being contaminated by unexploded ordnance. But the overlay, the the overlay of you know, even if it was a minefield once, it now has cluster munitions in it, it now has land service ammunition stockpiles dumped in it, the amount of of work that's gonna have to be done in in uh Ukraine to release the land back to the communities. And let's not forget the uh agricultural side, you know, it was and still is, you know, a a very um incredibly important resource for supply of oil and grain and and other things.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

And I think you know going back to you, it's not the first time this has happened to a country. You go to someone like Laos, um, you know, a country that was heavily, I think the most, possibly until Ukraine, the most bombed country in history uh during the Vietnam War. And you know, estimates range wildly for how long it's going to take to decontaminate that entire country. But some estimates are over a thousand years at the current rate. Um, and that's obviously due to Laos being you know impoverished and and everything else that comes with it. But yeah, you know what in your mind, what is the solution? You know, you're you're part of the solution, I guess, is you know, you're training people to to help them clean this stuff up, but do you feel like you're you're fighting a losing battle or you're just doing your part, or how do you feel about the whole thing?

Training New Operators And The Great Eight

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Look, we there is no silver bullet, Chris. There is there is no easy solution. Um there are ways of speeding up the way that we can release land. There is a toolbox for the way that we deal with things, and it includes manual, it includes mechanical, it includes K9, um, and it includes well-trained people with equipment doing the job. Um, you know, bees, expanding fan, water foam, watercress, all these weird and wonderful ideas, they're not really gonna help. Um good, well-trained people with the right equipment, well managed, doing things to international standards, and uh releasing that land thereafter, that is the key.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

And I guess that takes us on to sort of uh I guess my final sort of question is that for anyone listening that does want to sort of follow in your footsteps or or do you know get into this kind of line of work, what kind of practical advice have you got for them uh in terms of of getting into it?

SPEAKER_00 43:12

I think you've you make decisions in life. Every individual makes a decision in life whether they want to do something meaningful in to the for themselves, or whether they want to do something for the community, whether they want to do something for their family, whether they want to follow in the footsteps of their father or mother. What's incredibly important is is that you know all society um is involved in every aspect of what makes us all tick and what makes us better people, I guess. There there is no end of stories of the type of people that we have applying for our paper seat EOD. courses from the foundation course to the intermediate to the advanced and then the specialities because what people learn through to deal with through with us is fundamentally the first stage is dealing with um conventional munitions disposal all right land mines land service ammunition hand grenades that have been abandoned projectiles mortars that have been fired and have failed to go on bang that's conventional munitions disposal and and we train people up to the advanced levels of that to deal with guided weapons airdrop weapons um and then you go on to the specialities like counter ID high threat ammunition stockpile management and and those aspects we like to have people involved in the industry who don't just come from a military background we've had uh tooling engineers from from Boeing uh we've had uh accountants lawyers uh atomic engineers all sorts of people from all walks of life have re-rolled and come through the school and and done our courses and have gone on to have standout careers being country directors for for for the UN or for clearance companies uh for NGOs and the likes you know our alumni now after uh years of being a training organization uh covers the entire globe I I was gonna say you even had um it's a very important point that you don't need a military background to do this line of work and you've had even from Ukraine women that were you know hairdressers and legal um people in in law in in all kinds of different um different places and and everyone's coming to do it with a variety of skill sets as well you know and I guess you don't need to have a degree necessarily even is that right it is and and you've hit on a very good point there and something that's very close to my heart you know I do have a heart and the fact is you know even before the full scale invasion of February 2022 we were involved in Ukraine in an advisory way and we started to do some training after the full scale invasion I got in touch with the Ukrainian authorities and said give me a lot of your people we will find donors we will take them to Kosovo we will train them to do conventional munitions disposal and then we'll send them back so you can start clearing and dealing with the problem some of the uh areas that have been liberated by the Ukrainians and they said no we cannot give you any men of fighting age there there's a presidential decree and it dictates that no men of fighting age are to leave Ukraine during this time of emergency. So I said give me your women then And they said no way because women aren't allowed to be sappers in Ukraine. Women are not allowed to be EOD operators in Ukraine and I said why? And they said well that's always been the way and I said well you've you've been invaded your men are fighting your women will do a great job if they're allowed to do this job. And they said okay we'll give you an initial eight ladies and then let's see how things go. So we took this group of women who we now refer to as a great eight and you're right one was a fashion designer one was a kindergarten teacher one was a midwife one was a housewife and we took those uh eight girl oh eight ladies and over six weeks we trained them in the basic level and they went back and they've all gone on to be absolutely standout stars within the Ukrainian Mine Action Program. Um all of them have been back and gone all the way through the levels to advanced levels they're now running operations hundreds of women have now been through the school and have gone back to Ukraine and women are now very much the future of mine clearance and bomb disposal in Ukraine and and if I'm asked I suppose at at the end of my at the end of my working life and somebody were to ask me what's what do you think was the best thing that you achieved in your life in your career and I will say hand on heart training and getting women to be recognized as sappers in Ukraine and that that is the one thing that I'm very very proud of I've had MBEs I've been made a Paul Harris fellow I've the greatest thing and the greatest reward in my life is the fact that I've I've made women very much part of of what it is that we hope to achieve in Ukraine for for now and for the future I it's absolutely fantastic and I think the irony of of that story is that you know they say no you can't have the men because they're all fighting and you can't have the women because we don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

I think the irony is and I found this as well when I was making the doc is that the women actually make incredibly good operators.

Where To Find Ben And Support

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Fantastic look women think a little bit more men have got testosterone they've got peer pressure they they've got a number of things going on. I think there's a lot of women that will tell you all men are have got something on the spectrum they're probably right but with with women that they think a a lot more about the their actions and the consequences of their actions and I think that comes down to being an operator and dealing with land that you know eventually you're gonna be responsible for anybody that goes on that land thereafter whether it's your grandchildren or somebody else's and I think that's why women are are so good at what they do. Yeah absolutely listen Ben it's been absolutely wonderful uh having a chat with you today and this conversation's been uh it's been so interesting um at the end I always love people to sort of give the audience you know plug what you've been doing you said a little bit about your website and what you guys are doing but you know in terms of where people can find you socials or any other sort of uh work in media that you want people to to go and have a look at yeah absolutely I I think you know these days you go on social media you put in Ben Renfrey or you put in PCM or um Matt Kosovo you know you're always going to find a lot of stuff on what we do from our website from our Facebook page from Twitter and everything else you know we have every I've got a great marketing team you can you can watch the film actually and and Chris you mentioned our new marketing film which is all about what we do and how we do it um and you know I'm always happy to answer questions where you know I'm always accessible to everybody that we've trained and and every anybody that wants to come into the industry and do something a bit different whether it's risk education whether it's administration whether it's support of training or support of national programs whether it's um donating some funds to one of the charitable organisations I'm always happy to give advice. I've had a great life I've had a great career and I've been incredibly fortunate to work with some of the most incredible people you can imagine from many many different nationalities religions or everything else and what we always say at our training establishment is the moment you walk through the door you know we're all the same we we've all got the same aims and objectives of doing the right thing um politics has no place um we all have to work together and and try and make the world a safer place and and I hope that we as an organization with the incredible people I have working with me is is that we're made yeah we've made the world a a better place by our actions.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Fantastic what a wonderful place to leave it. Ben thank you so much for joining me and um yeah I encourage people to go and and check out everything that Matt Costa was doing and um and yeah go and go and take part if you can.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

Well thanks Chris and thanks again for giving me the opportunity to uh to tell your listeners and and others about about what it is we do and about the incredible people we work with and and I hope the edit's not going to be too difficult.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

Oh don't worry I'll be all over it fantastic Ben have a lovely day we'll speak to you soon. Thanks Chris and that's a wrap on today's episode a big thanks again to Ben for coming on the show and sharing those incredible stories with us. And of course thanks to you all for listening and supporting the podcast as well. You can find out more information about Ben or his work in the show notes or over on their website pcm-erw.com If you'd like to connect with us you can find us on our socials where our No Ordinary Monday podcast on Instagram, Facebook LinkedIn and also on YouTube where you can find full video versions of these conversations with lots of little clips and images cut into the episode as well. And for anything else check out our website NoOrdinarymonday.com Next week on the show I am joined by Adventurer, newly qualified firefighter producer photographer and just all round superwoman Ulrika Larson. One of the many stories that Ulrika relives is when she joined a research expedition in the waters of Djibouti. She was working alongside her husband Lucas who is an amazing cinematographer they were documenting marine scientists aboard a research vessel but the trip took a darker turn when the boat was boarded by the Coast Guard during a tense moment in the region. What followed was an intense standoff with armed officers on deck and no clear idea how the situation was going to end. It is a great story and I can't wait for you all to hear it. If you enjoyed today's episode there are four simple ways that you can support the show. Number one, follow or subscribe on your podcast app. Number two, leave us a quick rating or review. Number three, share the episode with a friend, a colleague or maybe a family member and then number four, support the show at buymeacoffee.com slash no ordinary monday. Any one of these things helps us keep the podcast independent, we avoid adverts and allows me to keep bringing you great guests and story driven conversations week after week. And that's it for this week's episode. This podcast is independently produced hosted and edited by me Chris Barron. Thank you so much for listening. Take care and we'll see you next Monday