01 Call Missed

When i was 18, I enlisted in the US Army. I guess I don't really need to say "US" Army because i'm obviously not enlisting the Roman Army, but I digress... After I took my physical and ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test, they told me I qualified for EOD Tech School. Bomb disposal. At first I was a little disappointed because I figured that meant I was about as smart as a monkey wearing a football helmet and banging on a warhead with a tack hammer, but I looked into it and those guys do some pretty intense shit. I was promptly booted off the bus when they found out I lied on my application about not having asthma as a child, but it makes me wonder if I would still be around had that not happened. They told me 1 in 10 IEDs go off during diffusal. After watching the Hurt Locker, I started thinking about it again and remembered seeing this photo from the beginning of the Iraqi conflict:



If you've seen the movie then you know what this is. Pretty fucking scary. Some dude with a 5th grade education sat in a dirty cement shack and managed to wire this cell phone to trigger an IED. I mean- he probably knew more about electronics than your average Circuit City technician. I say "knew" because I assume eventually all these guys go out doing what they do. Just seems like displaced motivation. He could be replacing motherboards or refurbishing blackberries that people dropped in uninals, but nope. Gonna blow people up. I don't get it.