Former Air Force bomb disposal officer says what Hollywood gets wrong about the job: 'It's like being a surgeon — except if you fail, then you die.'

Brain Castner in military gear holding the remnants of an explosive device.Courtesy of Brian CastnerFormer Air Force officer Brian Castner debunks Hollywood myths about bomb disposal.Castner spent years dismantling live explosives in dangerous war zones in Iraq.He says "The Hurt Locker" is a good example of what Hollywood gets wrong.In Hollywood films, a bomb technician's job often comes down to choosing which colored wire to cut. However, in reality, "the wire colors have absolutely no correspondence to absolutely anything," Brian Castner told Business Insider's Matthew Ferrera. He added, "You actually don't cut any of them."Brian Castner is a former Air Force explosive ordnance disposal officer, or EOD, whose job was to find and disarm improvised explosive devices before they could kill soldiers or civilians. He trained at the Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal School in 2003, and deployed twice to Iraq between 2004 and 2006.Instead of cutting wires mere seconds from detonation, Castner describes the work as slow, procedural, and governed by layers of safety measures."You send in the robot first. If that robot blows up, you send another. And if that one blows up, I'll drive you a third before a person walks down."When a human finally does approach an explosive, it's only after exhausting every other tool. "Walking down yourself is pretty lonely," Castner said. "It's called the 'long walk' for a reason."What 'The Hurt Locker' gets wrongBrian Castner standing in the rubble of a building demolished by explosives.Courtesy of Amnesty InternationalCastner said the 2008 Oscar-winning film, "The Hurt Locker," nailed the first few minutes of a bomb disposal scene, including the procedure, tension, and methodical pace. However, that's about all it got right."Everything in between the first few minutes and the last few minutes is Hollywood," he said, adding that while it makes for a good movie, it's not real.One of his main gripes is what type of people the film, and others, portray EODs to be."The biggest misconception of Hollywood, when it comes to EOD, is this idea that you have to be crazy to do the work, and that the people doing the work and working with explosives are somehow off in some way," Castner said.In reality, EOD officers are analysts and meticulous planners who must be proficient in math and physics, and pay close attention to detail. "It's like being a surgeon — except if you fail, then you die and not the patient," Castner said.Castner says the public rarely sees the emotional toll of the jobBrian Castner investigating an explosion.Courtesy of Amnesty International"Anyone who does this work can't say that they're not affected by it," he said adding that, "I think maybe something that the public doesn't understand about the EOD profession is the amount of time we spend memorializing and remembering everyone that we've lost."There's a memorial wall at the EOD school in Florida that Castner walked by daily. It lists every person who has died in the line of duty since World War II, he said.After leaving the Air Force in 2007, Castner eventually went on to investigate war crimes for Amnesty International. His job now sometimes involves visiting dangerous war zones in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Ukraine, and collecting evidence from bombings and missile attacks.In Ukraine in 2022, for example, he was in the country during Russia's full-scale invasion. His team documented the use of a type of banned weapon called cluster munitions, which are bombs that scatter dozens of smaller explosives across wide areas and can leave behind deadly bomblets that don't explode on impact but remain active. Cluster munitions have killed over 56,000 people since the '60s — mostly civilians, including children."We were the first to prove, with physical evidence, the use of cluster munitions," he said. Whether he's defusing a roadside bomb or documenting the aftermath of one, the mission is the same."We're a watchdog. The work that we're doing is trying to keep as many civilians safe and free of harm as possible," he said.Read the original article on Business Insider

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