Forward Operating Base Pasab, Afghanistan - The Taliban will use just about anything to hide bombs, and a perfect spot is a culvert underneath a road.
Now many of the culverts near this base in Kandahar province are no longer prime bomb-hiding locations, thanks to the ingenuity of a Wisconsin soldier.Cpl. Eric DeHart, 38, of Birnamwood worked as a senior designer for Wausau Homes before deciding to join the Army for the first time at the age of 36…
An engineer by trade, DeHart began to think about the best way to make culverts safe from roadside bombs, and soon he came up with a solution...
At first DeHart thought about building devices in a few sizes, but he soon learned that although culverts in the U.S. are uniformly sized, that's not the case in Afghanistan, where it seems every culvert is built differently.
Then he hit on a solution.
"If we used a cone, you could shove it in and it can fit anything from 12 inches to 36 inches," said DeHart...
The 428th installed four devices - now called the DeHart Culvert Denial System - and the 101st Airborne placed more than 30 in Kandahar province.
No IEDs have been found in those culverts since they were installed last winter.
I wish the story said something about how many IEDs have been placed in culverts, compared to other places.
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