By NICK FRANCIS
Published: The SUN 05 Mar 2010
IRAQ war film The Hurt Locker is a real edge-of-your-seat thriller and is up for an amazing NINE Oscars this weekend.
It tells the harrowing story of a US bomb disposal team's deadly mission in Baghdad - and the movie's producers were advised by a Brit hero of the campaign, Chris Hunter.
The 37-year-old major is the British Army's most successful bomb disposal expert ever. He has completed multiple tours in Northern Ireland and Afghanistan as well as in Iraq, where he disarmed 45 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), during a single two-month stint.
In The Hurt Locker, lead actor Jeremy Renner - nominated for the best actor Oscar on Sunday - plays Staff Sergeant William James, a reckless and fearless operator addicted to the perils of the job.
The movie - which bagged the best film Bafta last month - makes for compulsive viewing and provides a chilling illustration of the perilous work being carried out by real-life bomb disposal experts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where IEDs now account for 90 per cent of deaths.
Here, in Day Two of The Sun's Oscars Week series, bomb disposal expert Chris tells what he thinks of the film - as well as what life is really like on the front line.
Chris says: "I've watched a million and one war movies, believe me, but the only one that has made me feel like I am actually back out there is The Hurt Locker. It sent a tingle down my spine."
As an ATO - or Ammunition Technical Officer - Chris got so good at foiling bombs in Basra that he became a direct target himself when insurgents left devices intended specifically to kill him.
In one incident, outside a packed hospital in Basra, rebels left a car packed with explosives.
They assumed Chris would open the boot, which would detonate the bomb.
But sensing something was wrong, he sent in a robot to open the boot - and the car blew sky-high.
Chris is one of the lucky survivors of a job which claims many casualties, among them British servicemen Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, 30, Warrant Officer Gaz O'Donnell, 40, and Captains Dan Shepherd, 28, and Dan Read, 31.
Chris says: "I knew Olaf, we served together, and Gaz was a good friend. I was with him two days before he was killed.
"The Ammunition Technical Officers are a close-knit community. It's one thing The Hurt Locker gets across very well.
"The camaraderie between all the guys is huge, but there is also a real diversity in character.
"There aren't many of us doing the job and we have to work very closely together.
"It's incredibly competitive but you also have to watch each other's backs. You can take the p*** out of each other, but if anyone else tries to take the p*** you won't stand for it.
"It takes a minimum of four and a half years' technical and on-the-job training to get to the level those lads were at."
Olaf "Oz" Schmid was killed on October 31 last year as he attempted to disarm an IED in the Sangin region of Helmand province in Afghanistan.
He was close friends with Dan Read, the latest ATO to die in the line of duty. He was killed two months ago.
Chris says: "You never know when it is your last time. All four of those lads were experienced, highly trained and extremely professional. It's just the sheer volume of IEDs these days - it becomes a numbers game."
The ATOs have a term - the Long Walk - to describe their perilous approach to a bomb.
It is done entirely alone to minimise casualties and in a protective suit weighing a burdensome 85lb.
Chris adds: "If you do the Long Walk enough times, chances are something will go wrong one day. It's a very lonely but intense walk.
"To handle it you have to have tunnel vision, blocking out everything around you. It's just you and the bomb.
"Every bomb is unique, so every approach has to be considered carefully.
"It can take hours of crawling along the floor, face in the dirt, in case there's any other ordnance around it or it's been booby-trapped.
"At the same time you're under pressure to deal with it quickly. When a patrol is stopped it's a sitting duck, and an IED often goes hand-in-hand with an ambush."
During his 18 years as an ATO Chris has become skilled at developing profiles of the bomb-makers he has been up against. He says: "It's a game of cat-and-mouse. I could recognise a specific bomb-maker's work by the way it was put together.
"The Taliban are so dangerous because they are sophisticated and quick to adapt.
"Most of their bombs used to be made out of metal, using two saw blades which, when stood on, created a circuit and blew up.
"The British Army realised this and started to counter them using metal detectors.
"The Taliban are cunning, and immediately figured out a way to make bombs from non-metal substances.
"Whenever I hear of an ATO dying in Afghanistan, my heart goes out to the family. It is stressful on loved ones, who never know what could happen to you. Every time you leave for a war zone it could be the last time they see you.
"This is the same for any soldier's family. It takes great strength and relationships become strained very easily.
"An official military term for defusing bombs is Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD. Ask an ATO and they'll tell you EOD really stands for Every One's Divorced."
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/film/2879226/Oscars-week-in-The-Sun-Real-life-stories-behind-the-films.html#ixzz0hmoZB9Jw
Posted by: Michelle Nielsen
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