MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- What seemed like an average day at the northside Post Office turned out to be quite eventful here March 1 during exercise Active Shield 2011.
Postal Marines, unaware of the simulated exercise, went through their daily routine before the Post Office had even opened.
They sorted and distributed mail until Lance Cpl. Krystal Baird, an augmented postal clerk for Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, noticed something out of the ordinary.
With fear-filled eyes and shaking hands, Baird showed her co-worker a greasestained, ticking package with no return address.
Carefully examining the parcel and saying, “Whoever sent this does not want it back,” Lance Cpl. Dominique L. Butts, a postal clerk for Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, made the final decision to call the suspicious package into the Provost Marshal’s Office.
“We need to evacuate the building,” said Baird. “Everyone needs to get out!”
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Isaias G. Rodriguez, the postal officer in charge, handed Butts a piece of paper with a phone number to call.
Butts let out a sigh of relief when he was instructed to repeat the words, “exercise, exercise, exercise,” over the phone.
It wasn’t an actual bomb, but Post Office personnel continued to treat the incident as such by evacuating the building and getting as far away from the site as possible while waiting for PMO and explosive ordnance disposal Marines to arrive.
PMO and auxiliary security force Marines set up a 360 degree cordon of the area, cleared out all buildings within the 360 perimeter and set up medical and firefighting personnel at the edge of the cordon.
While EOD set up their equipment, the Criminal Investigation Division questioned Rodriguez, trying to find out as much information about the suspicious package as they possibly could.
Describing the package in as much detail as he could, he told them the size, weight and what the package looked like.
Over the span of approximately two hours, EOD sent in their robots to examine the package.
EOD then retrieved the package, neutralized and destroyed the bomb.
“I’m really proud of my Marines,” said Rodriguez. “They had no idea what was going on and they noticed it right away. I think it’s great Baird was the one to find it, especially because she’s not even originally a postal Marine and she hasn’t had the same training we have.”
Even though it was a simulated incident, it gave some of the Marines a reality check.
“It was kind of scary,” said Baird. “I had no idea that it wasn’t really a bomb, and there was no way I was staying in that building.”
Not only did this scenario provide good training to postal Marines, but also to all other supporting sections, including PMO, EOD, the station Fire Department, BHC and CID.