There Is A Bomb For Every Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician

A few weeks ago the large family of Hungarian EOD technicians was shocked by a sad and unexpected tragedy: they had lost their beloved colleague Gyula Kovács, who had been serving in Afghanistan as an EOD technician.

At his burial, one of the mourners was Captain Krisztián Nemes, who was also numbed by the unexpected death of his colleague. He already knew: he is the one to take over Gyula’s position and go to Afghanistan to execute the tasks left behind by the non-commissioned officer who died so young. Back then nobody knew, nobody could foresee: there is a mere fortnight’s service waiting for him and the tragedy would happen to him as well, and the EOD group of the fourth rotation of the PRT serving in Baghlan province would lose its second commander in the summer.

Saturday afternoon, Krisztián Nemes started off to examine a bomb. When he got near the explosive device, it suddenly burst, taking the life of another Hungarian soldier. The 32-year-old EOD technician, who has been promoted a posthumous major, left a loving wife and three little children behind. 8-year-old Dominik, 5-year-old Adrián, and Kitti, who has just turned 1, are waiting in vain for their young father to come home.

Krisztián knew exactly what he was up to when he set off for Afghanistan. He had served in missions abroad before: in 1999 he was in Bosnia with the SFOR troops, and in 2002 he had been serving in Kosovo. He volunteered for the Afghanistan task as well, and following thorough preparations he was ready to start as a reservist any day, since if there is a minor accident, for instance a broken leg, somebody has to replace those assigned to foreign service immediately. He had to go because of a grave tragedy, but he had undertaken the service without hesitation.

– But we must know that EOD technicians handle tragedies like these in a special way, since they are aware: death is hanging over them all the time. The worst can happen any time to any of them. This is exactly why they pay special attention to each other: if there is anybody among them who is not capable of focusing on his work with maximum effort, the commander will immediately tell him to stand back for a while, and has a few words with him. There is also a psychologist who is at the disposal of the staff all the time – naturally, he started his work without delay in the present cases as well. We make every effort to support the family of our deceased colleague in everything: the psychologist deals with them, too, and it was obvious that the psychologist was there when the family was told about the tragedy – added Katalin Nagy.

Colonel Gábor Hajdu, commander of the corps paid a visit of condolence to Krisztián Nemes’ grieving family yesterday to talk to the widow personally, who lost her loved one, her partner, the father of her children overnight.

But Krisztián had left a void behind for his family and numerous others, which cannot be filled. There is another grieving family, and the EOD technicians, the Hungarian Defence Forces, and a whole country are mourning again.