Article and interviews by Rhonda Crowley, OHI

Chances are if you were lucky enough to know Marine Corps GySgt. Floyd Holley you would probably describe him as humble and self-effacing. That is what surprises Chrissy Holley, Floyd's wife, the most about the call she received from him one night from Afghanistan. "Floyd was the most humble person I ever met. He never wanted to take credit for anything." This night, weeks before his death during Operation Enduring Freedom, he told Chrissy that he had used a tool that, in his words, "is really gonna save a lot of guys." That "something" would turn out to be an IED manipulation tool which was eventually named the "Holley Stick" in his honor after he lost his own life to an IED.

SSgt. Matthew Jackson, Floyd's friend, visited Chrissy along with five other battalion commanders whom Floyd had worked with during his deployment. "They all came in to meet me and give a personal account of how special he was. It was then that they gave me the background on the stick," said Chrissy. In particular they described a mission during which they were expected to lose a lot of men, but thanks this new tool, they only lost two. The stick was a make-shift pole with a sickle duct taped to the end. "I am working with what I've got," Floyd would say. After his death, Matthew wanted to make sure that the tool went into R&D and more importantly that it be called the "Holley Stick."

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Cologne, Germany Nearly 20,000 residents were evacuated from their homes and businesses in preparation for a Render Safe Procedure (RSP) conducted on a U.S. WWII era bomb. The bomb was reportedly discovered along the riverbank of the Rhine River approximately 15 feet underground during excavations for a pipeline.

The bomb was discovered on May 22 but it took almost a week to schedule the RSP operation due to the time required to plan the massive evacuation effort which involved the temporary closing of a zoo, retirement home, school, and hundreds of other businesses.

The RSP was successfully conducted by the war materiel disposal service. After the RSP was complete, the bomb was safely relocated off-site for proper disposal.

Memorial Day is not about a day off, a trip to the beach, or the beginning of summer. It is about honoring those brave men and women who made our freedom possible.

UXOInfo.com thanks all who have served our country, especially the EOD Technicians who have one of the most dangerous jobs in the military.

Please remember those who have served, are currently serving, and the families and friends who lost love ones in the line of duty.

Thank you EOD.

Bacolod City, Philippines An explosion inside the shop of the EOD Battalion of the Philippine Army at the Negros Occidental Provincial Police Office compound in Bacolod City which killed one soldier and wounded another has been ruled an accident. Technical Sergeant Joven Maravilla and Corporal Erlwin Trases were conducting a demilitarization procedure of an M203 grenade launcher when it exploded.

Both men were taken to a hospital where Maravilla was pronounced dead. Trases suffered multiple wounds and the loss of his right hand.

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Eglin Air Force Base, Florida The names of seven military EOD Technicians who died in WWII have been added to the EOD Memorial in a ceremony at the Navy's EOD School. The names, located after an extensive search of DoD records, join 314 others already inscribed on the wall.

The seven WWII EOD memorialized include:

• Army Pfc. Laurence Paystrup, who was killed May 26, 1943, in Tunisia;
• Army Sgt. Ira Wiggins, who died May 27, 1943, while during military operations in Tunisia;
• Army Capt. Frederick Dillon, who was lost with his aircraft somewhere between Algiers and Tunisia on Oct. 10, 1943;
• Army 1st Lt. Steven Todorovich, who was aboard the same aircraft as Dillon;
• Marine Corps Cpl. Clellie Whited Jr., who was killed by enemy fire on March 3, 1945;
• Navy Lt. j.g. Alvin Vetter, who was killed on D-Day, June 6, 1944;
• Navy Lt. j.g. John Fezler, who died when the plane he was aboard headed for Papua New Guinea disappeared on Oct. 1, 1944.

Also added to the EOD Memorial was Justin Helton, an Army EOD Technician killed in Afghanistan on June 9, 2014.

Jacksonville, Florida The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO) Bomb Squad responded to a home in South Metro when a 19-year-old resident discovered a suspect munition while doing yard work. Six homes were evacuated while they investigated the property which once belonged to a retired JSO bomb technician who had previously been arrested on explosives charges.

The 19-year-old, niece of the retired tech, recently moved into the home and pulled up the mortar round while digging up bricks to make a border in the yard. Technicians determined the ordnance to be a practice round and removed it. They searched the home for additional explosives but did not find anything.

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Washington, D.C. The House of Representatives Armed Services Committee released a report on H.R. 1735, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2016 which included language regarding the oversight of the Army's EOD program. The report "recognizes the importance of the Army EOD force as a unique and highly technical enabler" and also the importance of Army EOD's role in supporting of civilian law enforcement authorities in contingency scenarios.

Over concerns that the Army has not cleared identified future capacity and capability requirements for its EOD force, the Committee has requested a briefing by December 1, 2015 to include:

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Perth, Australia Firefighters fighting a fire near Two Rocks have decided to avoid an area suspected of containing UXO due to potential explosive hazards. The area, once used for military training, is not developed and no homes or properties are considered at risk.

Firefighter instead are waiting and watching the fire from a distance until it moves into areas not suspected of containing UXO. Nearly 40 firefighters have responded so far and several roads in and around the vicinity of Two Rocks have been closed.

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Jackson, Georgia A local resident dropped off an old artillery shell he had sitting in his house to the High Falls Fire station. The station called the Monroe County Sheriff's Office to respond who responses along with the Bibb County Bomb Disposal Unit. The man told authorities that he found the ordnance while digging for a sewer line approximately three years earlier.

It's unknown why the man decided to keep the munition in his house and what prompted him to finally turn over the munitions. The exact type of munition was not reported but the bomb squad secured the munitions as they awaited the arrival of the military to further examine and dispose of the ordnance.