What Do You Do With that Ticking Time Bomb in the Attic?

“Usually what happens is when a veteran passes away, and family members are cleaning out their items, usually in a basement, garage, or attic, they’ll come across something that they know or suspect is a military ordnance,” said Special Agent Patrick Carolan, a bomb technician with the FBI’s St. Louis Field Office. “They call their local police, and we work with the police department’s bomb squad.”

Carolan explains that if the ordnance is a U.S.-made device, the bomb squad has the experience and knowledge to handle it. They place it a containment vessel and take it to a bomb range for safe disposal. If the device was manufactured in another country, the bomb squad often calls in the U.S. military for expert assistance.

The FBI’s St. Louis Field Office typically gets about one call per week for suspected military ordnance. That number has accelerated in recent years with large numbers of elderly veterans now dying.

The office was so concerned about the safety risks that they launched a public campaign in January. They asked for the public to call in if they recognized any of these devices in their own homes. The bomb squad received 17 calls that week, and more came in in subsequent weeks as a result of local media coverage.

Carolan said people are often a little shocked and concerned to realize they or their loved ones have been living with such a dangerous item in their home, sometimes for decades.