Wed February 05, 2020 - Midwest Edition #3 Bryan McTaggart – BangShift News

The following article is reprinted with permission.

There's a line attributed to EOD bomb technicians. Reportedly, when asked about whether or not they were stressed out when it came time to defusing a bomb, the answer was something to the effect of "I'm not. Either I'm right, or suddenly it isn't my problem anymore."

Ah, gallows humor, you have to love it. And it's not wrong, either. What a little bit of explosive material can do is eye-opening. What a lot of explosive material can do will re-write the human brain in all sorts of ways, and I don't just mean on the battlefield, either.

Apparently, there's been a bit of a legend in western Minnesota. The story goes that in 1975, a snowmobile club wanted to cut some new trails and managed to borrow an Army surplus International Harvester TD24 bulldozer to make this task happen. At some point near Island Lake in Becker County, they encountered a swamp. For whatever reason, even with permission to go around the swamp, the crew decided to press on and sure enough, the tracked dozer got stuck. Now … bear with me for a moment, but at what point do bad decisions start to pile up?

This cartoon actually ran. The team decided that hey, if we "incentivize" the local National Guard unit, then maybe they can come out and get the stuck dozer out of the swamp. Now, I'm not going to call the cartoon wrong … if anything, that's actually a pretty solid offer. But the National Guard was not impressed. In fact, they were pissed, seeing the cartoon as offensive, and told the crew to pound sand … or something along those lines.

Bad idea #2: Fertilizer, diesel fuel and dynamite. I wish I was joking … at some point, someone thought that was a perfectly logical solution to freeing a twenty-ton bulldozer from a swamp. Here's how this next part played out: someone lit a match; the large-scale bomb goes off; the entirety of the swamp in the nearby area liquifies; and the TD24 sinks like the Titanic approximately 20 feet down into the swamp before finding terra firma. And that's where it lay up until a couple of days ago, when after years of slumber, the dozer was finally extricated from the sludge of the swamp.

Bette & Cring to Complete Critical Bridge Replacement

HEM Paving Produces New Models for Overlay Projects

NFL's Carolina Panthers End Agreement to Build $800M S.C. Headquarters

Touching the Surface — Federal Highway, Bridge Funds Steadily Increase Due to IIJA

Doosan Introduces All-New Next-Generation Mini Excavators

Ames Completes Critical $134M Arizona Project

PA Lawmakers Secure $53M for Final Design of U.S. Highway 219

Portland, Maine's Jetport Closed Until June 13 for Renovation to Primary Runway

Construction Equipment Guide 470 Maryland Drive Fort Washington, PA 19034 800-523-2200

Construction Equipment Guide covers the nation with its four regional newspapers, offering construction and industry news and information along with new and used construction equipment for sale from dealers in your area. Now we extend those services and information to the internet. Making it as easy as possible to find the news and equipment that you need and want. Privacy Policy

All rights reserved. Copyright 2022. Reproduction of materials appearing on this Web site is strictly prohibited without written permission.