DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable: Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization

Lieutenant General Michael L. Oates, Director, Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization

Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates, Director, Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization

On a recent DoDLive Bloggers Roundtable, we interviewed  U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael L. Oates, Director, Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).

Oates discussed JIEDDO’s current efforts to rapidly provide comprehensive counter-IED support to deployed warfighters and its direct support of the surge in Afghanistan. He also discussed JIEDDO’s coordination with the Pentagon’s senior integrators; its unique role as a risk-tolerant organization; its whole-of-government approach and its work with international partners; its approach to counter-IED training methodology and integration; its development of detection technologies, airborne sensors; its application of information fusion to disrupt threat networks employing the IED; and current challenges across its mission areas.

LISTEN to the interview

To view the transcript, click here.

Read the Defense.gov story: General Leads Efforts Against IEDs

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    An United States Air Force C-130J Hercules cargo aircraft from the 146th Airlift Wing, California Air National Guard, conducts flare training off the Ventura County coast. The flares are used as tactical infrared countermeasures to confuse and redirect heat-seeking missiles.

    (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Dave Buttner)


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    Famed Yankees pitcher “Lefty Gomez” once remarked “I’d rather be lucky than good,” but for one Tuskegee Airman, luck and good combined to make him one of the most successful combat pilots of World War II.

    During the summer of 1944, 2nd Lt. Clarence D. “Lucky” Lester was flying the P-51 Mustang over the skies of Italy’s Po Valley providing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers with cover support on their way to attack airfields in southern Germany.

    Lester was assigned to the 100th Fighter Squadron, a part of the 332nd Fighter Group, and had earned the nickname “Lucky” “because of all the tight situations from which I had escaped without a scratch or even a bullet hole in my aircraft.”

    Read the story of a flight that helped Lester earn his nickname here.


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    The only African-American ace of World War II, and a former Tuskegee Airman, went on to have a career in the Air Force, as well as success in the business world.

    Lee A. Archer joined the Army in 1941 with high hopes of becoming a pilot, but was initially denied because of his race. When the Army’s policy changed about a year later, Archer was accepted to the training program for black aviators at the Tuskegee Army Airfield in Alabama.

    Archer is best known for a day in late 1944 when he was involved in a series of dogfights over German-occupied Hungary. Flying a P-51 Mustang fighter, Archer shot down three German fighters. He would go on to add two more German fighters to his credit to become the first and only African-American ace of the war.

    As a civilian, Archer enjoyed even greater success, serving as vice president for urban affairs with General Foods, as CEO of North Street Capital Corp. and chairman of Hudson Commercial Corp. He also served on the board of directors of Beatrice International Foods and the Institute for American Business.

    Read the rest of his story here.