'When you mess one up, you die': What it takes to do one of the US military's most dangerous jobs

Explosive ordnance disposal technicians are a small, elite group tasked with disarming and disposing of explosives on the battlefield and at home.The job requires immense technical knowledge, and the strain takes a physical and mental toll.“You actually have to get out there and perform the [disarming] and disposal procedures,” Master Sgt. Linn Dillard told Business Insider. “There's a lot of steps. When you mess one up, you die.”Visit INSIDER's homepage for more stories.The pilots who fly the Air Force's fighters and bombers, the crew members who keep them in the air, and the controllers who guide them are all focused on getting ordnance to targets. The Air Force's explosive ordnance disposal technicians, however, are part of a small cadre whose job is to find and eliminate ordnance on battlefields or at home.After working as a technician gathering blood to treat wounded troops, Master Sgt. Linn Dillard retrained for EOD at Florida's Eglin Air Force Base in 2009, becoming one of just three of 25 students in her class to pass the course.Read more: These photos show why the US Coast Guard's snipers are some of the best in the businessDuring her Air Force career, Dillard has overcome a traumatic brain injury suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated under her armored vehicle in Afghanistan, survived Stage-3 breast cancer, and won medals at the 2017 and 2018 Defense Department Warrior Games.On Friday, after a discussion about resilience and recovery from mental and physical strain at the Air Force's AFCON 2019 in New York City, Dillard, now an EOD equipment program manager, told Business Insider about the skills required to dispose of ordnance and the strain it puts on the select few airmen who do it.The interview below has been edited for clarity and length.