Q-and-A with 2nd Lt. Brent Taylor, Utah Army National Guard 116th Engineer Co.

The Utah Army National Guard's 116th Engineer Co. has been in Iraq for almost a year. The all-volunteer company is providing convoy service in northern Iraq. 2nd Lt. Brent Taylor is the company's executive officer. He recently responded to questions about the biggest threats to the company and about conditions generally.

Q: On this end, it looks like IEDs (improvised explosive devices) are the deadliest threat in the theater. True?

A: Yes. The insurgents learned early on that they could not match the U.S. forces in terms of tactics or firepower, so they turned to IEDs which they can use without having to expose themselves to a direct engagement.

Q: How often do you encounter them?

A: I cannot discuss the specifics, but there are IED-related incidents every day across our theater of operations. We have had plenty of contact with them.

Q: How do you train to spot them?

A: The military really does a great job of prepping soldiers to identify IEDs by using past lessons learned. The Army collects all the information that they can about IEDs that are found. They then use that info to train soldiers and to keep us informed of the constantly changing IED threat.

Q: How often, and how successful, is the effort to locate and dispose of them before they detonate?

A: Efforts to find IEDs before they go off are becoming more and more successful. Again here, I cannot discuss the particulars, but I can say that in our battalion, our soldiers discover more than one third of IEDs that have been planted before they detonate.

Q: Are there people in the convoy particularly trained to spot IEDs? Some who are particularly good at it?

A: Experience is, of course, the best teacher, and we have some very experienced soldiers. We place our best IED spotters in the right places in the convoy where they are most likely to be able to spot an IED before it detonates. For example, one of our Utah soldiers recently spotted two IEDs during a single convoy mission. This type of action saves soldiers' lives.

Q: Are there other dangers convoys face that rival the IEDs?

A: There is always the threat of a more direct form of attack: RPG (rocket-propelled grenade), small arms fire, etc. And while we do see some of that, the IED is the biggest danger to soldiers in Iraq today.

Q: Bigger picture: What news from home is the most helpful, encouraging?