PUEBLO, Colo. -- Beneath a postcard-worthy Colorado sky, with sun-splashed, snowcapped mountains framing the world around him, Denver Broncos guard Ben Garland is focused on his instructor for the day. Garland, in his usual spot in the front row, locks his gaze and wrings every proton of information out of every word about the current topic: static electricity.
Other NFL players spend their time off in far quieter settings -- perhaps tweeting from some tropical paradise when they're not working out. Not Garland, who has been trying to find a steady spot on the Broncos' active roster since 2010, when he graduated from the Air Force Academy and was invited to the team's training camp.
On this day, Garland, a captain in the 140th Public Affairs Wing of the Colorado Air National Guard, is near the southern edge of the Airburst Range, a vast expanse about 110 miles south of Denver. He is surrounded by "the EOD guys" -- the 140th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Wing from Buckley Air Force Base in suburban Denver, where Garland is stationed. He already has put in a 5 a.m. football workout and now is in the capable hands of Master Sgt. Richard Gibbons.
Their mission for the day is dealing with booby traps, homemade bombs, unexploded ordnance and the other potential trouble the EOD wing can find "downrange," its all-purpose word for the sharp end of the stick.
Gibbons has handled explosives, stared down bombs, clipped the wires, raced ticking clocks and disassembled taped bundles of harm -- "the bang" as he calls it -- for 13 years in the U.S. Air Force. His job has taken him to Iraq and Afghanistan, and he was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded while serving in Afghanistan.
At the moment, Gibbons is teaching Garland about static electricity and why before picking up a blasting cap, a piece of C-4 or a demolition cord, you place your hand flat on the dirt beneath your feet. Not once, not sometimes, not whenever the mood strikes. Every. Single. Time. Not as if your life depends on it, but because your life depends on it.
"We make it [static electricity] in everything we do, and the best environment to create it is cold, dry and at altitude -- welcome to Colorado," said Gibbons with a smile, a box full of blasting caps in front of him next to small pieces of plastic explosive, not yet paired but menacing nonetheless. "They've done studies on how much static electricity it takes to set something off. The numbers are there, and really it's a pretty high threshold. Me? I like to discharge it every chance I get, so a quick hand on the ground is a good way to make sure you don't have a really bad day."
Gibbons and his group like football; they often refer to Garland as "the Bronco." Others simply tell the NFL-sized captain that they're standing behind him so they don't have to worry about getting hit by anything.
"Notice how we always stand in a circle?" Gibbons said while surveying his group's preparation. "We get in a circle and we work it out. ... We need to try things, work through every possible scenario these guys might see in active combat situations. We need to know what works, what doesn't, do what needs to be done and get everybody home."
"It's a huddle," Garland said. "They're in the huddle. Call the play and go work."
Garland's position as a public affairs officer enables him to work with a variety of personnel at Buckley. This recent week it was the EOD unit, which went through a full day of training that included scenarios of clearing unexploded munitions off a runway, using four different devices to breach a door and detonating a 40-pound "shape charge," as Gibbons called it, a powerful device used to clear debris or damaged vehicles from a road in a combat situation.
"It really is a great job," Garland said. "I see, and work with, so many different personnel, people with different jobs, and the best thing is they always want to show you the best their job has to offer. They're not going to sort through the parts that might be a little more mundane. So, there are no bad days, and I just want to do my part. I've always said I get to wear the two best uniforms in the world -- the Air Force and the Broncos."
The Air Force and U.S. Department of Defense have worked with Garland and others like him as part of the Palace Chase program. The program allows those in all branches of the military to work in a civilian job after two years of active service if the job helps raise awareness of the armed forces.
This time of year for Garland that means putting in his first workout during the predawn hours, working with the Air National Guard through the day and then working out again in the evening. There are times when Garland's 6-foot-5 frame and playing weight of 308 pounds are too big for his body armor.
It makes at least one of the Air National Guard's physical training requirements a challenge.
"I try to stay as close to my playing weight in the offseason as I can," Garland said. "And I'm OK with the push-ups, the running, the training. I do that all the time. But that 39-inch waist requirement? That's one I always have to work on."
It will be a full day for the EOD airmen, one that starts with them slicing sections of C-4 to make charges that will be used in a drill for clearing a runway littered with unexploded munitions. Gibbons will scatter the charges over roughly a half mile, replicating a combat scenario, and they will be located and detonated so the runway can be repaired.
"They've thrown down these munitions to make the runway unusable. ... We need to clean up the ones that didn't explode so they can fix the other holes in the runway and get the birds in the air,'' Gibbons said, explaining the purpose of the drill.
Before the day is done, the EOD airmen will have cleared the runway and used several types of devices, including one with two IV bags of saline solution wrapped around a flat sheet of explosive material ("C-3" as Gibbons called it), to practice breaching a door with the proper brawn/finesse ratio to enter buildings where hostages and/or armed troops could be inside.
Gibbons at one point asked Garland if he wanted to be "at the top of the stack," or second in a single-file line, in part of the breaching exercise, saying, "The range guys want me to point out how clean your body armor is." Garland responded, with a smile: "Just out of the plastic this morning."
The group works through four breaches, two with Garland second in line.
"That was awesome. ... Everybody together, planned and successfully done. ... It really is the best of situations for me. I'm so grateful the Air Force has made this possible, and the Broncos," Garland said. "There was every chance for somebody to say, 'No, that's not going to work.'"
Garland came to the Broncos in 2010 as a defensive tackle, a player the team wanted to see in training camp. Denver knew Garland had made a two-year commitment to the Air Force.
Garland was set to enter pilot training that year. However, after being unable to secure a weight waiver to fly, he served as an instructor at the Air Force Academy for one year and served as a public affairs officer for the 375th Air Mobility Wing at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois his second year.
He returned to the Broncos in 2012, spending the next two seasons on the practice squad, and he switched to the offensive line in 2013. He was in uniform for eight games in 2014 and played 47 offensive snaps, 36 of them against the Oakland Raiders in the regular-season finale.
"I think, absolutely, people on both sides of it, in football and in the military, people have wondered why you do it," said Garland, who was the Broncos' Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee for his work off the field. "Early on, some of my commanders wondered why maybe you put so much into football when I wasn't a guy that knew for sure I was even going to make it, that I could get dropped anytime. ... It makes me use my time wisely, makes me get to work."
Former Broncos coach John Fox, now with the Chicago Bears, routinely said, "Ben Garland is everything you want in a guy, he's everything you need, trained by the best in the world."
As the day ends and Garland is about to wedge himself back into his car for the drive back to Denver, with Apache helicopters circling in the distance, the guardsmen staffing the range ask him if he's interested in coming back for the weekend.
Seems there will be a Chinook helicopter with a seat or two available for a ground-hugging flight.
"Oh, I'm in," Garland said. "I'm in for everything."