EPN, he thinks, should have taken a course in explosives & demolitions from the US Army, followed by one on improvised explosives. And his mind drifts back, for a pull at the wine brings an old soldier's dreams from afar....

...to the latter part of the 1960s and a bridge, a dangerous span, that was slated for destruction by the E&D class. To the calculations carefully calculated to blow the abutments, to cut the stringers into precise lengths for later disposal. To the group working on blowing the center pier, and watching them fasten 40-pound cratering charges (each of which could could blow a hole in an Interstate highway that was eight feet deep and 15 feet across), one leg of the charge bent to angle the blast upwards, one charge to each side, the pier then wrapped in PETN detonating cord and blocks of TNT. To the governor of Illinois pushing pushing the button that triggered the blasts. To the careful crumbling of the abutments, to the steel stringers blown into precise 8-foot length, to the center pier disappearing in a blast that tossed debris about 200 feet in the air, to the E&D class rolling around with laughter...

...and he thinks on EPN and what he missed, and is grateful that EPN did.