Project Milk Carton Chairman, Andrew S. Fayal

Navy Master EOD Technician · Bronze Star with Combat “V” · Two Combat Action Ribbons · Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat “V”

Some people read about the war. I walked toward the things that were built to kill everyone around me, and I took them apart with my hands.

I’m a retired United States Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician — the people the SEALs, the Marines, and the Army call when the thing in the road is meant to end them. Three tours in Iraq. Three of the worst places it had to offer. I came home with a Bronze Star with Valor, two Combat Action Ribbons, and a Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Valor — and I earned every one of them in close.

This isn’t a story. These are my citations.

2003 — The Invasion

I crossed the border on the opening night of Operation Iraqi Freedom as a Navy EOD tech with Task Force 56, attached to I MEF and Task Force Tarawa on the road from An-Nasiriyah to Al Kut — the bloodiest stretch of the entire invasion. Nasiriyah alone cost 32 American lives in a single fight.

Under enemy fire, I destroyed an enemy ammunition supply point and roughly 120,000 pounds of ordnance — ordnance that would otherwise have been turned into IEDs aimed at the Marines coming up behind me.

Awarded: Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Combat “V.” Signed by the Commander, U.S. FIFTH Fleet.

2004–2005 — The Green Zone

I went back as a Protective Security Detail EOD Team Leader with Naval Special Warfare — built around SEAL Team 3 — running the close-protection detail for an Iraqi Vice President inside the Green Zone, Baghdad. A Tier 1 protective billet during the most dangerous stretch of the occupation: the Second Battle of Fallujah, the first post-Saddam election, the whole city a target.

By the numbers in my own award citation: 200 explosives sweeps of government buildings, more than 1,000 vehicles, 350 media, and 2,000 official visitors cleared — plus I ran the electronic countermeasures program that kept the principal alive every time he moved.

Awarded: Combat Action Ribbon + Navy & Marine Corps Commendation Medal.

2006–2007 — Ramadi

Then came Ramadi, at the absolute peak of the violence — the deployment the film Warfare was made about. I was an EOD Team Leader with NSW Task Unit–Ramadi, SEAL Team 5, out of Camp Marc Lee. 53 combat missions. 123 convoy clearances. I was part of the response on the November 19, 2006 sniper-overwatch engagement that the movie is built around. I was there.

The Bronze Star came for two days in particular:

• December 5, 2006 — exfilling my team off an extended sniper-overwatch mission in the Hamdiyah District, I cut 17 command wires rigged to IEDs, by hand, under fire.

• January 15, 2007 — I neutralized a pressure-plate IED and saved my patrol.

Awarded: Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V.” Signed by the Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command.

After the uniform

I medically retired as a 100% permanent-and-total disabled veteran. I didn’t stop working — I just changed targets.

Today I run Project Milk Carton, a 501(c)(3) built to bring transparency to child welfare and bring missing kids home, and Sierra Special Investigations, a licensed investigations and technology company. I build AI systems that trace money, expose corruption, and surface the things people in power would rather keep buried.

Same job, really. Find the thing nobody else will touch. Walk toward it. Take it apart.