Spc. James Gaudio, from Shabbona, Ill., is a combat engineer with Company C, 40th Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad. He remotely controls a VNU-4 mine clearing vehicle with a gaming console-style controller while searching large-open spaces between the palm trees in the Jabour area, south of Baghdad, Dec. 15. The grove was being searched by the engineers at the behest of Task Force 4-27 "Thunder" for Operation Panda Garden. The mission's intent is to deny any caches found in the grove and the farmland it surrounds from insurgent or al-Qaida in Iraq forces during the upcoming elections. The area is suspected of containing mines, unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive devices.