We’ve been here about 2 months and it’s been a busy 2 months! We’ve taken over the tasks from the previous force protection company here at Bastion, we’ve linked up with the RAF regiment and RAF police, with a flight/platoon of each working with us, established a new rotation round the tasks to utilise all hands the best way we can. At the moment it roughly works out we do 3 weeks of patrols tasks and a week on guard, obviously the guard task is the least liked and the patrols is what we’re here for, getting out on the ground amongst the local populous. Thrown in the mix we also cover the IRT task, this is basically going out with the medics on a Chinook to provide infantry protection when they get crashed out to pick up any casualties/fatalities.
The R&R has started now and things have got harder as we have less blokes to do the tasks which means more work for everyone else, it’ll be interesting to see how that works out, it was tight on some tasks already! the cracks may start to show in some as the pressure mounts, I’ll give you an example of a week I spent on patrols and IRT.
We started off a week of patrols, I’m a driver and at this time was only able to drive the wmik (see picture) due to Army red tape and the world’s obsession with health and safety but that’s another story! Any way before I drift of subject there’s only a few of us able to drive the wmik’s to start with. This meant that me and Mark had to drive every evening patrol and others had the days to do, as well as patrols we also had IRT to cover. The night patrols end up lasting on average about 12hours, sometimes longer… on return from the patrols in the morning we would either go onto rest for about 6-7 hours before going back out for another 12 hours or IRT, this worked out every other day and when you get IRT in the day you know your only going to get about 2 hours sleep as you always get a call out but with IRT its worth sacrificing the sleep… then straight into the night patrol… On IRT you may have to witness some horrible things picking up people who are severally wounded or even dead, it’s a tough thing for some but 1. Most importantly you’re helping them 2. Your getting out all over Helmand doing an important job and seeing things a lot of people never will 3. Its exciting, the trait that all of us have an excitement for danger. Any incidents in Helmand we go out to with IRT, all the recent fatalities and serious casualties you’ve seen on the news, some of our guys will have flown out to pick them up and help.
One particular call I went on was at mid day, we got the call on the radio, grabbed our kit and jumped on the wolf, you get a free ticket to thrash the rovers round Bastion when on an IRT shout, so we I end up flying over to the flight line flashing the lights and beeping the horn, getting people out of the way and keeping the thing on the road at best speed! Once on the flight line 9 times out of 10 the Chinook is already ready to go, the various teams and us all clambering on at the loadies signal. We’ll pile on get in our seats and we’re off… The Chinooks are an awesome piece of kit, flying low over the contours, the rear door wide open sun and heating beating through the back door with the whop whop whop of the Chinook, the loady sat on the tail ramp with the gun, looking out the back… the terrain changes dramatically fast as we’re swooping low over the ground towards the pick up point, as we leave bastion its just open rocky desert with small hills to contour over, then we’ll start passing over compounds with lush green and pink square fields of poppies which get denser and denser, eventually we’ll cross the muddy brown of a river and bang it changes to a mass of green and packed in compounds with tight alley ways and dirt roads between the compounds, trees lining paths almost like you’d expect to see in Spain, “The green zone” named purely for the reason its so lush and green, I couldn’t believe how dense it was at first site, compound after compound small tracks, trees, bushes and alleyways everywhere, no wonder its so difficult to fight in. We eventually landed at a small FOB and picked up one streture casualty it was a small boy who’d got caught by a mine, we carried him on and the medics started to work on him, he was very young probably about 8, his dad came on the chopper too and he was pretty shaken himself yet at the same time obviously amazed to be on one of these massive helicopters they must see flying around all the time… we pick up a lot of locals and children on IRT….
As the week went by it got to the stage we were heading out on night patrol tired already after getting about 4 hours sleep in 2 days with 13hrs of driving and darkness to come, on top of that it was still cold here at night and the wmik is totally open so you get the wind and rain hitting you and there’s no escape for the whole patrol… I know what will happen in about a months time I’ll be moaning its to hot! Although its not really moaning, I knew it was going to be like this and it’s the job we’re here to do. In terms of sleep it was a tough week….
Getting out on patrol, people would pay stupid money to do the off road driving we do here day in day out… as soon as we leave camp there’s no roads, no tracks just desert, so you drive any where you want obviously bearing in mind the threat of mines etc. When I say desert though its not the lush sand dunes everyone always thinks of, imagine those pants beaches we have all over our coast which are just loads of small rocks, the land here is made up of all those rocks mixed with sand on the high ground and low as far as the eye can see. When we drive down into the wadi’s you get really soft fine sand that’s easy to get stuck in if you don’t drive carefully, if you drive carelessly you’ll end up digging yourself in. The worst is when it rains, after all these wadi’s are there to channel water all be it only a few times a year, the fine sand turns to mud and no matter what vehicle your driving you will get stuck if you venture into it. We ended up getting stuck driving after a rain fall, we got a shout from another call sign asking for help as they were stuck, so we high tailed it in there direction and both our vehicles got stuck as well! We spent the next few hours digging them out!
—- Its been a couple of weeks since I wrote that and things have been a bit tougher since then, we’ve expanded the area we’re working in which means we’re covering a lot more millage and we’ve started doing foot patrols, in 9 days I’ve done 3 foot patrols, 1 night, 2 day, each about 7 kilometres, that may not sound much but when your carrying between 70 – 100lbs (varies dependant on weapons and kit carried per man) in 40 degrees that’s a tough tab, especially as your trying to remain switched on to everything around you as you need to be ready to fight, in between these foot patrols and the normal vehicle patrols over the 9 days we’ve been on some additional training, we’ve done 3 Personal fitness tests the Army’s annual fitness assessment, 1.5mile run best effort (I got 10mins), push ups sit ups, also we’ve done 2 CFT another of the army’s annual fitness tests, the first CFT was with 35lb and was 6 miles completed on 1hr 15mins. The second was an 8 miler with 50lbs completed in 1hr 57mins after we came in from the 7k night patrol! The surprising thing was we were all dreading the CFT after no sleep and tired bodies and blisters but we all said after we finished the CFT was easier than the patrols as we were carrying less weight! we weren’t wearing helmet, body armour or carrying a rifle. That brought it home how tough the foot patrols are out here.
We’ve also started doing longer vehicle patrols so we can cover a larger area more efficiently, ranging between 24 – 48hrs but soon to be longer. We went our for our first 24hr patrol this week, covering more densely populated compound areas now as well as vast expanses of rocks and sand! Stopping off at various Afghan National Army camps and check points along the way. We talk to the locals to get general atmospherics and any info we can it’s a crazy to think the Taliban are there amongst them and we don’t know, some times we even find out they’re in a compound only a few 100m away. The poppy harvest has finished now so things may start hotting up in more ways than one! The average temp here at the moment is 40 degrees most days… We slept out in the desert under the stars for the first time last night, it was great we parked the vehicles in your typical circling of the wagons affect and got sentries posted. I slept on the floor by the side of my wagon, a ¾ length roll matt, softie jacket and my travel pillow! (Never been anywhere without it best thing I ever brought from boots!) Once I got settled I lay back looking up at the stars, they are amazing you get such clear beautiful nights out here, you can see all the stars the sky has to offer its thick with them, shooting stars are ten a penny you see them all the time. The silence is also deafening you’ve got nothing for miles around just the sound of the local tiny wild life, crickets etc… and the OC snoring! That kind of shattered the moment I was having!
