(An AK variant being carried by an Afghan National Army soldier on a joint VCP)
(2 Afghan soldiers on the VCP)
(ANA soldier with RPG providing cover on VCP search)
(Bellow are 2 shots of a mortar being fired from a small ANA checkpoint we used as a patrol base for a couple of days)
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!
We’re finally at camp bastion now, we moved into tents last week that will be our homes for the next 6 months, there’s 9 of us in 1 tent its not exactly the Ritz but its a lot better than some people have here in Helmand… We’ve all been looking forward to moving into our permanent accommodation so we could unpack. Personally I never thought getting my undies out of my bag and putting them on some hang up travel shelves would be so enjoyable! But after living out of a bag since the 4th of January to actually unpack everything has instantly given our tent a nice homely feel! The one major downside to our tent is the air conditioning unit is actually in the tent with us so it makes a constant racket! Most of the other tents have them outside, I’m not sure where the logic is to ours being inside! But that’s the way it is…
It took us 2 days travelling to get from Stone in the UK to Bastion… We were delayed at Brize Norton for about 6 hours… then when we flew into Kandaha we’d missed our C130 to Bastion. We ended up spending the day at Kandahar waiting for the next flights although it wasn’t a bad thing to see how the other half live, Kandahar is a massive Air Base predominantly American with a strong Brit and Multinational element as its where all the fast air fly’s from to get troops on the ground out of the shit! There’s a lot of shops there American, Dutch, British, German they all have there own areas and there own local touch, so by the Americans you’ve got Burger King, Pizza Hut, Subways etc…
A couple of hours before we were scheduled to fly out Kandahar the camp came under rocket attack, there were about 4 rockets fired into the camp. I was sat on the loo taking in the graffiti that always ends up on the cubicle walls and doors on operations, blokes get board whilst doing there business, whip out a pen and fight cap badge battles, they normally go along the lines of a witty one liner about a particular regiment or maybe a sketch of some sort. The marines and paras are popular recipients but then the RAF Reg are frequently up there too! Some one replies and it eventually reduces to some one going in a few days later from the regiment in question replying calling them a Nob or something similar… it just goes on and on… but gives you something to read whilst you do your thing.
Anyhow back to the rockets… I was reading a story about An American marine on the toilet wall then all of a sudden I heard that Boom! The noise I recognise so well from the rockets and mortars we used to get into Basra on a weekly basis. I wasn’t flapping, I new the drill, pulled up my kegs and made my way over to the tent to get my body armour and helmet as that was closest, after all I new they never hit anything so there’s nothing to worry about, or so I thought… As I made my way back I heard a “crumph crumph” as 2 more launched, I quickened my pace excepting to hear them roar over head but heard nothing, nothing flying over head and no Boom as they hit home…
they must have been blinds, a blind is a rocket or mortar that goes up, comes down and no boom just hides it self in the ground unexploded… As I got to the tent everyone had already made there way to the concrete shelter outside so I grabbed my body armour and helmet and joined them all hidden away under the concrete. There was a lot of noise from sirens, blue lights flying about and smoke coming up from behind our shelter about 500m away in another camp, fire engines and ambulances were there and sadly it turns out 1 person was killed and about 4 injured, all when I heard that 1st Boom! They weren’t British I think they were Americans from what I was told on the rumour mill. It’s very rare anything gets hit but sadly it seems they were out of luck that evening.
We finally flew to Bastion on a C130 landing very early hours, we got ferried to temporary accommodation and boy were we glad it was temporary, imagine a small hanger with about 200 beds in all full, everyone had a bergan and black holdall so there was no floor space by the beds, the beds were shoulder to shoulder, it was mayhem! We were only there for a couple of days while we had some briefs and a day on the ranges to Zero our weapons. After that we moved onto yet more temporary accommodation… we then spent the next few days going over more range work, the ranges we fire on are just outside the camp so there is a very real threat as your outside the security of the camp, there’s always protection and sentries put out. As we move around the ranges you can see lots of locals wondering about but they’re kept at a distance for general security and the suicide threat. Although we are out in the middle of the desert here and they walk miles to the camp as there’s always stuff left they can use even the wire mesh of the Hesco blast walls get pillaged. Some times they can get some water or food from the troops too. So there are incentives for them to take a walk up here. There main earner though is the brass, empty cases from fired bullets, we always collect the brass after a shoot as we have too hand it all in but there’s always some left and they swoop in a scavenge the lot!
The problem with locals scavenging is all the mines and unexploded bombs every where but when you think about it logically, they were born and raised with mines and UXO (unexploded bombs) all over the place so dodging the red mist is normal, so normal in fact they will just pick it up and move it… Whilst on the ranges I was waiting to fire, sat chilling under the Cam net, we had sentries out and vehicles patrolling. All a sudden from behind the sand berm there was the ominous BOOM! A mortar or grenade… Everyone one jumped up but there was no follow up from any enemy or our sentries, then the sentries started shouting some one to stop! Which meant some one was approaching our position but we couldn’t see for the sand berms round the ranges and the sentries were pushed out a couple of hundred meters… Some one else ran up from the sentry position telling the head sheds to get on the net asking for a Medic. It turned out the sentry had got eyes on 4 people 2 kids 2 adults wondering around about 500m out, the kids looked like they were throwing some thing around and that something turned out to be a mortar or grenade which went off, luckily just Fraging one of the kids I say luckily as if it had gone of when he was holding it which we first thought had happened this would be a different story! As soon as it went off they new they could get medical help from u as all Afghans do, so they came straight for us and the sentry had quite rightly stopped them in the distance even with the obviously injured and bleeding child as they were still a threat to us until the sentry was certain they weren’t armed or strapped with explosives to try and take us all out with. After carrying out the correct procedures to make sure they are not a threat, they were brought in and a medic called out to the boy, he was about 13 and had blast injuries but nowhere near as bad as they could have been…
The same day I was out on sentry while we closed down the ranges before moving out, this is when all the locals know they at any moment will be able to pounce and collect what brass is still left hidden in the sand, although they still can’t come near until we have left so my job as sentry is to keep them at a safe distance. The last major suicide attack causing the most fatality’s to UK troops was a 13 year old boy with a wheel barrow stuffed full of explosives, we all know the threat has no marker, they don’t walk around with a badge saying Suicide Bomber and they come in all shapes, sizes, ages etc. So it makes the reality of detecting suicide bombers even harder. After the commotion with the young lad blowing himself up, the quote of the day seemed to be “watch out there’s exploding kids out there!” Again an example of the dark humour that is needed in the Army, especially in this environment if we took everything we see seriously we’d all need psychiatric treatment before we got going! But that did make me think, yep we’re in Afghanistan and the threat is there, that my have just been UXO the kid picked up but its one more thing from Afghan we get told about but that’s actually real, we’re here and everything else is going to be real as well… On sentry I was scanning the horizon, there were a couple of men about 150m out sat on there haunches, they’d approached me previously and I’d stopped them where they were, they new what to do as all the locals have been getting the same orders from Multi National forces for the last 6 years, they will wait there till we’d gone and they could attack the Brass. All of a sudden about 200m out I saw to young kids running at full pelt towards us with a wheelbarrow, in the space of about 1 second a thousand things went through my head, they couldn’t be a threat they’re kids coming for the brass, this is real we’re in Afghanistan and there is a threat, kids have been used as suicide bombers, what if they don’t stop I’ll have to fire a warning shot, if they don’t stop I’ll have to brass them up (shoot them) they’re only kids, my heart jumped up a few gears and the second to think was over, one of the men sat a couple of hundred meters out had spotted them too and new I’d seen them, I made ready straight away (cocked the weapon so a round is ready to fire as soon as the safety is taken off) if they didn’t stop and I had to fire a warning shot a valuable second and a good 20 – 30m of distance would be covered by the wheelbarrow if I had to cock the weapon before I fired, I shouted “dresh” (Stop in Afghan spelling may be incorrect) the boys saw me and stopped running but still continued to walk, I shouted it again, thinking how close should I let them come before I fire, they continued to walk towards us, I had my weapon in my shoulder and my heart was raising, then the Afghan male who was watching new exactly what I was thinking so he started shouting to the boys who stopped walking and left the wheel barrow where it was….
We’ve started the patrols now in the area around Bastion… In the last 6 days I’ve lost track of the days totally we’ve been out constantly. I went out for 12hrs through the night got back in at breakfast and went straight out till after lunch, another day we went out at 7.30 am and got back in at 4am… and lots of other long patrols over the days as well ranging from 10 – 20hours… its been interesting and tiring and a sign of the next 6 months to come! So I’m strapped in and ready for the ride!
Patrols has got us out and about, we’ve seen and spoke to the locals. Had a good look at all the compounds in and around the area we patrol and of course seen some of the poppy fields that yield the West’s Heroin supply… Out the south east of Bastion is a river of Poo… the contents of our toilets and considering there are thousands of people here that’s allot of shit! Some Opium farmers have set up their fields along this river as it provides great fertilizer for there poppies… A couple of things that make me chuckle about that, we’re trying to stop the farming of poppies and we’ve inadvertently provided a great piece of land for lots of poppies to grow and second is the poppies that are farmed here and hit the streets in the UK are grown with our shit, so they are not only injecting heroin but our Poo too!