An early spring had eased into southern Afghanistan when D and Sarbi joined Task Force Uruzgan at Camp Holland at the end of March 2007. An Australian officer once described the base as ‘a dusty shit-hole’ and it was. The sprawling rectangular compound sat on the valley floor, ringed by towering snow-capped peaks. The rock-strewn ground changed from red to brown to grey depending on the season, the arc of the sun and whether there were clouds or rain. Gravel and dust got into everything, including the woolly beards that soon sprouted on the Diggers’ faces. The base was surrounded by tumble–weeds of barbed wire and rock-filled HESCO bastion containers, in place to keep the enemy out and protect against rocket attacks.
The town of Tarin Kot was visible in the near distance, encircled by a rich, deep-green belt. It was home to 10,000 people and located about 120 kilometres north of the dangerous city of Kandahar, long known as the spiritual home of the Taliban. Kandahar was the birthplace of one-eyed (literally) Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, the self-proclaimed ‘commander of the faithful’ who led the repressive regime for much of the Dark Ages decade it controlled Afghanistan.
Camp Holland was established by a United States Marine Expeditionary Unit as Forward Operating Base Ripley in May 2004. A Dutch-led contingent from NATO’s ISAF took over Ripley in 2006 and renamed it Camp Holland for obvious reasons. The Australian Special Operations Task Group named its section Camp Russell in honour of Sergeant Andrew Russell, the first Australian SAS trooper to be killed in action in Afghanistan, when his long-range patrol vehicle hit a landmine in 2002.
A row of flagpoles at the base entrance paid homage to the various nationalities that formed the International Security Assistance Force in Uruzgan. Dutch soldiers followed the wartime tradition and erected bright yellow signposts pointing to towns back home—5248 kilometres to Brabant, 5235 to Ede and 5291 to Slootdorp.
They obligingly tipped the hat to the Aussies and the small contingent from Greece, adding a sign pointing to Darwin, 6914 kilometres in one direction, and another to Chania, 3819 kilometres the opposite way. No one knew if the distances were correct, but no one cared either. The arrow at the top of the post pointed to the only place that did matter—the badlands beyond the barbed wire. On it was stamped the word ‘Taliban’. The enemy was within RPG range. Force protection was a priority. ‘Stay with your weapon, always,’ the soldiers were told.
Camp Holland featured a state of the art combat emergency hospital, a 1.8-kilometre runway, more than a dozen helicopter landing pads, arming and refueling points, and accommodations and recreation areas for several thousand soldiers.
The Australian Reconstruction Task Force headquarters announced its presence with a massive sign hung on a HESCO wall. The sign was unmistakably Australian, with a leaping red kangaroo over a V-shaped black boomerang. The commanding officer (CO) of RTF2 was Lieutenant Colonel Harry Jarvie, a stocky man with salt-and-pepper hair and an open, optimistic face that maintained its boyishness despite his age. Jarvie removed the number 1 from the RTF HQ sign and replaced it with 2 to signify the handover from the first task force to the second.
RTF2 had strengthened troop numbers and comprised a full company of infantry from the Royal Australian Regiment for greater force protection, and cavalry support via the ASLAVs and Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles.
As was the custom, Jarvie welcomed the task force in a ceremony during which he reiterated the troops’ task in rebuilding the province and assisting the local Afghan people. He also outlined the dangers. ‘We must outsmart those who want to disrupt Afghanistan’s development and our mission,’ he told the assembled troops. ‘We must make them irrelevant.’
Sergeant D bunked down in the Feldlager living quarters, a series of interconnected shipping containers, equipped with the luxury of air conditioning, that were undergoing an upgrade by the resourceful engineers. He shared the sleeping quarters with two other Doggies, Pete Lawlis and Zeke Smith. He dropped his gear in his designated accommodations and claimed a bunk.
Sarbi was housed in kennels built by the RTF1 carpenters on the south-west edge of the base, not far from the red dirt runway. Not too bad, Sergeant D thought to himself, even though there was no strip of grass on which the hounds could exercise.
At the mandatory RSOI (reception, staging, onward movement and integration) briefing the task force was familiarised with the base, personnel, equipment and materials required for tactical operations during their deployment. The integration was a highly synchronised handover of incoming units into an operational commander’s force prior to executing missions. Knowing the minutiae meant a better chance of survival. Heard. Understood. Acknowledged. The soldiers also received an update on the reconnaissance, surveillance, operations and intelligence. ‘They take us around and show us the area and emergency bunker in case there’s a rocket attack,’ D says nonchalantly.
The overarching goal of RTF2 was the reconstruction and stabilisation of Uruzgan, to rebuild the basic infrastructure so its impoverished people might have a viable future. The mission was focused on community-based projects, and Dutch and Australian soldiers met with local elders in weekly shuras—council meetings—where they drank gallons of sweetened tea before deciding what the Afghans wanted and how the coalition could provide it.
D was no innocent abroad, he’d travelled well and far, but Tarin Kot looked like an alien landscape trapped in a time warp, hundreds of years old. Uruzgan was recognised as the least developed of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. To the trained and even untrained eye, it lacked the basics: villages had no electricity or running water and in 2006 there was no mobile telephone coverage—which, to the digital natives who made up the Western military machinery, seemed positively anathema. Only 10 per cent of males in the province were literate. For women, the rate was zero.
The thrust of the mission was an extreme backyard blitz, Afghan style. The Taliban had done its best to destroy whatever flimsy infrastructure there was and RFT1 was midway through building local schools and redeveloping the Tarin Kot hospital. RTF2 would continue the good works by adding roads, bridges and dams to the To Do list. They also helped train the Afghan National Army.
The insurgents were resolute. They wanted to reimpose the repressive rule of the Taliban in the rural regions and prevent the rebuilding program by the ‘Christian invaders’.
That’s where Sarbi and D and their fellow Doggies came in. The EDD section provided force protection for the men and women moving beyond the wire for the rebuilding work. The two biggest risks were IEDs and roadside bombs.
‘I was a little bit nervous. There had only been one reconstruction task force before us and they spent most of their time developing the base at TK,’ D says. ‘Once we were there we were straight into work outside the wire. It was quite intimidating because the IEDs were starting to be a problem.’
IEDs are made of five main components: a container to hold the lethal bomb together, a power source such as a battery, a switch or circuit to initiate the device, a detonator, and the explosive charge. Most IEDs until then had been victim-operated pressure plate devices but the enemy tactics were changing. It used whatever it could get its hands on. Old-fashioned mousetraps, washing machine timers, cell phones, batteries, and wireless remote controls from modified doorbell equipment and model cars had all been used to detonate IEDs.
The Chief of Defence Angus Houston confirmed the rising use of radio-controlled devices and command-initiated devices. Insurgents even used infrared sensors to detect passing vehicles and detonate bombs. IEDs had been found buried in roadside rubbish piles, moulded into concrete blocks, even stuffed in animal carcasses and the fetid entrails of dead dogs.
By 2007, the insurgents turned to a version of IEDs known as an EFP, or explosively formed penetrator (or projectile). The explosive shockwaves of the blast splinters the metal liner and turns it into hundreds of individual metal pellets of death. The intensity of the blast shoots the projectiles with enough speed and force to penetrate trucks and reinforced personnel carriers. They also used DFCs—directional fragmentation charges—that operated a similar way.
Whatever the enemy employed, D and his fellow Doggies and engineers were prepared.
‘We changed the TTPs mainly for safety; we wanted to keep everyone safe. We had to develop new techniques for how and where we stood and where and how we sent the dogs in and how we worked with the engineers behind us,’ says D. ‘It was still just as dangerous for the dogs because they are the first ones out there.’
After EDDs Jasmine and Sam were deployed to Afghanistan in 2005, section supervisor John Cannon adjusted the course at the SME to better deal with the changed environment and tactics of the anti-coalition militia. Taliban insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists buried the roadside bombs in the cooler winter months, before the height of the so-called fighting season in the spring and summer. The explosives became more difficult to detect because they had been covered for so long. In response, Corporal Cannon developed ‘buried hide training’.
As D says, all Doggies are highly motivated, self-starting, innovative soldiers. The handler buried weapons and explosives in rural showgrounds at the end of regional annual shows, when the earth was ripe with animal odours, excrement and urine. The additional odours proved infinitely alluring for the dogs but they were trained to work through the new distractions and challenges to detect the appropriate explosives.
Another of those involved in the new training was Sapper Darren Smith from the 2CER in Brisbane, who was killed alongside his explosive detection dog Herbie in the Mirabad Valley in Uruzgan in 2010. Twenty-six-year-old Smith, dubbed Smitty, helped rehabilitate Herbie from an injury that would have ended his EDD career without his handler’s attentiveness and care. Smitty had drawn sketches and diagrams for the buried hide program when posted to the 1CER in Darwin. The revised training improved force protection and made route clearances safer for both hounds and handlers.
As a result, one week in every three is now dedicated to the buried hide training at Tarin Kot, often around the waste treatment area, colloquially known by the soldiers as the shit pits.
‘There were a lot of areas, routes and roads that we could train around. Unfortunately, if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction you’d get a good whiff of it,’ says D. Pity the handler whose dog decided to roll in the seepage and ooze. ‘Yeah, that happened.’ Shrug.
The Doggies ripping in got a comprehensive handover briefing from the handlers ripping out: what to expect at villages, vulnerable points (VPs) and compounds. The departing handlers’ message was ‘expect the unexpected and don’t get complacent’. The transfer was seamless. Training was continuous.
‘You never stop learning,’ says D. ‘You learn from your mistakes; you never repeat them. You don’t want to be responsible for letting your mates down. Or worse.’
What was worse remained unspoken. No point jinxing yourself.
Sarbi’s orientation was top-notch. The unfamiliar terrain and swirl of invisible new scents that danced across the airwaves kicked her olfactory senses into overdrive. And she was becoming a hit around Camp Holland.
Sarbi didn’t recognise rank or nationality but returned whatever affection was sent her way with a waggle of her rear end and a front-pawed dance. D didn’t mind her popularity with the troops. He knew how important Sarbi and her fellow dogs were for morale. A couple of soldiers told him they appreciated seeing her on her morning runs in the exercise area; it took their mind off the quotidian routine of army life, the distance from loved ones thousands of kilometres away, and the threat beyond the wire.
‘It was a huge boost for them because it made them think of their dogs back home,’ he says.
The experienced EDD handler was relaxed about allowing soldiers to pat and interact with Sarbi. He understood the psychological benefit his dog brought and had studied the scientific literature that explained the positive physiological changes that canines cause in humans. Patting a dog, he knew, can be its own opiate. Some of Sergeant D’s peers preferred to quarantine their dogs to maintain their focus and drive. D’s strategy was to ‘turn off the pats’ to instil discipline if Sarbi misbehaved or went rogue on patrol, but she hadn’t so he didn’t. She was working well, never missing a beat or a scent.
Sarbi’s only moment of canine uncertainty occurred when she first set eyes on a man wearing the traditional Afghan shalwar kameez and turban. Sarbi went stiff, raised a paw, stared, cocked her ears at a comical angle, and tilted her head. She was a picture of concentration, focused on the strange new sight. Her highly trained nose went to work, inhaling the novel hybrid odours of the Afghan’s exotic diet and, perhaps, his less than rigorous approach to hygiene. In weeks to come D would suffer the same, courtesy of the unloved Dutch stodge served in the mess tent at Camp Holland and days-long patrols under a crucifying summer sun, with only a splash of water to keep clean.
Sarbi decided the foreign figure was no threat and moved on. But her handler concedes she never developed a great affection for the locals. She didn’t bark at them but Sergeant D could feel the tremor of a low-pitched growl vibrate up from her collar through her leash when she was close to a local. And she never romped over for a pat as she did with the Aussies behind the wire, or arch her back and flex into the downward dog position—a pose well known to yoga aficionados—with her front toes splayed as wide as they can go, waiting for a tickle. Sarbi kept the locals at a distance, even when she became more familiar with the friendly men who set up their weekly bazaars outside the base.
Sarbi’s inbuilt radar was alert to the rhythms of hazard and danger. Perhaps she intuitively knew that Afghans do not share Westerners’ inexplicable love for dogs. Or maybe, as Sergeant D says, she was just more familiar with combat fatigues!