The jungle wounds had just about healed when I received my mobilization papers and was instructed to report to Chilwell Barracks. I was well used to the routine. I had been living out of a Bergen now for several years. It was around mid-October. I was still acclimatized to the Brunei jungle weather. I arrived at Chilwell and duly took up my role as a wandering lone soldier going through the various departments again. No big queues this time around. Nice and quiet and quick. All done in a couple of hours. I reported to my barracks in London to sort some kit and weapons to take with me. I would be doing my pre-deployment training in Wales again. I arrived that day and stored the weapons in the armoury. I was attached to the HQ element for pre-deployment training and would subsequently be attached to a rifle company. My role in the task force would be Forward Intelligence Reconnaissance Liaison Officer (FIRLO for short) – sounds even better with an Irish accent – and I would be based out of the intelligence section of the infantry company, or J2 in military-speak. My training would be hard and fast; flexibility is a cornerstone of a Special Forces operator’s mindset. I knew how the Afghan mindset worked as well, so I knew no matter how flexible I was I’d need to be a walking rubber band with the patience of a saint to boot. It was refreshing to learn a different role and skillset. Intelligence-gathering is a multifaceted area. It is just amazing what you can glean from basic information alone; we are certainly creatures of habit. I was due to fly out late November/early December. I had a colleague doing the same role, so I would be replacing him and getting all the handovers and his experience in-country which is always better than going in fresh with no handover. Otherwise you lose at least six weeks just getting a feel for the ground. It was the same procedure as before: Brize Norton to Kandahar, night stopover at Kandahar, same palaver with incoming rockets, except this time I didn’t budge.
After the last tour this place was like Blackpool in uniform. Plenty of others did budge though. I just couldn’t be arsed and besides I had a comfy seat; I wasn’t giving that up for a rocket. We jumped on the C-130 and didn’t beat the sunrise to Bastion this time either. I had only left eleven months earlier and the place had already mushroomed in size. The US military and their Marines had a camp adjacent: Camp Leatherneck. It was run by the US Marine Corps. Great lads; proper up for a fight too. That film Jarhead does them no justice. They’re intelligent, loyal and courageous soldiers; very patriotic and conservative. I had briefly worked with Yanks and, unlike the crap television portrays, any I met were down to earth, family- and country-orientated. Conservative people. No brash loudness or any of those media stereotypes. I spent two days waiting to get a lift to the camp where I would be based. It was about a thirty-minute drive from Camp Bastion. It was a lovely little camp surrounded by rocky desert and a nice steep hill for physical training and a good watch position to overlook the surrounding area, and it was away from the prying eyes of any HQ element central like Bastion, or Bullshit Central in Tommy-talk. I settled in quick. Usual stuff: bed space, unpack kit, get a layout of the important areas of the camp; that is, the cookhouse, gym and armoury. That’s all a man needs: food, fitness and fighting. The simple things in life are the most rewarding. My role was to mentor, train and escort on the ground an Afghan team. We would be part of a bigger manoeuvre group of about 15 to 20 UK troops and 50 Afghan soldiers; all in, 100 fighting men armed to the teeth and up for a scrap any time.
Although the mission was generally aimed at gaining influence and intelligence, the main task was to access areas in the Central Helmand River Valley where NATO ultimately had little or no presence. I would be at the epicentre of the patrol. My team and I would engage with tribal elders. We’d listen to the village elders and gain information on a whole array of situations and aspects of life in these remote villages, gleaning a sense of who is who, the affiliations, loyalties and needs. We communicated what assistance we could and what we could bring into their sphere of influence: help with schooling or water supplies and so on. We generally received a warm welcome as per the Pashtun tradition, which dates back 5,000 years, long before Islam entered this tribal area. Hospitality is sacred to the Pashtun community. These values have been lost in many Western societies over recent years, more so in the urban areas than in the villages and small towns; it’s the big cities that do all the harm. Now I’ve gone off on a tangent again. Well, while we were chatting, they showed us their hospitality. It’s against their code to be anything other than hospitable. They will even protect a visitor or stranger who is in their territory. I cannot stress enough what a truly beautiful place Afghanistan is. A vast array of people and culture and landscape. If any people deserve peace and happiness, it’s the Afghans. It would be lovely to return to Helmand and tour all the country in safety as it was before all the outside influence.
We also ran a health clinic from the camp once a month. This camp also had the first veterinary clinic to visit and help local farmers to maintain and treat the sheep and goats. We built a pen for the sheep and had farmers come every month with their sheep to be dosed with antibiotics for better milk yield and weight gain. I used to assist the vet in dosing the sheep. You can take the man out of the country, but not the country out of the man.
My first major patrol would see us leave camp for a few weeks at a time to travel to those areas or where TFH needed something doing fast. We would be going to Nad-e Ali district. I knew that the British element of the NATO Task Force had invested heavily in manpower and capital. It had now expanded considerably from the initial twenty-four-hour patrols it had been involved in during my last tour not even twelve months previously. There was a remarkable difference since the siege. The DC had been transformed and NATO had spread out from the district centre to many areas in Nad-e Ali. My team and I arrived at a forward operating base in Nad-e Ali district. Only a few weeks earlier five UK soldiers had been killed by a rogue Afghan police officer. They were part of the mentoring team to train the police and the Afghan army. I had done that role previously. The Grenadier Guards would be our hosts at the camp. My team and I would be at the forefront of the reconnaissance patrols pushing out into Taliban-controlled territory.
It was now mid-December and all the green foliage of summer had disappeared. Rain and clouds and cold had taken over. We were only in one-man tents; something out of Halfords. It didn’t bother me. I was well used to sleeping out under the stars whatever the weather. I had a hammock and a basher, a rain sheet to go over where I was sleeping. My kit and I were dry and warm compared to others; some skills never leave you. I even had an old ammo tin for a stove with a fire. Cosy as a mouse I was. Early in the morning you would get a few lonely wet troops hanging about to warm up. They couldn’t believe this Irishman in a hammock in winter in Afghanistan with a little camp fire having the craic with them. As I chatted with a few of the privates from the Grenadier Guards, I could tell the shooting incident was still raw with them; you could tell it hit the place hard. It was decided to do a night infiltration into the area around where the shooting had taken place. We would then carry out a clearing patrol to root out any Taliban and take them on. Once first light came up we would then make our way through the compounds. If there was any sign of life, my team and I would move forward to interact with the locals and to try to organize a shura, the Afghan name for an informal gathering, typically of elders or village elders. Before we could even consider that we were contacted. Bullets were whizzing and RPGs flying in both directions.
The Afghan soldiers we had were hungry for a fight. The minute it kicked off they were on it. We fired and moved forward to take on the enemy and move towards clearing the compounds. This went on for much of the morning. Thankfully the Taliban believe in having tea breaks. We’d listen to them over our Motorola radios. I briefed the interpreter in my team to get as much information as he could; I also instructed him to pretend he was the Taliban commander; the Taliban and the interpreter argued and slagged each other off over the radio. Even if it didn’t turn out to be effective it was funny, and hopefully it would sow some disarray within the Taliban forces and might slow down their momentum or lead them to give away some locations or information; take them out of their comfort zone. Always take the fight to the bastards.
A lot of these were hit-and-run attacks. During one of the frequent firefights, as we were only a six- to eight-man team, we were light and mobile and were chasing them down. The Afghan members were baying for blood and I had no issue. I loved taking them out too. The intel coming over the radio was these soldiers are like ghosts; they’re not the typical soldiers. The Taliban were on the back foot and some of the low-ranking members did not want to come out and play. They were scared. I can assure you we heard this in many areas of the Central Helmand River Valley. If you take the fight to them with such ferocity, it’s not what they’re expecting. My team was fast, silent and ruthless. If we weren’t talking, we were fighting with a vengeance. That was part of the course. The operation went on for a few days. We slept out in the middle of the Taliban’s territory, with guard duty and so forth. There was little or no sleep. We met up with a patrol of the Grenadier Guards, all young lads apart from the platoon sergeant; Danny was his name, nice lad, probably 28 or so and he had wisdom beyond his years. His commander, a young lieutenant officer, was just out of Sandhurst. Talk about out of his depth. You could see the panic in his eyes and that of his young charge. In the middle of this hot fight, I was radioing back map coordinates and enemy positions to the HQ element that was set up in the rear to bring our assets and if possible mortar elements to bear on the multiple Taliban positions; there were casualties on both sides. I noticed that some of these lads were going into shock at what they were witnessing. I passed a ciggie to a young lad who had that 1,000-yard stare and the pale complexion of shock. I smiled and said, ‘Life’s fucking sweet, take a few puffs on that.’ Poor lad was dumbfounded. Bullets, rockets whizzing by and I’m all nonchalant about it. It helped him though. You’ve got to take the seriousness out of it sometimes to be effective again.
Then came the news that the Grenadier Guards had taken some casualties. A pedro call sign; that is, the US army medics on board a Black Hawk helicopter with a .50-cal heavy machine gun. They usually fly in pairs. One lands to pick up the casualties while the other gives covering fire from the air. It’s a sweet sight to behold in the middle of battle, watching this bird circle as a coloured-smoke grenade is thrown by the stretcher team on the ground to mark the landing site for the helicopter, the blue smoke pouring out as the Black Hawk lowers to land, blowing the smoke with the rotors into the blue swirling vortex. Sometimes praise for these silent men and women, the medics on board these and other medical evacuations who come in under fire, is not high enough. I take my hat off to these pilots and crew. They’re not used to being in the thick of it on the ground in the sort of way we are but that does not deter them one iota. I truly want to thank them for their courage under fire. From a fighting soldier’s point of view, to know that when the shit hits the fan and you’re in serious shit, as was the case here and on many, many occasions on my tours, there is a comfort in seeing these angels with machine guns descend from the sky to pick up injured men and take them on the road to recovery or sadly to the graveyard from serious injuries.
It was like I was in a scene straight out of Apocalypse Now. Eerie. The lieutenant commanding his team was going into battle shock, shouting gibberish orders. Poor young officer’s first taste of real war. I got a grip of him, let him know what the plan was and let him give the orders. It’s the military; rank is rank. Even when it’s against your better judgement, you’ve got to roll with it. I was only out with my team. The other units can take care of themselves, rightly or wrongly. I then watched in amazement as this young private let off this £62,000’s worth of rocket just because he couldn’t be arsed to carry it back. I roared with laughter. I patted him on the back. You did right, son. Give it to them big-style, and that was the gusto of operations during the festive period. Christmas morning: I woke in my hammock to a cold, damp Afghan morning. I could see some officers going around the men with tea urns and plastic cups. They were handing out hot port in a gesture of seasonal cheer. The captain of our patrol served me a Christmas drink, a great officer: led from the front and was well up for a fight. Well, it’s Airborne all the way.
We returned to our camp a few days later. I spent some time prepping for the next excursion out. For a few weeks we’d be on mobile patrols. We returned to the north-east part of Nad-e Ali. It was the same routine; all the patrols were tasked for gathering intelligence for the big political and military operation, MOSHTARAK. Basically, we were going out talking and gathering information from village elders and so on to gain a picture of who held power in that specific village and where that lay in relation to the district. So, people of influence could be used to steer thinking in a certain manner. Early one morning, while on patrol, my team and I were waiting for first light so we could go knock on some doors. My interpreter heard over the radio that the Taliban were lining up to fire a rocket at one of the vehicles of another patrol. We were on foot, laid up in a ditch. I spotted this figure 200 metres away crouching along a hedgerow with an RPG in his hands. I quickly took a shot and hit him in the shoulder. He crawled towards some wood piles, still holding the RPG. I couldn’t get a clear shot so I used the underslung grenade-launcher (UGL) on my rifle and launched a grenade. The first one dropped 50 metres short. I took aim again and bingo. That disintegrated him and the threat.
Now I’d opened up a right hornet’s nest. We were being contacted all over the shop. My team and I gave chase to some Taliban. We were at the forefront of the contact. Our patrol numbered seventy men but we weren’t the only ones there as we’d joined the local unit in place to hold the ground. There were 100+ men, mortars on standby and an Apache helicopter gunship. The top rank was a major from some British army unit so our commander was outranked. The major decided to halt the fight when we were giving chase, firing and manoeuvring forward. At the time General Stanley McChrystal, the head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, had decreed that ‘courageous restraint’ when taking the fight to the enemy may or may not do more harm than good. His thinking was that we could lose the general population if there was too much collateral damage going on. What this misguided fool did not take into account was Afghan culture and the fact that Afghans themselves believe in fighting and standing up to the enemy. To the locals, walking away was the worst thing you could do. Many were sitting on the fence, unsure whether to support the Taliban or the Afghan government representatives in Helmand. The tactic of walking away played straight into the Taliban’s hands. It would make us wonder if incompetency was being replaced by purposeful screw-ups. Many officers just went along with this without passing the reality of the situation up the chain; that it may look good in a press conference in a heavily-fortified base in central Kabul, but on the knife-edge of Helmand Province it was sheer stupidity. Thank God many of the low-ranking officers in the field were fighting men and carried the fight to the Taliban, come hell or high water. As for the Tommies, well, they never back down, ever. It’s us who win the wars; the generals just take the credit a long way back in the rear with political goals in mind.
As my team and I made our way back towards the patrol base at the end of the debacle, I wasn’t pleased. I informed the chain of command that the decision was detrimental to any work being done in the area. We certainly didn’t take the major out on any other ops or patrols. The tempo of operations was hot, fast and hard. We were at the heart of the reconnaissance through most of the Central Helmand River Valley for Operation MOSHTARAK. We were in the Nad-e Ali district. The area was littered with IEDs. The main issue was that with patrol bases and smaller camps or even compounds, you were static and the Taliban had deployed the tactic of planting IEDs all around and on known patrol routes. It’s the same as looking out the window of your house and there’s dog shit outside the front door, and more shit on the path or pavement around and near your house. Except this dog shit kills and maims regardless of rank or belief. It wasn’t a case of if your patrol would get hit, but when it would strike an IED.
When we set off from the patrol base, we were out at night and would patrol during darkness to reach the objective before first light. This meant we were turning up out of the blue onto the Taliban’s doorstep. My team and I were with the platoon sergeant and his team of British and Afghan troops. We came under fire from multiple positions. The platoon sergeant – Pete was his name – and I returned fire from a drainage ditch. The others, who were out of sight, took cover in an unused compound. I vividly remember having a sixth sense about an IED or explosion. As in previous cases, something came into my mind near or a few minutes before some life-or-death situation was about to unfold and there have been more than I care to remember. As Pete and I ran down this hedgerow towards the compound, the troops in the compound were now returning fire to the Taliban. We made it to the entrance of the compound. One of the lance corporals who was leading some Afghans in the firefight told me they had just arrived into the compound. It was a disused compound that had previously been used by the Taliban. As soon as I heard this I instructed one of the two US Marine Corps dog-handlers who were attached to our unit; I briefed him fast on the compound. He let the dog off the lead to search. No sooner was the dog off the lead and bang. I blacked out for a few seconds, coming to lying down. I had been thrown a couple of feet by the blast. My left ear was ringing; my left arm was in pain. I instantly turned to look at my arms and legs; they were all there and working. I looked behind me; there were blokes writhing on the ground, screaming in pain and shock. I roared at everyone not to move an inch. I knew there would be more IEDs in the compound. I radioed to our commander. ‘Contact IED. Wait out.’
That was just a heads-up at what was unfolding. The Taliban increased their rate of fire; they knew we were hit and in disarray. Most of the British troops were either injured or dealing with casualties. I ordered a young private to use the mine-detector to clear a path to the injured while getting the two US Marine dog-handlers Tim and Charlie to take the rest of the Afghan soldiers out of the compound and set up a fire base to return fire and cover us from the Taliban while we organized ourselves amid the screaming hell of hurt. The medic and another two lads held Pete down to administer first aid; others attended the other wounded. Beep beep, went the mine-detector. We found a second IED a metre from the casualties. I was on one knee right beside the pressure plate. Safest place. No one was going to step on it with me guarding it. All in all there were several IEDs in that compound.
I organized a stretcher party and gathered the men to move out to a waiting quick-reaction force that was in vehicles coming from the patrol base to take the wounded out of the battle and return them to base to be airlifted to Camp Bastion. All the time we were under fire but the courage and dedication of these very young privates from the Parachute Regiment was truly heart-warming. These young lads just got on with it. Some were in shock but it didn’t faze them. One lad called Elliot impressed me. I thought to myself that lad’s got SAS written all over him. We made it with the stretcher party to the QRF. They took the injured onwards to Bastion. Pete was airlifted with the other casualties. I’m unsure how he fared. Half our call sign was combat-ineffective. We waited for the other half to regroup and return to base, to reorganize and make sure kit and personnel were okay. I didn’t know at the time but our patrol commander put me forward and wrote me up for my actions that day. In my eyes it was all a team effort. I just happened to react first and shout the orders. I couldn’t have done anything on my own. It was the lads and I who did it together, not me on my own.
Once the dust of battle had settled and we waited for replacement troops to be sent in, it gave us all time to gather our thoughts. It’s a shit time when a patrol gets hit badly. You pull each other through and keep focused on the objective. A few sobering thoughts and then get on with it. I spoke with the captain. ‘This place is littered with IEDs,’ I said. The whole radius around the area had been planted. We would need to push through the ring of IEDs into new ground for any freedom of movement; otherwise we were in a killing zone. Basically, the Taliban would observe us and then make contact with small arms or RPGs. Knowing your tactics and how the troops would react, they would just lure you in, hit you so you would be channelled into an IED pit and then the IED strike would come, and then the next onslaught from the Taliban when you’re at your weakest. Great and simple tactic. Very effective and very messy.
Many a soldier’s blood drained away into the thirsty Helmand clay; dry red pain drops attracting flies to feast. The next patrol was out at dark o’clock again. We pushed further into the Badlands. By the time we reached our objective it would be first light in an hour. Most of the patrol was stretched along this wall; it was pitch black. We were all using night-vision goggles. Some of the Afghan soldiers found a command wire, an electric wire that goes from a battery to an IED. Most IEDs are like a land-mine - that is, when you step on them, they detonate - but with a command wire the enemy detonates the IED instead of the victim. We found the IED and it was huge. It was twilight time – not dark, not light – but you could make out buildings and shapes; we were outside a compound with a perimeter wall. Next thing we found another IED. It was now apparent that we were in the middle of an IED ambush. This was the killing zone. The open ground outside the compound and wall was where you would be hit by gunfire if the Taliban was awake. Or it was there that later in the day troops would run for cover behind the wall, right into ambush. The enemy would detonate the command wire at one end of the wall and then, as men would make their way down the wall in the opposite direction to escape with the injured, a second IED would inflict mass casualties. I found two IEDs 2ft away from me and with another lad made a safe passage for everyone. The whole patrol passed between us as we stood beside the IED pressure plates. There is a lot to be said for night infiltration. Jesus, that place was spooky. It was designed for death. We marked the compound. Later joint direct attack munition (JDAM) or some 2,000lb bombs would make it safe. Later that day we did meet the Taliban, and a sniper and I were taking shots off a rooftop while our opposite numbers were returning the favour. Oh, the sweet taste of gunpowder and vengeance rang through the air. We had to call in artillery support when it heated up big-time.
The artillery comprised big 120mm pieces and these were stationed at the patrol base 4km away. It was a very short distance for the artillery to be used but we had no mortar team with us. As we fired and manoeuvred back, the village comprised clusters of houses and rat-runs; you couldn’t get to the enemy without taking significant casualties. The artillery shells were hilarious to hear. It was like cannonballs thundering past you towards the target. The artillery guns must have been nearly horizontal because they were flying past us only a couple of feet above our heads. Jesus, the destination must have been a shithole after these landed. It was like the Battle of Waterloo with them barrelling down the field towards the enemy. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Thankfully we made it out of that part of the world on a Chinook back to camp.
After a few days of preparing vehicles, kit and supplies and training the Afghan soldiers for the next excursion, it would be another few weeks behind enemy lines or, as sometimes the case may be, TFH Command Centre if the crack-smoking staff officers managed to wrangle us away from our taskings to assist them. Oh, they like using units like play toys. Don’t even ask me what the hell we or for that matter the ordinary infantry soldiers were doing. Some bigwig was going to clear out the Taliban and open up 500 metres of dirt track so it would look good on paper and funnily enough a camera crew was on tour. My team and I were attached to an infantry unit with the rest of our patrol; we pushed through the night to take positions up past the front line. We were going to have a shura with the local village elders once daylight arrived, to reassure them and ourselves that apparently we knew what we were doing. Most of the time fact was stranger than fiction. We arrived before first light to the local elder’s compound. He had been asleep but not any more, once we had invited ourselves in and secured the place.
We were guided into the guest room of the compound for some chai (tea) and warm bread. We were not to be seen by anyone. We were just lying low for the main event and then would work it from there. We were delighted. We posted some sentries and the elder and I chatted via an interpreter. It was cold and wet outside, but mid-winter in Helmand is not like that in the highlands of the north Afghanistan that are part of the same range as the Himalayan mountain range that sweeps west to the east through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China: beautiful and remote. It was comfy sitting down, sipping chai while we defrosted. The main event was an engineer unit would use a mine-clearing machine to clear the track from the military outpost to the crossroads that the compound was beside. The mine-clearing machine is a vehicle with instruments to detonate the IEDs or mines at a safe distance in front of the protected driver. Then, boom: the explosion rang out and the place reverberated. The mine had hit an IED designed for a vehicle; most likely a couple of 150mm shells from an old Russian artillery from their schmooze cruise in the Stan. I heard in my earpiece that the driver of the mine-clearing machine had broken his shoulder from the shockwave of the blast hitting the vehicle. If he had been directly on top of it, we’d have been mopping him up with a sponge. Though the machine is designed for the job, you still get injured. Defeats the purpose. The machine was injured too.
Back to basics: a foot patrol was deployed; men with the world’s most overpriced metal-detectors. It was light and even the man in the moon knew NATO was out patrolling this morning. I went out for a look to see the show. I peered through a door and up the road were vehicles full of men advancing at a steady pace. Now the interpreter was hearing on the walkie-talkie that the Taliban were up and getting ready. Ah, there’ll be no talking again today, I thought.
I could see the foot patrol with the blokes using the hand-held mine detectors. They were clearing the road inch by inch. They found and marked another IED. Everything would come to a halt while they waited for the engineers to come and check it out and either make it safe or blow it up in situ, whichever was best. Only problem was, I had now been made aware that accompanying the high-ranking officers was a camera crew in a vehicle that was shielded from most threats. It weighed nearly 30 tons. We went back to chatting to the compound owner while the engineers went to work. After about two hours the countdown for a controlled explosion went through the radio headset. I informed my team and the occupants of the compound that it was going to get noisy. There were young children there. I told their older siblings to cover the young ones’ ears. Three, two, one, boom. It was even bigger than the last one. The anti-vehicle IEDs or mines were enormous. You could only imagine the damage and destruction to any vehicles and people in them. The poor children were scared. The old man told us he had lost a son to one of those bombs and he had been on to the authorities for ages to take them away. He had been threatened by the Taliban but, on the same note, this bloke was a known Taliban sympathizer, if not commander; that’s why we weren’t being hit yet. We were sitting with their commander. Smiling and joking; that’s just the way it went. I would have the craic with them, then we would fight. Bit like being in the pub, but with no beer.
As the day drew on I went outside the compound to watch the explosive search team walking along the road, slowly checking for signs or detection of IEDs. I stepped inside the compound wall and within minutes there was another explosion about 5 metres from me on the other side of the wall. I instantly knew this was not planned; there is the unmistakable smell after an explosion and that sinking feeling. There was smoke and dust and commotion everywhere. The young lad who was clearing the path had just stepped outside the clear lane and detonated an IED. It blew him into a canal about 10 metres over the other side of the road. His comrades were in shock and had been blown off their feet. We couldn’t get out. The Taliban opened up at the same time. As men returned fire, some of the engineers who were in the explosion jumped into the canal to pull the lad out. He had lost legs and arms and was bleeding heavily. In their shock they pulled the casualty to the far bank as we roared as loudly as possible over the gunfire to drag him to the near bank and get tourniquets on his stumps to arrest the massive haemorrhaging. This bloke was minutes from dying. They pulled him up on the far bank; it is what it is. These poor souls had just been in an explosion. Disorientated, they did their best. Now the shouting to put tourniquets on quick was deafening. I couldn’t hear the gunfire. Men were willing them to pull him back from death. I’d never felt so helpless. I was only metres away but it might as well have been another country. Some of the soldiers we were attached to got a ladder to make a bridge across the canal to go to his aid. The fortified vehicle with the officers and the TV crew were right next to it now. The cameraman was trying to get a shot out of the window. All of us were sickened at the sight. Here were these tourists wrapped up in their protective bubble observing a firefight and the aftermath of an IED strike from a cocoon. Another reality of war. Carnage on the outside; oblivious ignorance on the inside. Sadly the boy died shortly afterwards of his injuries. He didn’t make it back to a platoon house compound 500 metres up that newly-liberated dirt track. He was put in a body bag and on a helicopter for repatriation out of Afghanistan. Home to another broken family. That’s war for you. It may be desensitized by computer games, movies, politicians and the money-chasers, but it’s not desensitized for those involved at the sharp end. As they say, truth is the first casualty of war. That was part of the course for me on numerous days. I’ve been too close to death, either delivering it to the enemy or they delivering it to us.
I was exhausted by this stage. My R&R was coming up. I would be flying out of Bastion to Kandahar and then on to Brize Norton. Operation MOSHTARAK was all over the worldwide news before it was launched. I don’t recall any other big operation like OVERLORD or the like being broadcast. So the enemy knew everything in advance. I was going to be in the pub in Ireland while the Taliban were on R&R too. I knew there would be no big fight or push. Some 15,000 troops from NATO and the Afghan army and we were 100 men doing the reconnaissance in all the areas they would be going into. Just 100 compared to 15,000 and in front of a camera crew and the whole nine yards; 100 vs 15,000. By Christ, we were lucky bastards. The Taliban were there when we were. Oh, it was amazing craic. They were popping up everywhere and we were engaging them left, right and centre. That’s the best thing about being surrounded; you shoot in every goddam direction. The big operation was pure shit on telly. I was toasting the Taliban as I was flat out of Guinness and whiskey. I winked at the telly. ‘Don’t worry,’ I muttered to myself, ‘I’m coming back and back with a vengeance.’
R&R is over before it begins. No time for goodbyes. I’ve had a lifetime of those already. I was back in the Stan now. Emotions were left at the front door of the house in Hertfordshire. I was a cool, calm, calculated, ruthless fighter now. Kill or be killed. I was tasked with going with the Danish military now for a bit. I liked it. They were chilled out, a bit like heavy-metal rockers in uniform: beards, long hair, dreaming of the old glory of the Vikings or they were simply heavily reliant on their reserve element so were a bit more relaxed on the shaving regulations. Now the female soldiers… Jesus, some of them would break you in half. The others ‒ blonde, Nordic and fit – oh, just what a man needed to see for morale from time to time. I never spoke or flirted. I was leading highly-trained Afghan soldiers; it’s not part of their culture and I had to respect that and the female soldiers too. Only eye candy back at base after a mission out on the ground. There is no gender: you’re either a good soldier or a bad soldier. I’ve never met a bad female soldier. Hats off to you girls. Many have more balls than some of the men I’ve seen on my travels fighting up and down Helmand over the years. The Danes’ main base was Camp Price just outside Geresh. It was on the main highway linking Camp Bastion and Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. Like Camp Bastion, it was not in a built-up area but mainly surrounded by desert. I liked Camp Price, especially as it was run by the Danes. Its nickname was Camp Nice. Oh, it was chilled and had lots of eye candy. As per usual my team and I were tucked away in a quiet section as we usually didn’t use the cookhouses; we ate with the Afghans, cooked their food and so on.
There was a lot of mistrust between the Western military units and their Afghan counterparts, although these well-trained Afghan soldiers were at a different level and had a selection process to obtain membership. It was irrelevant to a lot of rank and file in camps that never went outside the wire; a few times my team were refused entry to cookhouses. I ended up in arguments, especially as I generally re-educated higher-ranking NCOs over the fact that they were guests in Afghanistan and their camp was pitched on Afghan soil. I understood the mistrust with the green on blue, as it’s called: the military term for attacks by indigenous (green) forces on NATO (blue). There were rogue elements in the Afghan police and regular army but we were dressed and acted differently; they knew we were just trying to get a hot meal before we made our way to the next battle. Jealousy is a bittersweet emotion.
Now we would be launching our patrols into the upper Geresh Valley, the unoccupied territory between Geresh and Sangin in the Green Zone. This was where most of the Taliban hid out, especially the foreign fighters in Helmand. We would be welcoming them back to Helmand for the annual spring offensive. As soon as the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan were passable after the winter snows, they would migrate back. Incidentally it would coincide with the poppy season, to open up trade and drug routes. Well, you can hardly think ideology is fuelled for free, no matter whose ideology is now being peddled.
As the Danish military were the battlespace owners for this part of Central Helmand River Valley we would sometimes carry out joint operations, or be on our own but with input at the planning stages from the Danes as they would be doing the ground-holding after we left anyway. We arrived by Chinook early morning at a Danish patrol base. Great helicopters, absolute work horses. We were packed in like sardines. Once there, we set about sorting some sleeping spaces and so forth. We would be operating out of this place for a while. It overlooked the Green Zone from the edge of the desert. Very ‘close’ country, the Green Zone; it was March/April so everything was starting to bloom or boom. It was like the jungle in places with visibility down to a few feet and even less in dense undergrowth. It was cold but humid. Sometimes you thought you were in the Middle Ages or Middle Earth, with the mud huts and clay-reinforced walls about 2ft thick. Bloody strong. Took a fair bit of explosives to breach a hole in a wall, never mind dropping munitions from fighter jets on a compound to hit the enemy. Some of these old forts and compounds were hundreds of years old. They’d stood the test of time better than the history books. The Danes were chilled to work alongside; different mentality fighting-wise though. I don’t think the political stage back home had much support so they tried not to get involved. That was for the politicians and the very senior military safe in Copenhagen sipping Carlsberg. The men and women on the front weren’t shy about taking it to the Taliban but when casualties mounted, as they do in any war, the tools in suits get wobbly knees first, thousands of miles away, bless them.
We pushed out, passed the usual patrol routes and area of influence, and into territory that certainly wasn’t government of Afghanistan- or NATO-friendly. A lot of poppy fields here. So the enemy was more concerned about their income than anything else. My team and I certainly were in a lot of contacts and prolonged firefights here. Jesus, there was fuck all talking here. Ah well, sometimes a picture paints a thousand words. With the amount of ammunition sent in both directions you could have opened an art gallery or library. On one patrol we pushed deep into Taliban country at night and popped up at first light as usual. On the Taliban radio that the interpreter was listening in on he could hear the chorus of disapproval. You know you’re in deep when they’re tearing new arseholes out of each other to get into position before 6.00 am. Sweet, some hard-core fighters who had alarm clocks. I was on top of the world. Don’t get me wrong, a bad day in the office in war is very shit, but when you’re on the attack and taking them down like it’s going out of fashion, it’s exhilarating. Maybe it’s that primitive part of the brain. Survival of the species, but by God, do you get a hard-on at the thought of more fighting and it was there for you, as much as you could handle and more.
I had positioned myself and some of the Afghan soldiers along a small ditch and among some trees. I could smell the fight in my nostrils. We spotted shitloads of the bastards, crawling into positions. I radioed back to the forward air-controller, essentially the person responsible to talking to the air on station and coordinating with troops on the ground to get the air to drop on positions located through maps and visually confirmed on the ground. High pressure at high speed. Our man was from the RAF, mid-40s and bald but cool under pressure. Nice fella actually. Always had a brew after a patrol with him. I passed on the coordinates to get the aircraft with the optical instruments to have a closer look. The mortar fire commander was also informed. They were back from our position with the command element of the patrol. All assets were coming to bear on this scrap. I even gave the team a pep talk as we had time; we were ambushing them for a change. Oh yeah, baby. That is how I got them bloody stirred right up for this one. I said ‘Right, listen in…’ – this was to the British troops, the US troops and the Afghan forces and interpreter; the Danes were sitting these fights out – ‘… fuck General McChrystal and fuck courageous restraint. The minute these cunts pop up, give it to them with fucking everything you have. Send them into the next world with fucking enthusiasm.’ Then I roared ‘Mike, foxtrot, victor’ (that’s the phonetic alphabet). ‘MFV.’ Even louder now. They were baying for blood. The Afghans were nearly coming in their pants at the thought of being let off their leash. ‘Mike, foxtrot, victor. Maximum fucking violence,’ I roared, and with that the Taliban introduced themselves bang on. There was some amount of ordnance going in all directions. I was confirming targets to the air-controller and mortar-controller. Within minutes, boom, boom, the mortars were coming in on target from the base a few clicks back from our position. It was as romantic as you could get for a fighting man. I was in love. I don’t know how many scratches on the bedpost I got that morning but I was smiling through. The Afghan lads were unstoppable; they were literally salivating around the mouth while launching RPGs at the Taliban positions. It was one of the most intense firefights I’d had the privilege of being in. The fighter jets were on target and the mortars were dropping. Everything was in symphony. A good old-fashioned tear ’em up.
Once it was all done and dusted, positions cleared, we made our way back through the Green Zone jungle, up the inclines into the desert high ground and back to base. When we walked back in the Danes were in shock; the whole upper Geresh Valley had heard that fight. They thought we were mad and they were right. Mad for it. Many patrols and operations up along this part at Upper Geresh went in the same fashion. This was one of my last big scraps before being re-tasked to go with the Yanks. This area was only a kilometre from the last one I described. Same craic again: we moved in under darkness. This place was like being back in the fifteenth century only it had dodgy mobile phones and the people were big into smoking joints and opium. The poppy fields have a purple haze as the morning dew evaporates with the heat of the rising sun in the east and the warm air expands and pushes the cold air west before the sun gets up over the horizon. We were surrounded by poppies. All this opium growing, waiting for us back home where it would eventually end up, in Western Europe as a symbol of war of the soul. Another symptom of war: a war within.
We knocked on a few doors before the early-morning call to prayer. Eventually, we got chatting with the elders. It seemed a bit surreal but were given some chai, made some small talk and tried to organize a shura for later that morning. One or two seemed eager but Afghans can be difficult to read, even for our Afghan forces who were usually from the north of Afghanistan. You didn’t get many Pashtuns but we had a few and not even they could read them every time. So we went for a patrol around the small hamlet of compounds just to see what was about. The Taliban radio was in full swing so it was just a matter of time before formalities and we were back in the game with them. You may think I don’t like the Taliban, but I don’t like or dislike them; I respect anyone that stands and fights, irrespective of the cost; a man who fights to fight. The hamlets were in thick undergrowth under trees, with small streams and drainage ditches. We were about 2km inside the Green Zone from the desert edge, which was up on the high ground. Visibility was about 15ft at best. A section of the patrol just got contacted by small-arms fire. Just a test really. They saw it off easily. We made our way through the vegetation to the next house. There were some old men, maybe in their late 50s. They look a lot older; Afghanistan even ages the tourists fast. Some of the Afghan forces called to them to stop to chat. They ignored us and just walked in between the hamlets as we moved on. Next thing, bullets were flying at the front of the patrol that was making its way out of the Green Zone. We were about a kilometre behind them. We were the last element on our way out. The cheeky bastards had got between us and were firing at the front of the patrol that had snaked around the hamlets. As the Taliban – or more precisely the ten-dollar Taliban; they’re paid to fight just for work; not much skill but anyone can be lucky – attacked, the front element returned fire to the enemy position. The only problem was that from where we were, we couldn’t engage as the bullets and RPGs could potentially hit our own troops. We took cover behind a wall in the hamlet; that’s when we figured out where the ten-dollar Taliban were: only a couple of metres in front behind another wall, firing through holes in the wall, which were aptly called ‘murder holes’. We went silent. I couldn’t risk radioing our command to let them know our position so they could move their fire away from the enemy to allow us to go into the compound to give them the good news and surprise them. I got a foot up to peep over the wall to see where they were so we could throw a grenade in there, break down the door and go in all guns blazing. By this time our front element had set up a fire-support team on the high ground overlooking the Green Zone; they couldn’t see us due to the vegetation.
I can assure you that when you get RPGs, small-arms fire and machine-gun fire from your own troops you realize just how well-trained we are. Fuck me, was it accurate. Jesus, I couldn’t make myself any smaller. The grenade got popped and so did the ten-dollar Taliban. We got on the radio to give our position. Thankfully the friendly fire – which is not one bit friendly – moved on to other targets. We pushed through. Now the middle element of the patrol was trying to get out of the Green Zone. As usual we had stirred up a hornet’s nest. We would take the fight to them as much as possible and then withdraw. We were usually a reconnaissance element so there wasn’t much support or ground-holding capability. On the other side of a wall, towards the exit of the Green Zone, some Taliban had laid an IED in a cooking pot with a command wire attached. It was positioned where the patrol would have to jump over to make their way up to an exit point and on to the high ground through a small ravine going up the vertical cliff to the desert. A young lance corporal from Scotland, blond-haired lad for a change, jumped up on the wall; somehow he saw the IED had been placed at the other side of the wall and fell back behind the wall. The Taliban detonated the cooking pot. No one was injured; the wall took the blast. They thought the patrol was passing it. The Scottish lad was in shock, though it didn’t deter his skill in using profanities in his thick Scottish lilt; cunts this and cunts that.
We now knew that our escape route had more IEDs. Thankfully the mortar team from the base was sending their love all the way to them. The mortars were now landing in the middle of us as we had been pushed off course by the IED and the subsequent fighting. I said to the new platoon sergeant – Damo was his name – that I’d get a grip of the Afghan soldiers if he would correct the mortar fire. He was a tall lad with glasses and black hair; from the north of England somewhere. I roared at our and the Afghan troops to start pushing for this near-vertical cliff. It was the only viable option; I went with my instincts, as all the obvious routes out were most likely laid with IEDs. I thought better to try to climb out of it than be blown out of it. We had a strong fire-support team on the high ground; the bullets were whizzing very close from both sides. I led from the front. To get some speed into the move I fought up nearly to the top, got a firm hold and then ordered and commanded men to move up to my position and then on to the high ground. It was exposed as hell, but options weren’t options at this time. A sniper would have crushed us. The bullets were pinging round my feet. Jesus, did I abuse the shit out of every soldier getting up that cliff with motivation by cursing. Blokes were ducking and diving to make the climb. I went down twice to carry two wounded Afghans up the hill. I got them up thankfully, only twisted ankles and the like. How we weren’t carved up I don’t know. Speed and aggression are a winning combination.
Once we were all on high ground behind cover I spoke with our commander to inform him we were all safe and that unless we were going back into the Green Zone it would be best to get off this exposed height before they zeroed in on us with everything they had. We moved back further into the desert. My team and I were at the rear of the long snake of men. The air-controller was co-located with me as was Damo, the platoon sergeant. The air-controller was talking over his radio to the jet on station. They could see the Taliban in the ravine I had chosen to avoid; they were digging around another IED or seeing if it was working. I decided to take the steep cliff option. I knew it was exposed but it wouldn’t have any IEDs. Bullets are bearable; bombs are messy. The pilot informed us he couldn’t drop any bombs on the enemy owing to courageous restraint again. I snapped at the air-controller, ‘What? The air won’t strike?’ ‘Okay,’ I turned to Damo, ‘Let’s get the cunts.’ With that he radioed our captain and gave him my quick battle orders to check these were okay. Fair play to the captain, he gave the green light. We dropped every bit of kit, carrying only rifles, bullets and grenades. We were going to be sprinting nearly 800 metres to ambush these Taliban fighters, who were setting up another IED. The pilot had also identified weapons. Tim, the US Marine dog-handler, and Charlie, the other dog-handler, led the way, checking for explosives as we ran as fast as we could to get to them. Within minutes we were there, all of us carrying about 60lb of kit, which wasn’t including what we’d left with the air-controller and some others back in the desert. We surprised the life out of the enemy, literally. As they raised their AK-47s to return fire, they got the good news and dropped away. Our Afghan sergeant major ran down, in the middle of the firefight, to grab one Taliban who had put his hands up. He was the only one who made it. The rest decided to raise their weapons and fire. Big mistake. I’m too ruthless to forgive or forget.
We took the prisoner back for formal interrogation. He was in the Afghan forces’ hands; he was singing like a canary. By the time the Royal Military Police picked him up from the camp, he had disclosed a whole array of IED bomb-makers and facilitators, locations and the lot; that call to go back paid dividends in saving lives in the future. Some high-ranking generals heard about my exploit, that the air would not drop on the enemy, that my team and I had dropped everything and ran to do the job ourselves. In their praise they said we needed more of this kind of action. I’d been doing this since 2008; it was now halfway through 2010. The crack-smoking officers at the top table in Kabul or any other capital city in the West haven’t a clue how to win a war, or more to the point, they don’t want a victory; there’s no money in peacetime. They seemed to be more of a hindrance than the Taliban.
After that operation, we returned to our camp. There were only a few weeks left in the tour now. Most of the company was prepping the RIP, Relief in Place, with the Marine unit that would take over the role. I, on the other hand, was in full flow. I had volunteered to take another team of Afghan forces out on the ground. I was tasked with compiling a report on the efficiency and results of the Afghan forces and their mentor being allocated alongside other military units. They would be attached to these units, taking their orders from the host unit. A small team like the ‘Tiger Teams’ we trained and advised out on the ground; they were subject to some tough times with other unit commanders and the end result was generally a waste of the asset that had been donated to them; they were simply used to knock on doors instead of letting their teams do hit-and-run attacks on the Taliban to hinder the enemy’s freedom of movement. Many commanders lack the initiative to think outside the box when it comes to war-fighting or counter-insurgency.
We travelled like bums hitching lifts off helicopters and generally sweet-talking our way about. It was nice to have carte blanche; just radio in a situation report nightly or, if we were attached to a green army unit, I would just jump on their radio and give base a quick heads-up. We were left to our own devices. I tried in vain several times to persuade command that small teams like mine should wear Afghan clothing to be able to mingle and take the freedom of movement away from the Taliban where we were operating. The last two weeks of the tour we were in Now Zad in northern Helmand. I had been operating in most of Helmand on and off for three years. We were attached to a US Marine unit on the outskirts of Now Zad. The small town had been completely abandoned when the fighting broke out. We caught a flight on a Marine bird, the one that takes off like a plane and then the rotors rotate upwards to fly as a helicopter. Noisy and slow, mainly.
We arrived at a desolate landing strip with sod all there that you could moan about. As usual, no one knew we had been tasked or that we arrived. I don’t have to tell you. Americans really struggle with any accent that is not American and my lilt seems to perplex them even more so, but they did smile a lot. Either they were delirious or intrigued. The route into Now Zad was covered with a fine dust like the dry powdery sand at the top of a beach; it’s great when it’s dry but it gets everywhere. There had been a lot of IEDs planted and struck by vehicles patrolling this area. They were so prolific that the Marines decided to position vehicles every 1 kilometre or so, all within eyesight of the next vehicle and manned twenty-four hours a day to guard the route. I had been assured it was safe; it didn’t bother me anyway. I think they were saying that because they had put ten vehicles in static positions with four men in each and then resupplied them. The commitment alone had to ensure it was safe.
We were about a kilometre from reaching our new task in the district centre. Sodding boom again. I couldn’t see a thing. The explosion’s shockwave had dispersed the moon dust that was the soil on the dirt road everywhere; it was like a miniature sandstorm. I could feel my toes and was conscious. No screaming either. Jesus, I thought, that was close. The vehicles had been designed so that a blast would blow parts of the vehicle away but the cab with the occupants would be secure. I was a little shocked but okay. Some of the Afghan soldiers had sustained minor injuries to their backs and legs but no serious trauma; it was more from the jolt and impact inside the cab and from the loose kit flying about. We got out; one of the supposed vehicles doing static duty was 400 metres away. They must have been sleeping on the job. It is what it is. It came over the radio that they thought it was a command wire-detonated IED. The Marines in the other vehicles took off like lunatics. I checked over my team and assessed their injuries.
We were one week away from the end of tour. Most blokes were back in the bases, packing and getting the new relief in to give them a handover. I was still out getting blown up again and fighting. I took the initiative and led my team into the base. The Marines found nothing in their chase. I knew they wouldn’t. Once we settled down I visited the command part of the Marine unit we were there to patrol with; they hadn’t been informed. The officer in charge was a little vague; it sounded like we were going to be used as bait or cannon-fodder. They didn’t use half the tactics we used or any of the counter-IED drills, which was fairly bloody obvious from the welcoming committee that had decided to blow us up upon arrival. Cheeky bastards, the Taliban. You’ve got to hand it to them: right under their noses they planted it. Hats off for balls. I spoke with Afghan soldiers; they were in no mood either. They were due to have leave in a few days; they were living and fighting as a day job. We would arrive every six months, motivated to the clouds with ideas to boot; no wonder they were burned out. I was by this stage. I said I’d make up some shit and sack it off. With three days before I was due out I hadn’t the heart to take them out on some foray that was ill-planned and with bad soldiering skills; it was a recipe for a calamity. You know when not to push your luck when you’ve been about.
We returned to our camp on the day I was supposed to be flying home. That moved to the right. I had to fill in this report and so forth: handover, the lot, no down time. I did what I was supposed to do, including saying my goodbyes to all I had served alongside. The incoming major, who was the officer commanding the task, nearly fainted when I told him I was due out. A part of me was about to volunteer for another crack of the whip but once you have the picture of getting on that freedom flight and getting back to Blighty, it’s hard to change your mind. I spoke with the outgoing officer commanding our task force. He informed me that we had been involved in the most hours of contact in combat and it topped the table for TFH. That’s twice I had been involved in the most fighting in Helmand. I was sad to be leaving and unsure what the future held after Cameron and his boyfriend were making out in the rose garden in London, telling us that operations would finish by 2014. That just screwed the whole thing. The Taliban must have thought these muppets in the UK can’t do anything right. Lions led by donkeys, as the saying goes.
I was in one piece, but I had a small injury from the IED incident back in February that wouldn’t heal. I was thirsty and missed my fiancée too. It was now June 2010, summertime in the UK. I landed at Brize, headed straight to the barracks in London, handed in my weapons to the armoury and met with some of the lads. It was then home to Hertfordshire and a big hug from the missus. Went back to barracks in the morning. Usually you get a few days’ down time before you’re called back. Since austerity was the new buzzword the MOD pen-pushers were salivating there would be no days’ grace to rest at home before next orders. I was asked to do a course with two days’ notice. I wasn’t prepared for it; I’d been back just twenty-four hours. Since I had no course to attend or operation to go on, I would be demobilized. I did go to Chilwell and therein lies the issue: more bullshit from pen-pushers nowhere near a war zone. Civilians in uniform.