Spoken from the Front (12 page)

It's not all bad news, though. We do have an al fresco
dining area, which gives it a dangerously misleading holiday
feel. Of particular note, we also have a permanent goat
detachment. Sadly we are currently without any goats, but
that is soon to be rectified. The elders from Sangin ate the last
residents, and the officer in charge of goats (OiCoG) is in the
process of resourcing some more. (Major Cliff Dare had left a
successful property-development business and committed to
a three-month stint in Afghanistan to pursue his love of goats.
He underwent arduous exotic livestock training at a secret
farmyard in the Brecons in order to receive the coveted post
of OiCoG.)

The goat-acquisition operation, Op BILLY, is now a routine
drill. The OiCoG moves downtown in an armoured Land
Cruiser with three accompanying armoured Land Rovers and
associated personnel. Once at the bazaar, the vehicles take up
defensive positions surrounding the livestock section and the
OiCoG moves swiftly to the Goat Man to begin negotiations.
The local elders are very important in our dealings with the
more troublesome provinces and it is important to provide a
goat that meets with their approval. Fortunately the
OiCoG is UN Goat Authentication, Selection and Screening
(UNGASAS) trained, and within minutes of having made
contact he has got the goat on its back and made a full assessment
of the beast. The negotiations then ensue, and, if
successful, the goat is swiftly recovered to its new living
quarters.

We are keen to procure two goats so that we can initiate
some goat racing now that we have had to forgo attending
the weekly camel racing. This is a particular blow to me
because the Mustphuk/Mustafette duo proved to be a
winning combination. They came in first two weeks on the
trot and now the beers are on me. Unfortunately, Club Lash is
without booze (a concern with a load of pissed-up squaddies
being in close proximity to the town and only a wall to
restrain them). Instead we have placed wagers on the
peak number of D&V cases. Numbers currently at 41 and
climbing. I've gone for 75 but some have gone as high
as 140. These are the fellas you don't accept a cup of
from.

That's it for now. Off to Death Row, where I hope to sleep
soundly until about 0500 when the tone-deaf mullah wakes
us. God knows what they're chanting about (excuse the pun).
On second thoughts, it's probably best we remain ignorant on
that one.

McNab:
Tony Blair admitted that Western leaders had underestimated
how long it would take to win the 'war on terror'. His
admission came, amid tight security, during his first visit to the
Afghan capital of Kabul. He conceded that the West had wrongly
presumed in 2001 that, when the Taliban fled, the war was in the
bag. At a press conference with President Hamid Karzai, Blair said:
'I think we are wiser now to the fact that this is a generation-long
struggle.' He was speaking after the death of eighteen British troops
at the hands of the Taliban in six months. Earlier he had visited
2,300 British servicemen and women based at Camp Bastion.

McNab:
It is revealed that Corporal Bryan Budd, a Paratrooper
who launched a sole charge on Taliban lines after his platoon was
ambushed, will be awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. The VC is
Britain's foremost gallantry award. Budd was part of a twenty-four-man
patrol from A Company, 3 Para, which was sent to clear
cornfields in Sangin. The Paras came under heavy fire with several
soldiers suffering gunshot wounds. Budd ran at the enemy position
with his SA80 assault rifle on fully automatic. He was shot and
killed while launching the attack on 20 August 2006. Just the night
before he died, he had been talking quietly to Lance Corporal Matt
Carse, a Military Policeman, about his wife and the joy of her
becoming pregnant again. Carse said the next time he saw his friend
was when he helped recover his body. 'He was one of the best and
bravest soldiers I had met – he had taken on the Taliban virtually on
his own,' he said.

Colour Sergeant Richie Whitehead, Royal Marines

During October I had been given another 'Dirty Dozen'
mission – to train up a group of Royal Engineers from 64
Squadron. What we wanted to do was have the maximum
amount of input on the ground with Royal Marine multiples.
I got given these volunteers and these lads who had been
pinged in from [Camp] Bastion [to Lashkar Gah]. They all
rocked up – they didn't have a clue what they were doing, or
why they were doing it. Plant drivers, JCB drivers, graders –
all young lads, all given to me, and I had two weeks to train
them up to a suitable standard for me to take them out safely
on the ground. Which we did. They were my Dirty Dozen
and they were absolutely brilliant because they didn't know
any better. So, whatever I said, they did, which was great
because there were no arguments. It was brilliant.

So we went out at night and during the day and we used to
visit the ANP and ANA positions. There was a plan of building
eight or ten new check-points, which had once been mud
huts. We were going to build a nice one for all of them with
services and electricity and paint them pink (the schools were
painted yellow) to brighten up the place. Just to protect
Lashkar Gah. So off we went one night in December and
there were major rains: it was really, really rainy. It was a hellish
night but we were touring around the check-points. Now
you couldn't see for love or money with the rain and we went
out to north of Muktah. There were only so many routes you
can take, and in the rainy season these would diminish
because the rivers would rise and you would just get
stuck – and you don't want to get stuck out there. We
were all in Snatches because the suicide threat had gone
up and we had already lost one of the lads: Gaz Wright,
from 45 [Commando] in October down in Lashkar Gah.

I had been there over six months now and we had not only
learnt a lot but they [the Taliban] had learnt a lot as well –
about us. The threat of IEDs and suicide bombing was getting
a lot higher and there were more incidents downtown – not
against us but against anyone who was having anything to
do with us. The clerical departments, the ANP, the governor's
compound and all of this kind of stuff were getting hit quite
regularly. So, sooner or later we were going to have to come
across it.

Anyway, I was out at silly o'clock in the night in the rain
with my patrol. And we drove up a normal route, which was
one of four we could take. Out one way and back in by
another. The lads were out on top [of the Snatch]. We were
doing our thing. There were moans and groans and laughter
because everyone was getting pissed with rain. We were only
out for an hour and a half or so. We went through this certain
area of Muktah. We stopped to watch the crossing point of the
river Helmand.

We chatted with our ANP [check-point] that we wanted to
see. I had a quick cup of tea with them. Everything was fine:
they did their normal complaining – not enough diesel for the
electricity, not enough ammunition – and then we came back
on a different route: it sort of ran parallel to the one we went
out on. And I had literally been out twenty minutes past this
certain check-point in Muktah, when suddenly there was
the almighty explosion to my right – towards the back of the
patrol. Straight away I am asking for a sit [situation] report.
Comms were not as good as they could have been, due to the
weather. It felt like the explosion was a couple of hundred
metres away – but it was probably more like five hundred. I
knew we were in contact, but all my vehicles were safe so
I was happy. I quickly drove into camp, reported it, went to
the sangars. They reported a big explosion, fire and stuff, and
they pointed in the area of Muktah and I was like: 'Well,
we've just come from there.' And I'm thinking: Was this a
delayed attack, or an attack on the ANP? So we got in touch
with the chief of police, who you could ring whenever you
wanted, and said: 'Look, there has been an attack in Muktah.'

He said: 'Yes, I'm aware of this, but it's not my check-point.
It is south of my check-point.' Which meant it was closer to
Lashkar Gah than we'd originally thought.

I told the ops officer: 'At first light I'm going to go back and
investigate that because I believe it's something to do with
me.'

So we went out the next day, on foot with vehicles as
support, and we were asking all around as we retraced our
steps. Basically, where we had driven, there were two antitank
mines either side of the track, and they'd had the old
metal plates underneath dug in – so when they got pressured,
they'd come together and form a contact, which would set the
two anti-tank mines off. This was all there still. There was a
little trench going off to the power pack. It was a well-rehearsed,
planned and set IED situation. And we had driven
over it. Amazingly – all we could do was put it down to the
weather – we had enjoyed a lucky escape. The sand and
stones were moving under the rain. It was flooded. And this
had actually got in between the two pressure pads. So when
we drove across it, it didn't make contact at that point. Yet
twenty minutes later – when we were driving back – this had
washed away and the contact had then come together with
the weight of the mud and the general weather and the IED
had gone off. It made a hell of a mess of the area. There were
two big craters. The power pack had been taken out but if you
pulled a wire out of the soil you could see a line so it was
probably on a remote control. We spoke to the locals and they
said they had seen people digging it in. And we had to say:
'If you see this, you have to tell us, especially if we're driving
around. We're here for you. They wouldn't have cared if it
was one of you that had driven over it instead.'

I had been in the first vehicle. I prefer to be the first. I could
get hit, but I want to lead the patrol from the front. And I
knew the ground so much better than the rest of the lads. It
would not have been fair to put them first. We were lucky.
It was a close shave but my attitude was 'Fag, quick. I need a
smoke and I need one now.' But my mentality is you're there
to do a job. If you start losing mates or anything like that,
there's no point in getting upset about it. When you come
back, that's time for it [contemplation] but if you do it out
there, it's going to have an effect on you and possibly cause
more casualties. With a near miss like that, I think: Let's turn
it around to something positive. We're still here. Let's take
photos of it [the device]. You can go home and tell your mates
what you want. I tried to make light of it: 'Laugh and joke
about it, learn from it if you can and just let it go – worry
about it tomorrow. There is absolutely no point in getting
yourself tied up about it.' If I'd got myself tied up every time
something happened, I wouldn't have lasted six weeks [in
Afghanistan] – let alone eleven months.

Robert Mead, Ministry of Defence press officer

Robert Mead, Ministry of Defence press officer, is thirty-six. He
was born in Colchester, Essex, and was raised in a country pub
run by his parents near the town. He has an older brother and a
younger sister. He attended St Helena comprehensive school
and Colchester Sixth Form College before graduating in
philosophy and politics at Liverpool University. After a series of
temporary jobs, he worked as a telephone insurance adviser. He
became an English teacher in Greece, then a reporter for a local
newspaper group. In 2005, he left to take up a job as Ministry of
Defence press officer for the Colchester garrison. Mead, who is
single, volunteered for a three-month tour to Afghanistan
starting in December 2006.

So, then, down to business. You join me on my third night in
Stan [Afghanistan]. It is 9 p.m. and I am sat at my desk in
the Press Information Centre at Lashkar Gah, home of the
Headquarters of UK Task Force in Helmand province,
Southern Afghanistan. I have just opted out of the Friday
night quiz. Rock and roll.

For all those that don't know, I have taken over the post of
chief media adviser to the Task Force, which sounds quite
grand. It is a three-month posting and Rolf Harris only knows
what will happen.

Stan is so far proving to be a fairly placid host. No gunshots,
no mortars and no RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades –
the favoured weapon of the Taliban). I have experienced one
flight in a Hercules, one flight in a Chinook, had a couple of
decent meals courtesy of the RAF, discovered my brand new
3–4 season sleeping-bag, apparently capable of easily withstanding
on any normal day temperatures of down to –6°C –
can do nothing of the sort – and watched Gordon Ramsay get
mauled by a sniffer dog at Camp Bastion. Welcome to my
new job.

He's hallucinating already, you're thinking. Possibly on
other matters, but not this. Gordon Ramsay was on my flight
out here – travelling with two other chefs and the
Daily Mirror
to cook Xmas dinner for the troops at Camp Bastion. In return
the Marines laid on a three-hour display of military bollocks,
including allowing Ramsay to fire a few guns, blow up a few
things, drive in a tank and, best of all, he got dressed up in an
anti-being-bitten-by-a-dog-suit and was told to run in that
direction before they set an Alsatian after him. Read all about
it in Saturday's
Daily Mirror
or the
Mirror
website. And if you
look very carefully you might see me in the background of
the video footage. I do have a photo of me and Gordo (he's
got a very big head) but it was taken after we landed at
Kandahar at 4 a.m. and I had been up all night so I was not
looking my best.

Double jet lag has set in good and proper as I only got back
from Oz five days before setting out here on Wednesday
morning. Seems I was lucky as the winter cold has set in back
home and all flights from UK were stopped shortly after we
took off. Thank chuff for that. I know this cos we have Sky
News. We also have Sky Sports – yipppeee!