Spoken from the Front (13 page)

My new accommodation is a tent along with 6 other media
ops chaps, conveniently located in a lane known as Grenade
Alley as it is less than 15 feet from the perimeter wall with the
town of Lashkar Gah the other side. I am assured, because
the wall is 12 feet tall [and] I can't see over it, that we shall be
woken at 5ish by the sound of the Imam calling the local
faithful to prayer from the nearby mosque.

I shall attempt to send back regular messages while here,
and in return I ask only this of you:

Ladies, if you wish to help a man suffering in his long
hours of solitude with only a member of Her Majesty's Royal
Marines for comfort, please feel free, and I say this out of
necessity, to send me regular updates on your daily movements,
avoiding the urge to include those from your bowels.
Those of a particularly charitable disposition could keep an
ageing man more than entertained by attaching to those
messages any pictures of you naked, or intimately clothed, in
either compromising or uncompromising poses. I'm not
fussy. They'll be our little secret. You all know you can trust
me. (Think of it as practice should any of you fall on hard
times and be forced to make a few extra pennies via the
admirable medium of Internet porn. Should any of you subsequently
go on to succeed in your new-found side-line
profession, don't forget Uncle Robbie, who gave you your
start.) (Please disregard this section of the message if you are
a member of my family.)

Men, send me any comic ditties, works of Shakespearean
prose and knowledge of any Internet porn sites undetectable by
the might of the British military IT machine. And bearing in
mind the speed of this Internet link it isn't very mighty at the
moment.

Hopefully the quality of these messages will improve with
time once I have perked up a bit.

It leaves me only to say Merry Christmas and a Happy
New Year to you all.

Captain Nick Barton, DFC, Army Air Corps

It was Christmas Eve. A pair of us [Apache helicopters] were
on a routine task at FOB Robinson. We knew there was a
patrol out in Now Zad, but we were not dedicated to support
them. We had an hour and a half of fuel. We got a call from
the Ops Room – 'Troops in contact in Now Zad'. We were
probably fifteen minutes' flight time tops [from the contact].
So we would have been able to provide half an hour to forty
minutes on station with what we had. I was commander of
one of the aircraft. As fast as we could, we diverted straight
to Now Zad. We were given the check-in frequency, the call
sign and their rough grid. We got the spot map out for Now
Zad to write down the grid and work out where they were.
They had been contacted near ANP Hill. They had a call sign
out on the ground and, as they were trying to work their way
back, they were contacted.

At the time, there was a high threat in Now Zad. One of our
other aircraft had been hit a week or two weeks before. I was
the wing aircraft – the lower one – and we were at 2,750 feet.
I was doing 102 knots: we knew we were in a high threat
[zone] so we had stepped up our speed rather than orbiting
at min power speed, which would give us the best endurance
as well as hard targeting.

As we arrived, it all went quiet for five or ten minutes. It
was the Green Zone but quite mixed [terrain]. They [the
troops on the ground] had about half a K to get back in.
The next thing we knew was we had a sledgehammer hit on
the side of the aircraft. We called 'contact' on each of the
[four] radios. We definitely knew it [the hit] was low left. We
had a whole lot of aircraft faults. As I looked out of the
window low left, I could see muzzle flash still firing at us and
called it on the spot map: 'Contact muzzle flash between blue
sixteen and seventeen.' They [the Taliban] were lucky that on
their first burst they hit us. After being hit, we were in shock.
Initially, no matter how many times you have been hit in the
simulator, this was slightly different. But then you quickly
focus on flying and checking the aircraft. We had lost our
electric load centre one, high-power switching module one,
we had lost our fire-control radar, we had an anti-ice fail, an
outboard rocket launcher fail, as well as numerous other
faults.

So we broke clear of the Green Zone by two to three kilometres
and thoroughly checked our systems. Both engines
were working normally, no over-temps or over-torques and
no signs of fires. We worked through it as a crew. Fortunately,
I had called where it [the enemy position] was. The other aircraft
had got eyes on to the firing point. He [the other
Apache's pilot] kicked himself slightly because he waited for
clearance to engage from the ground call sign, who was quite
a way now from the contact area. He was slightly annoyed
with himself for waiting because he saw the firing point and
he could have engaged straight away in our self-defence
under the Rules of Engagement. So he took a minute and a
half, then engaged with rocket and gun – 30mm and PD7
rockets. On the ground there were two guys with some sort
of Dushka [Soviet-made anti-aircraft machine-gun]. The
other Apache then fired and put 200 rounds and at least eight
rockets into it. Neither of us could see on the subsequent
video footage whether we had confirmed hits or not.
And they [the Taliban] are pretty good at shooting and
scooting.

So we took two or three minutes checking the aircraft and
it was fine. We had a couple of rocket problems so we elected
not to fire them. We picked up the fall of shot from our wing
aircraft and ended up firing off 140 rounds. By now, the patrol
was safely back in the FOB. We had a slight difference in
engine temperatures and pressures and things were starting
to settle down on the ground. We had a couple of jets turn up
so we handed over to them and came home. We got the wing
aircraft to look at our aircraft [in the air] and our whole side
panel had been blown open, unknown to us, because you
cannot see underneath. So we returned to base and did a very
careful landing. Subsequently, we saw a round had hit one of
the electronic units, there had been a small fire and it had
blown open the door.

Unknown to me, it [the incident] was written up [by a
commanding officer for a bravery award]: I guess it was
because we stayed, we saw the enemy [despite being hit], and
we dealt with them. I still feel humbled by it all and must
mention my co-pilot who was very much an equal crew
member and a far more experienced pilot than myself. I, however,
received the award [DFC] because I was the aircraft
commander on that day. Needless to say, I get him a beer
every time I see him.

Corporal Tara Rankin, 16 Medical Regiment

I had been back from our tour of Afghanistan for about two
months. I was working in Colchester [on the Army base] and
I bumped into Sergeant [Paddy] Caldwell [whom she had
seen badly injured three months earlier] in the corridor. I was
shocked but pleased to see him. He was looking really well
compared with the last time I had seen him. I told him I had
been with him on the day he was shot, but he didn't remember
– he wouldn't have been able to remember anyone from
the point of his injury to [being treated at] Selly Oak
[Hospital]. He's a really popular guy. I read [in a newspaper]
how his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Stuart
Tootal, had been to see him in Selly Oak in October [2006].
His CO wrote: 'Sergeant Paddy Caldwell's words came in
short, gasping breaths, as he struggled with the ventilator
tube in his throat that was keeping him alive. "I regret nothing,
sir. I would do it all again if given the chance.'' ' That's
typical of Sergeant Caldwell – he's a real fighter.

Captain Dave Rigg, MC, The Royal Engineers

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Lashkar Gah.

Who wants to spend New Year in Lashkar Gah? Despite all
of my invites, not one individual has made the effort to come
and see me and now I'm starting to wonder whether my real
friends are here amongst the goat traders and camel racers of
southern Afghanistan. During the build-up to Christmas,
there was much debate about whether Father Christmas and
his band of intrepid reindeer would brave war-torn
Afghanistan. The other concern was whether or not he would
purposely exclude us for having partaken in the extravagant
parties that momentarily swayed us from the virtuous path
that we had now found. On balance, we felt that Father
Christmas was partial to a bit of drunken lewd behaviour –
indeed, how else does one pass the long winters in Lapland?
The next issue was a practical one: we lived in tents which
did not afford him the conventional point of access. Most
agreed that he was a resourceful chap and would naturally
adapt and overcome. However, the less optimistic built
chimneys just in case. Anyway, to cut a long story short, he
did make it and I woke up to find a very nice pair of red boxer
shorts and matching hat. The local infantry company now use
me to draw fire when they need a diversion – thanks, Mum, I
mean Father Christmas.

Christmas Day was spent in southern Helmand province
visiting the local police and generally spreading a little
Christmas cheer. The troops were obviously disappointed at
having missed Katherine Jenkins and Gordon Ramsay so the
Top Brass deployed me in my red undies instead. Sadly, they
couldn't fit a turkey into the ration packs so we made do with
pork casserole and biscuits brown, which is actually quite
tasty, but more importantly (when sharing the same field
toilet with 40 others) acts as a natural blocker. Some bright
spark managed to knock up an improvised oven, and so we
did manage a hot mince pie with our hot chocolate. As we
travelled around the police posts, we doubted that the police
were aware that we were celebrating a very important
Christian holiday. Although they did hungrily scoff the mince
pies we offered them as we tried to coerce them into
manning their checkpoints. Then we recognized the over-whelming
smell of ganja and realized they just had the
munchies.

Anyway, that's enough of that. Time for my cold shower
before venturing into town. The locals are throwing a Wet
Burka night.

Happy New Year, everyone, good luck with battling with
those crowds, paying inflated prices and then nursing those
heads – not for me, thank you very much.

Robert Mead, Ministry of Defence press officer

Afternoon all, Happy Festival of Eid and welcome back to
work.

Some of us – i.e. me – have been at work, defending the
good name of the nations' armed forces, at 8 a.m. every
morning for the past two weeks, come rain or shine, be it
Christmas or New Year, the Muslim new year festival of Eid,
or whatever the Islamic world does around Christmas time in
order to mourn the birth of a small, devilish, messianic
charlatan in a food trough somewhere in glorious and
unjustly occupied Palestine approximately 600 years before
the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Let me talk you through a typical day during that period.
The day begins with the annoying beep-beep of one of my
MoD-issue mobile phones at 7.20 a.m. I now have two
almost identical Nokia models of this little baby. I say almost
identical as my Afghan-issue one has the interestingly quaint
feature of all the letters being in Arabic as well as English.

I say this is when my day starts, though that would be a
white lie as technically my day has already had a couple of
early preludes, highlighted by the need to get out of my
actually-not-too-cold-sleeping-bag-now-but-cold-enough-to-induce-the-need-for-the-lavatory-at-least-twice-each-night.
This is bad. This is bad because it necessitates having to get
up and get half dressed to brave the approx. 100-yard walk to
the nearest bloody lavs. And it ain't warm at night in winter
Afghanistan, I can assure you.

So, the alarm awakens your hero, who stirs heroically in his
lair, ready to pounce should the nation call upon him to leap
to its defence at the drop of a small incendiary bomb. Leaping
with energetic vigour and zest he then towels up ready to
make the morning stumble back along the track to the lavs, or
ablutions, as they are so formally known in the military.

Any semblance of sleep is evaporated by this cold morning
march. Yet it is nothing to the return leg, as one jumps out of
the shower (because, yes, there are showers, hot ones at that)
and – in order to avoid the need for a manly moment of
standing naked in front of your peers to towel yourself down
and dress, in what is already a cramped area, coupled with
the fact that being Marines these chaps make my already
puny frame look like Mr Bean – has to walk with only his
travel towel (ex large, my arse) to protect his dignity back to
his tent. Yowser. Corduroy sack, anyone?

One thing I don't do in the morning is shave as my one true
aim for this tour is to grow a beard. So far so good.
Disappointingly there is the odd grey hair poking out but I
like to think this merely adds to my distinguished air.

Breakfast then follows. A relatively simple affair of two
Weetabix and a croissant. Very continental.

Then the first engagement of the day is the morning update
at 8 a.m., all huddled in a tent as the mike is passed around
to each dept in turn to report to the chief of staff the night's
doings. This can be anything from how much contact there
has been with 'Terry Taliban' to a meteorological report. All
very rock and roll. Or at least it would be, were it not to be
delivered in impenetrable military speak of acronyms,
acronyms and more acronyms – or should I say TLAs (i.e., the
acronym for three-letter acronym). A few examples are:

TiC – Troops in Contact
IRT – Incident Response Team
IX – Information Exploitation
(and my personal favourite)
FOB Rob (pronounced Fob not F-O-B) – Forward Operating
Base Robinson