Spoken from the Front (22 page)

When we arrived, the temperature was already warming
up – it was up in the thirties [centigrade]. As soon as we
arrived, I went to [Camp] Bastion for a while – I was part of
B Company. Soon after that we had new orders and we took
over FOB Robinson with 5 Platoon and 7 Platoon. That was in
a big and untamed valley. I was platoon sergeant of 5 Platoon
at the time. FOB Robinson was the main fire support base for
the Sangin valley – the artillery was already in. We were
relieving the unit that was already there.

The OC at the time was keen for us to get our first contact
and he organized a three-day familiarization patrol where we
got out of FOB Robinson. We had someone come into the base
to man the sangars and provide protection. And we went out
as a two-platoon group for three days. It was a case of having
a look around the villages, doing an over-watch, seeing the
women and kids move out. But nothing happened for three
days. There was a seventy-strong patrol, all Brits with the
ANA attached. I thought it was going to be another of those
tours – all the hype but nothing happening. I had not been in
any contacts in Kabul or Iraq. At this stage, I had been in the
Army for fifteen years, but I had still never been in a contact.

Lance Corporal Daniel Power, The Royal Welsh

Lance Corporal Daniel Power, of Fire Support Company, 1
Battalion The Royal Welsh, is twenty-six. He was born and
brought up in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales. The son of a builder
and a 'full-time mum', he has four brothers and a sister. His
grandfather was in the Royal Navy during the Second World War
and he has a younger brother who serves with B Company,
1 Battalion The Royal Welsh. At school, Power wanted to join the
police or the Fire Brigade. But then a group from the Royal
Welsh came to his school, Peny y Dre High in Merthyr Tydfil, and
he decided to go into the Army. Power is a fitness enthusiast, and
is based at the Royal Welsh's barracks in Chester, Cheshire.

When the Royal Welsh came to my school [on a careers day]
I said: 'I want to be a sniper.' They said: 'That's not a problem
but you'll have to join the Army first.' I was always focused
on what I wanted to do, so as soon as I could after I left school
I joined up. I was always quite robust as a kid – into the gym
and fitness – and I used to play a little rugby and do boxing.

The idea of being a sniper appealed to me. It was the idea
of not being seen, being quite sneaky around the battlefield,
being quite stealthy and picking off your enemy without
them seeing you. There is also a fear factor with snipers on
the battlefield. Whenever there's a sniper out there, it's
always in the back of someone's mind. When I left school I
was too young [to join up], so I was waiting around on a prep
course to join the Army when I was aged sixteen years and
nine months. That's the earliest they'll take you. I was first
deployed to Northern Ireland a couple of days past my
eighteenth birthday. At nineteen, I was deployed to Op Telic
1 in 2003 – the invasion of Iraq. I had just passed my snipers'
course in Aldershot. I joined the Black Watch as part of 7
Armoured Brigade. From the Royal Welsh, there was a fourman
sniper team to bolster their platoon.

The standard weapon then [in 2003] was the L96 – a
7.62mm medium-range rifle. The rifle we have now is the
L115 – that's a long-range rifle. The L96 has a range of up to
1,100 metres. The L115 rifle range has a range of up to 1,500
metres. When you're trained on the snipers' course, you're
taught to shoot in various different positions: lying, standing,
using shooting sticks. At first, there's quite a lot of maths
involved with sniping. You work in a pair but also as part of
a bigger organization. The firer will be looking down the
sight adjusting it while the number two is basically doing the
maths and the radio: working out distance to the target, your
elevation, difference in incline, the heat, the wind speed.
There is actually a little formula we use to acquire a range. It's
all to get that one shot. If you have been given a window for
that target, it's important to get it right first time. Normally,
we move into position without being seen so we have enough
time. But we're talking minutes to prepare – three or four
minutes or less. We work as a pair, side by side. If I am looking
down the sight, my number two is my protection.

You're firing, judging distance, stalking. We do a cam
[camouflage] and concealment training. You have to understand
the ground quite well, get to your target area and move
into position to take that shot without being seen. I have
always enjoyed my work. I feel a pride and privilege doing
the job.

I had carried out my first kill in Iraq. It didn't really affect
me in any way at the time. To me, it was just a target going
down. Afterwards, when you come back to civilian life, you
kind of think about it, you have certain dreams about it. But
at the time [of the kill] you are happy, excited, anxious – all in
one. Time kind of slowed down and then sped up. We had
quite a few contacts in Iraq. I remember this guy's face, an
Iraqi soldier. I remember looking down and he had been shot.
A burst had gone up his body and he had a couple of rounds
in the neck and one in the head, which had taken the top of
his head off. There was no brain in there but his eyes were
sunken and had rolled back. When I got home, it was that
kind of image that I kept replaying. It didn't really affect me
that day, but sometimes you remember it in your dreams –
and that was the face that kept recurring.

I first deployed to Afghanistan with Bravo Company [in
March 2007]. We did build-up training in Cyprus. Then we
flew to Kandahar airfield. We expected at that point to be in
a secure location but with a lot of fighting all around us. It
was quite well set up. Our role was as a regional manoeuvre
unit, which meant we were going to be mounted up in
vehicles and called all over southern Afghanistan to do
specific ops.

In Fire Support Company, you have a lot of assets. You
have your mortars, your Javelin – an anti-tank weapon.
You have your machine-guns, your recce and snipers. We
were working with Bravo Company, a rifle company. FSP
Company is normally the largest company in the battalion. At
one time, it is between 100 and 120 strong.

I remember our first contact in Afghanistan. We were going
to move up to FOB Price to do some tasks up there. We were
given a time we were to depart from Kandahar, but it had
been brought forward. We were going to move by vehicles –
for a journey of about six hours to FOB Price. We were
travelling in light-skinned WMIKs [armed Land Rovers] and
Snatches [lightly armoured Land Rovers]. I was commanding
a Snatch. It was night time. We were travelling in the early
hours because that was when the Taliban seemed to be at
their rest. We'd come out of Kandahar and we were literally a
K and a half out of camp when we got contacted. We had
prepped our weapons, done everything. We were in convoy.
At one point, we were having difficulty with the grenade
machine-gun mount, so we stopped just outside the camp,
sorted that out, got it mounted. Then we proceeded off – it
was 2 or 3 a.m. There was a fire-support element so there
were roughly ten vehicles and about sixty people in the
convoy.

We were driving down these streets, shops on either side.
They were dead: it was quite suspicious-looking. In some
parts, it was quite well lit and in others it was not. I was
sitting there – and that was when it happened. When I least
expected it. RPGs initiated the contact, three or four. The first
thing I saw was a blue-green trail from this RPG that landed
on the other side of the road. It came at an angle past the
windscreen. It was in between the two vehicles: the spacing
was short through the town centre, about fifteen metres.
We were kind of in a vulnerable position and they [the
Taliban] were in a high position on the left-hand side. They
were no more than twenty metres away, firing down on to
our vehicles. Some were in buildings, some were on rooftops.
The buildings are quite odd in Afghanistan: they have
rooftops that lead on to verandas. And they [the Taliban]
were spread out down this street on the one side. You
couldn't really see how many [enemy] there were.

Our SOP – standard operating procedure – is to put fire
down in the killing area, then push through it. So instantly we
opened up. The two top cover [in the Snatch] were firing,
they had a light machine-gun and an assault rifle with a UGL.
We had WMIKs in there too. They have grenade machineguns,
50-cal; then they've got GMPGs, which are mounted on
the vehicles. Everyone was giving it into likely enemy
positions. It was at night and they were firing so they [the
Taliban] were quite easily identified from their muzzle
flashes. My platoon commander and platoon sergeant were
in the lead vehicle and an RPG grounded about a metre away
from their vehicle – it just fell short. And all the shrapnel from
that tore through the vehicle – a WMIK. Hot metal tore
through their kit. My platoon sergeant was driving. Shrapnel
flew across the bonnet into his hands, into his face. My
platoon commander was shot in the arm. There were volleys
of RPGs, there were assault rifles. There was a lot of
automatic fire coming down on the positions. A lot of the
vehicles had bullet holes in them and stuff like that.

I was in the fourth vehicle. My role was to command my
vehicle while top cover got fire off – they put a lot of rounds
down. It was hard because our platoon commander and
platoon sergeant were out of action. But there was also
excitement – like we gave these guys [the Taliban] a fucking
hammering.

The fire-fight was quick, less than two or three minutes.
After our first vehicle was contacted, we put a heavy rate of
fire down. Then we pushed through, out of the killing area,
and that is when we came up with our plan: how to out-flank
them, how to extract from the area. Because of the injuries
that we sustained, we deemed it necessary to get them
evacuated so we were given a grid. We withdrew to there,
where we stayed for the night, and then we had a helicopter
come in and lift out our casualties. But we had fought
through and it was later reported that there were six or seven
[Taliban] killed because the ANP [Afghan National Police]
had to go and identify the bodies. This was our first patrol –
and all hell had broken loose. This was – welcome to
Afghanistan.

I had seen a lot in Iraq, which had prepared me for
Afghanistan. But for a lot of the guys there, this was their first
contact and it affected them. One or two were shell-shocked
– we all knew 'This is what we're in for,' but they all reacted
as they were trained. My platoon sergeant, Mark Moore, and
platoon commander, Matt Hughes, were casevaced back to
Kandahar, then shipped [flown] on to the UK. They both
received shrapnel injuries to various parts of their body. My
platoon commander needed an operation on the injuries to
his arm.

We left for FOB Price the next morning. I took over the
vehicle that my platoon commander and platoon sergeant
were in. I commanded that WMIK down there. We drove
without incident. I was happy, really, because when I was in
the Snatch I was in an enclosed vehicle. You cannot do anything
except command and get the guys to do their job. But
when you're in a WMIK, you have got your own machinegun
on your commander's seat. So, eventually, I was more
than happy to get out of the Snatch and into a WMIK – even
though there was less protection in a way.

Captain George Seal-Coon, The Royal Anglian Regiment

On day two of Op Silicon, we fortified a compound in the
Green Zone, near Gereshk, where we stayed for a few days,
patrolling and gathering intelligence. There had been a cow
living in the compound with a number of chickens. We
ensured they stayed alive, and were fed and watered during
the few days. This was despite 2 Section's attempts to convince
me to allow them to cook the chickens. I didn't think it
would be great if the owner turned up and we had barbecued
them – and there wouldn't have been enough to go around
anyway.

The nephew of the owner eventually turned up to take his
cow away. The nephew and the owner himself arrived a
couple of days later to pick up his valuables. We had conducted
a fairly extensive search of the area when we moved
in, only finding a few Afghan dollars. That was it. We put
them to one side, ensuring they were safe as we lived there.
We showed them through the rooms, apologized for the
sandbags on the ceiling and the doors we'd forced open.

The owner then paced out to a spot in the centre of the compound.
There was a field of dead and dried opium poppies.
He marked a patch of ground and instructed his nephew to
dig. After a couple of minutes, he pulled out this bucket of
opium resin, which was a bit of a shock to all of us. I'm not
sure what the street value was, but that had been beneath our
feet all the time. As it was, due to the 'hearts and minds'
policy, we decided not to destroy any drugs. I think if we had
done so, we would have ended up fighting considerably
more than the Taliban. We weren't the Drugs Squad. We were
stuck in the middle of their community and we needed as
much goodwill as we could get from the farmers and locals –
so we left them to it.

Warrant Officer Class 2 Keith Nieves, The Royal Anglian
Regiment

Shortly after we had established ourselves in FOB Robinson,
we had orders for the first big operation from the battle
group. We moved back to Camp Bastion where we started the
battle procedure. Our first op was Op Silicon. There were two
companies forward and one in reserve. Primarily, the aim
was to clear the Green Zone north of Gereshk and then to
establish PBs [patrol bases], thereafter to provide more
security. We had to push through the Green Zone and had to
then go 'firm' at the limit of exploitation [LOE]. Then the
engineers were to come in and build the PBs. There were
about 240 Brits altogether, with the ANA in the rear.