Front line bloggers - Afghanistan

Frontline bloggers has moved!

2010-07-30T11:13:00.005+04:30

Frontline Bloggers has moved to a new location!

The new look Helmand Blog has consumed this site. All the posts on here have been migrated and there are new posts going up regularly.

Thank you very much for your support and we look forward to seeing you in our new home at www.ukforcesafghanistan.wordpress.com

Afghan Diet Club: free membership for all

2010-05-21T11:44:00.000+04:30

Captain Stuart Thomas is the Main Troop Commander of 204 Signal Squadron, based in Lashkar Gah for his six-month tour.

Main Troop monitors all communications into Task Force Helmand Headquarters based in Lashkar Gah. We also have Information Systems Engineers (computer geeks) and technicians who look after the repair and maintenance of the numerous computer and radio systems.

The Troop has been bolstered significantly, with two operators flying in from Catterick Garrison and a couple returning from their adventures on the ground.

We’re trying to raise £10,000 for ABF – The Soldiers’ Charity. To kickstart the charity drive, we have been organising the Lashkar Gah 10km race which will take place this weekend (23 May 2010). A route around the camp has been cleared and competitors will run 12 laps across sand, stone and shale. So far about 80 people have signed up and pledged $10 each to run. Some of the troop have been training harder than others and some not at all!

Now two months into the tour it’s working well as a weight loss programme for some. No need for gastric bands here. The heat, the weight carried by those out on the ground and the good gym facilities have allowed the guys to tone up in an attempt to get beach ready (beached whale perhaps?) for their loved ones back home. One of the Troop has lost over two stone so far (equivalent to a medium sized toddler?), and by the end of the tour we are going to get one of those photos of him holding his previously tent-sized trousers, and he can wonder how he ever fit into them.

The general election was followed closely, and much like the Olympics, everyone became an expert on all things they previously knew nothing about. If you don’t believe me wait until 2012 and listen to your parents discuss synchronized swimming, and shake their heads in disappointment when a diver attempts a triple pike and double back flip and makes too much of a splash on entry.

I have been explaining over and over again what a Hung Parliament is. After the excitement we had that stewards enquiry (I know horse racing is not in the Olympics!) to find out the winner, and now everyone has lost interest.

Longing for a good Bordeaux

2010-05-20T12:09:00.001+04:30

Captain Jeremy Hahn, an Armoured Vehicle Commander with the Royal Dragoon Guards, is based in Kandahar.

Sometimes the most innocuous of comments, in the most curious of environments, delivered by the most incongruous people, trigger pangs of longing and bouts of home-sickness or frustration. And so it was one balmy evening this week when I found myself in downtown Kandahar talking to a bearded Scotsman, who had been working in private security here for the last eighteen months. I was picking his brains for some local ‘knowledge’ and a download of insurgent activity. He was regaling me, in front of a map, with the various bombings, kidnaps, murders, fire-fights etcetera, when he used the phrase ‘and there was claret everywhere’, and suddenly I lost concentration and drifted into a Bordeaux-craving reverie.

Maybe for five minutes afterwards my thoughts turned to the produce of those clever little men of the Gironde and my excellent and kindly vintner, Simon Wrightson who gifted me a delicious Chateaux Beaulieu for a last drink before I departed a month ago. What I wanted at that moment, more than any other earthly pleasure, was to be sat in an English garden, with the Darling-Betrothed enjoying a bottle, or two, without a care in the world. Sadly the apparition quickly passed and it was back to the task in hand. Writing this has in no way slaked that thirst.

Getting a close-up view of the streets of Kandahar

When moving around Kandahar, either in our armoured vehicles or on foot, it is hard to travel more than a street without passing flowering oleanders, either long swathes or solitary plants. The majority are of the cerise variety which lines the byways of Tuscany and Umbria. It is a striking concurrence of the natural beauty of these handsome flowers and the urban degradation and bullet holes, that allows you to glimpse briefly into a world that might have been, had the region endured prosperity rather than war, hosted with a fierce and depressing frequency.

There has been much media coverage in recent years over an alleged systemic failure of our military/government/whoever to provide the Army with the ‘kit and equipment’ it requires in order to execute its missions effectively, and with minimum loss of life. There have been instances where coroners have returned verdicts of unlawful death and where people much more knowledgeable than I have criticised the equipping of soldiers.

I have nothing but good things to say about the equipment at our disposal in Afghanistan. It is all good quality, there has been no shortage of it, and as an end user it fulfils my needs and criteria for the job I am performing. The armoured vehicles that are my trusty steeds are excellent, offering protection, urban mobility, and a variety of firepower that is apposite to the situation and terrain. We have new helmets, ballistic eye protection, and personal body armour.

The night vision and thermal imaging systems are state of the art. We have other equipment which I do not understand as it has been designed by people in lab-coats, with all manner of science related post-nominals, who eat plenty of fish. But this stuff helps to stop bombs going off around you, and is the envy of the other members of the coalition force here in Afghanistan.

The view from my gun turret

I suppose the truth is, several years ago when I first deployed to Iraq I purchased bits of kit that I needed to supplement what I was to be issued. Now however, I have bought and brought nothing to aid me in my deployment. Further to that, since I have been here, I cannot think of anything I could have self-purchased that would have benefited me on the ground.

One of the most trivial hurdles to jump when on operations is that posed by the problem of getting a haircut. A quick fix solution would be to shave the lot off, but I am disinclined to burn the old onion anymore than is entirely necessary. Standards, both those of the Army and those of a gentleman dictate that growing the mop is also a non-starter. So I plucked-up the courage to go to a dingy place at the airfield run by dour middle-aged Russians.

My heart was in my mouth when I saw the only English words on the price list were ‘flat top $5.25’. Anyone who has seen any war-movie featuring the US marines will understand my horror. Keen not to be sporting a ‘jarhead’, I mentioned this, but the hairdresser spoke no English and so the upshot was I had no idea what was about to happen. My panic, much like my writing, was a lot of fuss about nothing, for, like every time I have had my haircut for the last thirty two years, the result has been astonishingly underwhelming. And this was no exception.

Chocolate and pens: meeting the locals

2010-05-17T13:06:00.001+04:30

Major Mark Suddaby, a Company Commander with 1st Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland (1 SCOTS), writes about meeting the Afghan people.

My forward operating base is home to not only the 1st Kandak, but also 1st Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, known as 1 LANCS. They are the ISAF Combined Force for Nad-e’ Ali, who work in partnership with the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) to provide security for the farming communities of this district. All I have to do, with my four Advisor teams collocated with Afghan Tolays, or Companies, is provide the Kandak with some British Army expertise and advice.

The Afghan Warriors (soldiers) are brave and willing, but it is a new revamped army and you can’t grow an army overnight. It’s taken the British Army (and I serve in its oldest line infantry regiment) nearly four hundred years to develop and we are still learning! The officers try to keep up with us but lack the training and experience of a Western military machine. So, good soldiers but lacking in key skills. This is a country ravaged by over thirty years of near continuous conflict. It is poor and the people resigned to being the ball in a tennis match of political and religious rivalry. It does not help that Afghanistan sits in such a strategically vital location where East meets West, with almost no natural resources, but that’s history and I’m drifting off the point.

It was clear that I needed to improve the living conditions of the Warriors and help them get equipment through their own logistics chain. So, me and my small team of utterly determined men (and a woman – our medic) are now setting about the Kandak like a whirling dervish, peeking into every process and under each procedure to get the Afghans what they need to fight and defeat the insurgents, or enemies, as the Afghans call them (there is no word for insurgent in Dari).

I get out with my six man company headquarters, mounted in two Jackal patrol vehicles, pretty much every other day, to visit my teams or attend shuras, or meetings, with the local population. The Jackals ride high but are open which I like as you can interact with the locals. We drive slowly, so as not to kick up too much dust into the faces of the locals on bikes, and I realise that this little piece of Afghanistan is not so different from the wheat fields of home. Clearly the people are dressed a little differently and there is very little traffic, but squint and I could just be back home.

But you know what, it’s the children. It always is; as it was in Bosnia and Iraq. They have nothing. The older girls are “mums” to the younger kids. They have nothing; no toys, no mobiles, no Game Boys. But whenever we come along they rush out of the fields or compounds, dropping water cans or rakes, waving and jumping around as if we are something special. It’s no surprise that one of the only English words they know is ‘chocolate’.

But the other, used far more often is ‘pen’. They need them for school and the schools, along with ISAF and the Afghan Army, have returned. For these children school is a blessing; a path to a life free from oppression and poverty, and pens, books and bags are prizes to be cherished. But it is the smiles of delight on their innocent faces when the exotic and other-worldly men in their big noisy, funny-looking truck-things appear that is priceless. They are the future and that future hangs on a pen. Or two. This is Advizer 10A off to steal some pens from the Battalion Headquarters stationery cupboard.

The worrying wait

2010-05-13T01:46:00.002+04:30

Lance Corporal Ashley Jones REME blogs from Afghanistan for Channel 4 News about the stress in dealing with the unknown while his fellow soldiers are out on patrol.

I was initially meant to be on an op going into Sangin, but then the day before we were to be deployed, I was told I was going to be staying behind. This was because I am a rifleman and they needed other assets for this particular situation.

I was quite disappointed at first but then I came to terms with it and decided I needed to just contribute as much as I could and become proactive. Not everyone can go every time and sometimes you just have to be patient and throw your weight behind the others.

Besides, there was a lot of stuff that needed to be done back at Bastion before the op began. We’d also been warned off for the next job which was coming up and which we needed to prepare for. Being the vehicle mechanic, I went around all the vehicles just to make sure they were all prepped, ready and working.

We assisted with the re-supply, getting everything together, making sure the Quartermasters’ staff didn’t have any difficulties picking up the kit and they could take it immediately to the air head to go straight to the guys out on the ground when they left.

It was pretty hard work back here. But it was the stress, I think, of knowing we weren’t going out with the lads and not knowing what was happening all the time which was the most difficult.

The lads got up at 3 o'clock in the morning ready to deploy. I got up, had breakfast with them and went down to the aerial reconnaissance detachment to watch them land.

It was quite awe inspiring watching them on the large screens, stepping off the helicopter – all in real time. Everyone seemed to know exactly what they were doing when they got off, straight into formation.

From there, I went back to the vehicle compound and straight back to equipment maintenance. That was the main issue. When we are using vehicles out on the ground, some of them are prone to breaking, so if I can go and prevent that now, it saves a lot of time and hassle on the ground. Prevention is better than cure.

All the time we were thinking about what they were doing and if they were all ok. I felt like a worrying mother, whose children were out playing after dark.

I was still asleep when everyone came back in again. But we got up, and because I hadn’t been out, I was someone they could talk to, and download all their war stories on me before they themselves got their heads down for a few hours worth of rest before the routine started again.

Frustrations of the stag

2010-05-12T01:28:00.000+04:30

Lance Corporal Richard Savage QRL blogs for Channel 4 News from the frontline in Afghanistan, where on his first operation in Sangin he is put on sentry duty - "stag" - at squadron headquarters.

As a force, we pride ourselves on our ability to win the hearts and minds of the local population. It is one of our main tactics in the attempt to defeat the insurgency. But having completed our first op, it is clear we are not the only ones trying that approach.

We had been tasked to go into the Sangin Valley and patrol around an area where ISAF troops hadn't been seen since the Rifles were there right at the beginning of Herrick 11.

We went in to see what the locals felt about ISAF, to see if we could help them with any projects and see if there were insurgents operating in the area. There was.

At first it looked as though I would be staying at Bastion whilst the rest went out on the op. But then our Colour Sergeant came in and asked if anyone else wanted to go up to Sangin.

Everyone put their hands up because they wanted to be with the lads. My hand went up as well and I was picked. Only then did they tell us it was to go and stag on in squadron headquarters (SHQ).

It later emerged that they could get a Chinook rather than a Merlin, which meant more space was available, so everyone got to go out - but I still ended up having to stag on in SHQ.

I realise now why they say: "Never volunteer for anything".

I was gutted. It broke me being back in SHQ and all the lads being out on the hill. I really wanted to be part of the first op. But then someone has to take their turn with these sort of roles.

We went up to FOB Inkerman a few hours before the rest of the squadron, to set up all the radios. The rest of them flew in early the following morning.

I watched them all come in over the aerial footage. It was incredible to watch. The Chinook was hovering over the ridge line and dropped the ramp down, with the wheels still off the ground, and all the lads just piled off.

There were lots of insurgents buzzing around the place and we found out they had planned an attack within ten minutes of the boys being on the ground.

It showed just how organised some of the Taliban are; the speed with which they could get themselves organised.

They had planned all the different ways of getting to our troops, but then they decided not to attack, because the locals were still harvesting poppy.

It was interesting that they held back because of this. Whether they were doing it for the hearts and minds of the locals, or because they needed the poppy crop to be harvested so that they could tax it, we might never know.

The second day of the op however, they didn't hold back.

We were warned that they were getting the RPGs ready to fire at us.

Some 10 minutes later we were contacted and it continued on and off for almost 12 hours.

I was logging all of the contact reports over the radio.For me, it was gutting listening to them and not being able to be part of it. What was worse, it was happening only about 1.5km from us and I could hear all of the warning shots and the returned fire.

They finally got the situation under control, completed their patrol and managed to get picked up by helicopter early the following morning.

It was a successful operation because it identified some key insurgency leaders.

It was fascinating watching all the different agencies working together and working well. This is the advantage of working in the HQ, you get to know what’s going on.

But then it was just frustrating knowing what was going on, but not being able to be part of it directly.

We came back about midday because we had to take down all the radios and wait for a Chinook to fly out. We got back to Bastion, had the afternoon as admin time and then started to prep for the next op.

FOB (Forward Operating Base) Inkerman is different to the last time I was there, because they’ve got more Hesco Bastion and protected accommodation now.

But it didn't get contacted as much as it did last time. It's calmed down in the area big time and shows we are improving the situation.

It’s still just a FOB though, so it still has dodgy showers which just spray water at your face and the toilets are basic, that sort of stuff.

The food was good though. It was really good.

The FOB has an amazing view of the green zone. You can see these amazing colours like the blue water of the Helmand river which was like a Mediterranean blue.

This would be a really amazing country if there weren't so many insurgents around trying to kill you.

Corporal Matthew Olsson, Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT)

2010-05-06T21:13:00.007+04:30

The Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) is based out of Camp Bastion. We are a multi-disciplinary trauma team which is deployed forward to the point of wounding to commence resuscitation and stabilise patients using advanced techniques not available to medics on the ground. Our team consists of Tri-Service Specialist Doctors, Royal Air Force Emergency Nurses and Royal Air Force Paramedics who have extensive training and experience in all aspects of trauma management gained through pre-deployment military training and civilian placements. Some of us are also members of the Reserve Forces.

I am Matthew Olsson, a MERT Paramedic working with the Royal Air Force out here.

We respond to and continue treatment for our injured personnel on the battlefield. Our aims include the quick and safe transfer of the injured by helicopter, to definitive care at hospital. In some cases these may be Afghan civilians. Co-ordination between the MERT and Camp Bastion Hospital allows patients to be assessed in the air thus enabling a tailored response in the Emergency Department or surgical operating theatre.

MERT members are all capable of working independently if required and administer intravenous pain relief to casualties. The doctors are trained and experienced in giving anaesthetic drugs, intubating and ventilating patients in flight and managing major trauma and medical emergencies. A full range of blood, plasma and blood warming equipment are carried to stabilise patients during the flight prior to surgery.

As Paramedics and Practitioners we are all registered and accountable to our respective governing bodies. The clinical governance system in place allows for continuing education, appraisal and audits of patient care. We work full time in our clinical roles when not on deployment and maintain our clinical skills in the NHS and military by treating critically ill and injured adults and children. Additionally we have all passed the following courses and hold the following competency based qualifications:

Battlefield Advanced Trauma Life Support
Advanced Life Support
Advanced Airway management
Advanced Paediatric Life Support
Pre Hospital Trauma Life Support
Major Incident Medical Management Systems
Survive Escape Resist and Extract
Helicopter Dunker Drills
Medical Emergency Response Team practical course
Aero Medical Evacuation Training (Ground and Air Phase)
Rotary and Fixed Wing aircraft familiarisation
Hypobaric chamber and altitude training
Enhanced Individual Reinforcement Training – Deployable Military Skills
HOSPEX (hospital exercise)

MERT is made up of medical personnel but there are also a number of other key players, without whom we could not perform our duties. This starts at the point of injury with the team medic out on the ground who initially deals with the wounded patients.

Those other players include the Ops Room, ATC, the RAF Regiment, Signallers, ground crews, helicopter technicians, armourers, pilots and aircrew. When we touchdown back at the hospital there are also the ground receiving crews who actually transport the patients from the helipad to the hospital. Ambulance medics, Fire fighters and all of the Hospital staff play a huge part when we arrive at their doors and complete handover of the patients to them.

The vast majority of the military and civilian casualties we transport have been injured as a result of hostile action (i.e. roadside bombs, explosions or gunshot wounds) but we also respond to what we call ‘non-battle injuries’ such as road accidents, falls and acute medical cases such as appendicitis.

An explosion recently injured a number of Afghan civilians including children. They were all cared for by ground medics, lifted and treated by MERT and United States call signs and handed over at the hospital where they received ongoing care.

The MERT also received a letter recently from one of our recovering wounded servicemen. He spoke highly of the care he received on the ground, from the MERT and his continuing specialist hospital treatment. This brave soldier has now been flown back to the UK and is making a remarkable recovery.

In summary, the MERT is a team of military emergency practitioners. We work continuously on and off deployment in our respective medical capacities. The level of skill we have achieved in trauma resuscitation is extremely high.
Working inside a moving helicopter, in the dark, in a confined space can be challenging at times but we all hope to make a positive difference during our respective tours out here.

Cricket woes: Afghans beat us at our own game

2010-05-04T14:10:00.000+04:30

Private Daryn Liddle, a South African national serving in the British forces with 1st Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland (1 SCOTS), explains how he’ll be exchanging Afghanistan for the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst this Autumn.

Private Daryn Liddle with soldiers from the Afghan National Army

I am spending my last few months as a private soldier in Afghanistan.

No, I am not giving up the Army.

I am going home from here to Sandhurst to train to become an officer.

I always wanted to join the ranks first, just like my Dad did. And I am glad I did. But now I am ready for a new challenge.

Being in Afghanistan is hard but amazing. I am South African so I am used to the heat. But it can even get to me when I have thirty to forty kilos on my back.

We trained all over the world to get here and it was invaluable. But you never know how you are going to handle it until you do it for real.

Playing cricket with soldiers from the Afghan National Army

I live in a patrol base in the Sangin valley with 7 other 1 Scots soldiers, about four dozen ANA soldiers, or “warriors” as they prefer to be called, and the only girl amongst us, our female medic, Michelle. It is pretty basic but we have tried to make it home. We work, cook, eat and sleep in one huge room which is a bit like a mechanics depot. We sleep on camp beds under mosquito net pods (malaria is prevalent here).

We do have a really big yard inside the base walls which is great because we can play football and cricket all together.

The Afghan soldiers are really good at both.

We have all become good friends.

When we go on patrol we are lucky enough to have with us the guy who has found the most improvised explosive devices Helmand-wide. He’s called Ajab. He was featured in the papers back home. He has been in Helmand for nearly three years and is our resident expert. It makes us feel pretty confident when we go out with him.

I learned Dari before I came and I can now chat with the Afghan soldiers. I am learning more and more all the time. We go for tea every evening and I try to understand all their stories.

They do have a really good sense of humour, especially for men who have been fighting for so long.

I will have to go home early from this tour in time to go to Sandhurst. I know already I am not going to want to leave. This place gets under your skin.

Round Two in Afghanistan

2010-05-03T13:43:00.000+04:30

Corporal Caroline Storm, from 34 Field Hospital (34 Fd Hosp), has returned to work in Bastion and explains her role on Operation HERRICK 12.

Hello. Let me introduce myself formally as Corporal Caroline Storm. Everyone knows me as Storm or Stormy (like the weather). I’m here in Afghanistan for round two, as I deployed here back in 2006 on Operation HERRICK 4. Things have altered significantly since then!

The Role 3 Hospital has been transformed from a tented camp to a fully-functioning medical treatment facility, providing assessment, stabilisation and aeromedical evacuation back to the UK.

As a registered nurse in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps I am very proud to contribute to this multinational mission in support of the Afghan government and the people in order to facilitate a stable and peaceful country.

Back in the UK I am part of 3 Medical Regiment, where we are tasked to provide medical support to military exercises and on deployed operations. I am currently working in the Emergency Department (ED) in the Bastion Hospital and it is certainly a dynamic and rewarding working environment. We see everything from minor ailments to major combat trauma. It is truly unique, and with our US Navy contingent we operate like a well-oiled machine and are so proud to be part of it.

Do read my blog in the coming weeks to see what happens during my time in Afghanistan.

Heat and dust: First impressions of Afghanistan

2010-05-02T13:16:00.000+04:30

Captain Jeremy Hahn, an Armoured Vehicle Commander with the Royal Dragoon Guards, is based in Kandahar for Operation HERRICK 12.

County Durham, Oxfordshire, the Gulf Region, Helmand and finally Kandahar constituted my rather circuitous route to what is to be my home for the best part of the next seven months. (I know, I know, carbon footprint and all that! But I simply had far too much luggage to cycle with.) And so, having feigned sleep in order to avoid the airline meals, I arrived in Afghanistan as hungry as an Ox, but far too excited to be able to eat, and tired, but my head too full to sleep.

The first few days have passed in a whirlwind of disorientation; new faces, names (most of which instantly were forgotten) and heat. The pre-tour training in North Yorkshire, Norfolk, Wales and Wiltshire, whilst very good in most respects, has not attuned my sweat-glands to the continuous hard graft they are going to have to put in over the upcoming weeks. The mercury is bouncing around in the mid-thirties and whilst a touch too warm for some tastes, it is at least bearable and should help me acclimatise before the summer sun sets in and I have to carry out my work in the ‘high forties’.

Before entering a country for the first time one’s pre-conceptions are constructed from a disparate cocktail of the opinions and stories of others, any media coverage and one’s own experience in similar climes. And so for me (in my head at least) I have been using my experiences of Iraq as a benchmark for misconceptions and erroneous judgements. There are some similarities. It is hot, there is a lot of sand knocking around, and the country is littered with all manner of unexploded ordnance. Whereas Iraq had itself and the Iranians to thank for the proliferation of legacy explosives, Afghanistan can doff its cap to Russia for its sub-surface treasure-trove. Some eagle-eyed historian will no-doubt be able to credit other factors to the above statement. I, however, am in no way a historian.

A view across the city of Kandahar

The differences I have noticed so far have been both subtle and geographically obvious. I have a pleasant mountain view of the north of the province and some flora, thanks to the river Tarnak. Irrigation here would appear to be much more difficult as the volume of water does not compare favourably to that of the Euphrates and the Tigris. Iraq had huge wealth poorly distributed, and my guess at first sight of Afghanistan is that it has huge poverty well distributed.

Over the coming months I hope to be able to elaborate on the culture, society and the nuances of serving here. For starters though one of the first happenstances to grab my attention is the use of nail varnish by some of the younger men. This does not occur in the ‘action-transvestite’ Eddie Izzard sense, or indeed the Soho drag queen tableaux, but is merely an adornment of the hands, possibly to impress others or possibly as a part of taking pride in their own appearance. The male ‘friendships’ are much more public than in other Arab Nations I have visited. There is a touch of the courtesan here.

Kandahar is Afghanistan’s second city and is a bustling, if small by European standards, low rise connurbation, almost all of which nestles at two storeys or lower. It has a similar feel to the outskirts of somewhere like Gwalior or any other town in Muhdra–Pradesh. The roads are flanked by fruit-sellers (a lot of which would not make it onto the shelves of our national supermarkets – the bananas being a touch too umber for the English palette), bicycle and tyre vendors, road-side food stops and gaily coloured general stores. One competes for space on the tarmac with a veritable assortment of ‘jingly trucks’, livestock, tuk-tuks, battered cars and that perennial favourite, the Toyota Hi-Lux. Anyone who has driven around L’Etoile in Paris, or attempted to navigate their automobile through Athens on a busy market day will have a good grasp of the level of road etiquette, and the level of application of a clearly defined highway code, assuming such a thing exists at all.

Out in my vehicle on patrol

Many of the locals smile and wave as we pass in our armoured vehicles, but it would be an untruth to suggest that all do. This dichotomy of reaction from the population is perhaps no different to the one I garner when travelling around Yorkshire, and is probably three-quarters more genial than the general public in London. I suppose the key is how superficial this amicability is?

Animal life will be a running theme over the next few months, and so I’ll kick off with a couple of ignorant generalisations. The livestock I have encountered are about half as big as those on England’s lush pastures. That is to say the cattle, sheep, donkeys and horses look roughly the same shape as they do in the green and pleasant land, but it just looks like they are standing further away. Most could fit comfortably into the size ‘S’ bracket and the goats would have no problem squeezing into kid’s clothing.

To address this balance, the Creator has compensated by making the average insect unfeasibly large. The ants are gargantuan, and had Queen Cleopatra known of their existence, she could have enlisted the help of a good half-dozen or so to carry her and her throne to Rome for her rendez-vous with old Julius, and given the rest of Egypt a well-earned day off. You would struggle to squeeze more than three of the native bumble-bees into an Airbus without a liberal helping of goose fat, and the moths have a wingspan comparable to that of Brighton’s seagulls. If any enthusiastic naturalist has the misfortune to read this, an explanation for this phenomenon would be greatly appreciated.

Hard, sad, emotional and expensive times in Afghanistan

2010-04-29T13:36:00.000+04:30

Lance Corporal James Atkin of 21 Engineer Regiment (21 ER) steps up to compile his Troop blog.

First of all I would like to thank the good men of 3 Troop for volunteering me to write this blog! I had never even heard of a blog until today. Bear with me and I will try to keep this interesting. Can I also just say what every soldier wants to say in things like this: ‘HI MUM!’

Now let’s get started. I am a Lance Corporal in the Royal Engineers serving out in Afghanistan. I used to be a Plant Operator Mechanic but upon my posting to Ripon last year, like everyone else in the squadron, our jobs soon changed drastically. A vigorous training program commenced about a year prior to our deployment. Although fun at first, the lads were soon bored with training and couldn’t wait to get out here and put their newly acquired skills into action on a real playing field. My job for this tour of duty was to be a Searcher. I was duly trained and my new skills were honed and confirmed on a six week exercise overseas in November.

Now my whole life revolves around searching, constantly training, keeping my eye on the ball. I have been out on the ground only once thus far but there are plenty more missions planned to keep things exciting for us. Searchers work in small teams, like a close family unit. We know everything about our team mates and I mean everything! So it’s fun being a part of this. Within 3 Troop there are lots of shiny new bits of kit such as huge vehicles, weapons and brand spanking new gadgets to help out the searchers. It is a tough job with all this heat and carrying the necessary weight, but there is a great sense of job satisfaction, I love it.

I am due some rest and relaxation for a couple of weeks in the not too distant future. I’ve planned to fly to Canada and surprise my wife Ariel in the rocky mountains. Now, don’t tell her, okay?

Things out here on Operation HERRICK 12 have worked out alright for my Squadron so far. There is a lot of training for missions, and now that we have settled in and everyone has fallen into line the bosses are starting to give us some slack. There have been hard, sad, emotional and expensive times. Most recently there were two strong characters from the Regiment taken away from us, so the whole Regiment was stood to attention at the military repatriation service the other night saying their goodbyes.

On a lighter note, there has been a lot of mail posted out to the men in 3 Troop. If you were not aware, ten letters or five parcels in a single day is a ‘crate-able’ offence. Which means you have to buy all the others guys a drink. So there are always fizzy drinks being dished out by my team commander Corporal ’Pogo’ McKernan as well as some of the other guys. If you never hear from me again it’s because I was sacked from writing a blog. If not, I will start writing more about what I am doing out here, how the men of 3 Troop are holding up and how the tour is going. If there is anything that you would like to know don’t hesitate to ask. Until next time, take care.

Sargeant Stewart McCrone, Quick Reaction Force Commander, 16 Signals Unit at Camp Souter, Kabul.

2010-04-28T14:33:00.008+04:30

The QRF was tasked to undertake an exploitation patrol in urban Kabul, close to the airport. The terrain may be different from Helmand but the risks are just as great….

It’s hot at 2pm with the temperature constantly rising, and the patrol, a recce for new routes for emergency vehicles, always turns into something else. As well as dominating the ground there’s always scope for snap Vehicle Check Points and always at the back of your mind amongst the complex compounds is the hearts and minds of the locals.

The patrol started well, though lumbered with the General Purpose Machine Gun and excess support equipment for patrol, the next few hours were going to be tiresome. As we entered the compounds we were bombarded by children – a good atmospheric sign that nothing had been pre-planned from insurgents on our route, though nothing is ever certain.

Maintaining our relationship with the locals can be a challenge at times and this was no different. With the mission in hand, the locals can be overwhelming and large crowds were on us in minutes.

Allowing search dogs to complete their tasks can be tricky as most Afghans do not like dogs, especially in the vehicles. However, with sound control and good interpreter things often run smoothly.

The patrol lasted a couple of hours and water was the first thing in mind. It’s quite difficult to win the hearts and minds and hold good relations when the local populus needs water and all they see is soldiers with it; so to that end we limit the time that we take on water and keep it well out of sight from the locals, so not to cause further disruption to the task.

Patrol all in, water on board, just waiting for the next set of orders………

Picture credit: Squadron Leader Dee Taylor

Training the Afghan National Army in basic medical drills

2010-04-26T13:51:00.000+04:30

Lance Corporal John Zoumides on patrol in Sangin's "Green Zone"

Lance Corporal John Zoumides, a medic with 1st Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland (1 SCOTS) at a patrol base in Sangin, writes about teaching medical skills to soldiers of the Afghan National Army.

This week we went out on a lot of patrols in the so-called “Green Zone” in Sangin, where we are based, for lots of different missions. It is very green up here, with lots of crops growing and irrigation channels everywhere.

Lance Corporal John Zoumides

We spend a lot of time walking in the water which always makes me worry for the guys’ feet. I don’t want them to develop trenchfoot. We make sure we dry everything thoroughly after every patrol. It helps that it is so hot.

Because I am the team medic I have to be ready for any eventuality and I carry about 25kg of medical equipment and supplies in my rucksack. I also carry one of the ladders we use to get up and over compound walls because a lot of my guys have packs far heavier than mine. It can get really hot so it is far better if we patrol in the early morning or evenings.

Lance Corporal John Zoumides on an Army quad bike

People ask me if it worries me, dealing with injured people, especially when it is your friends. But you really do go into work mode and nothing matters except getting everyone to safety and looking after anyone who has been hurt. It helps that this isn’t my first tour. I have already done two tours of Iraq and I have been in Afghanistan before. So you do get a bit inured to it all. And on most patrols my medical skills are not required at all.

One day a week I train the Afghan National Army (ANA) Officers who share our base in medical skills. I teach them how to control arterial bleeding and the importance of checking airways if someone is hurt. They always listen very carefully. I don’t think anyone taught them this stuff before.

A small flock of sheep and a local Afghan girl

I also look after their health if they are ill. They know to come and seek me out if they need something. Usually it is just cuts and bruises. But if it was something else I would treat them. We work as a team and we share the resources.

Because our base is close to the 611 we see a lot of the locals, which I really like. The children are so beautiful. Most of the locals are friendly. Sometimes we have to stop them and talk to them and they are always polite.

Frontline blog: tears and tributes to a 'good guy'

2010-04-06T16:21:00.008+04:30

In his final blog from the front line, Trooper Pete Sheppard writes for Channel 4 News on how the anticipation of returning home is shattered by the death of a fellow soldier just days before he was due to leave Afghanistan.

Trooper Pete Sheppard is a radio operator with the Brigade Reconnaissance Force (BRF), which is part of Operation Moshtarak against insurgents in Helmand Province.

They say a watched kettle never boils. You could also say that time never moves slower than when you are in Camp Bastion just waiting to go home.

The BRF came back into Bastion on 26 March having completed their final op. I wish I could say there was a real end of term atmosphere, that there were big smiles all round. Instead, there was just the awful realisation that whether you are on your first day, or your last – the last day as it turns out – your luck can still run out.

We were in the area north of Five Ways Junction, a major meeting of roads that lead to Marjah, Lashkar Gar and places like that.

We had sent a recce party forward to liaise with the Americans because we were passing through their area. We pushed through and set ourselves up in a leaguer – long lines of vehicles – in the middle of open ground but surrounded by poppy fields and mud compounds.

The next day was spent pushing out patrols and clearing compounds. Nothing much happened that day and when the patrols returned we got the orders from higher to return to Bastion. We were to take part in a 36 hour op. in the Sangin area, leaving 25 March.

Everyone was chuffed about that – returning to Bastion is a chance to shower, wash clothes and eat hot, fresh food.

So we started to move back into Bastion on the night of 22 March. We drove to the Household Cavalry Regiment check point and waited for last light. We took a very long route back – you can't afford to set patterns out here.

As we were coming through Gereshk, right in the centre, we got small arms fire. It's the first time we've come under contact in Gereshk, that I know of.

It was pitch black. We have kit allowing us to drive at night, but its tiring using it for a long time. We crossed the bridge and there were rounds flinging right in front of us, literally 2m in front of my face. You could see the individual tracer winging past.

We swore a bit but just kept pushing on, foot down. None of us fired back, it was just too risky in case we hit an innocent civilian.

As we were coming out of Gereshk on Highway 1 we saw lots of fire and illumination shells in the distance. Apparently one of the Afghan National Police checkpoints was getting contacted, so we stopped there, waited half an hour or so to try and suss out what was happening and then carried on to Bastion.

We had been out of Bastion for several weeks by this point and everyone just wanted to get back in, shower and eat. People had headaches from the long hard drive.

They've put a new gate in with increased security and everyone was getting more and more pissed off as the guards insisted on checking every one of our vehicles and all the individuals inside. We were clearly British, wearing British uniform and driving British vehicles. Our sense of humour evaporated at this point.
Once we were in, we locked our weapons away and just about the whole squadron headed for Pizza Hut and from there straight to bed.

The 23rd and 24th was spent in camp sorting out personal kit and prepping for the op. I was told that I was to stay behind to do the handover of signals kit. A few others were staying behind also.

The rest of the squadron left early on the 25th. They landed in the dark by helicopter in Sangin. The guys were operating within an area that we call an Ops Box - basically an area on the map which people know we are operating in - going through compounds, clearing the area.

There was a really high IED [improvised explosive device] threat up there, so the squadron picked a really difficult route through irrigated fields and not going along main tracks where you are pretty much guaranteed you will find IEDs.

There was a lot of Taliban chatter on the radios with stuff like: "change the battery packs, they are coming" and all that general sort of stuff. So the lads were really wary about this, and so was the boss.

The guys on the ground were telling me when they got back that they were counting down the hours saying: "I've got sixteen hours left until end of tour." Then night time came.

They heard over ICOM [radio set] that the Taliban were watching them from where they were, so they moved compounds that night. The Taliban woke up in the morning to find them gone.

The Fire Support Group were getting contacted with rounds going over their heads, RPGs landing around them, about 100 metres away, so quite close.

Around midday on 26th they were told they were coming back that evening. End of Tour. That would be it.

As they were patrolling, a grenade was thrown over the wall by a Taliban. 'Woody' - Lance Corporal of Horse Jo Woodgate - took the brunt of the blast.

One of the other lads,'Reggie' took a bit of shrapnel as well.

When it happened, myself and Dave Dailey, the three bar, were up at Bastion Quarter-Masters' Stores trying to sort out some sigs kit for the handover.

We heard Op Minimise come over the loud speakers – Op. Minimise is when a Category A casualty is taken. I turned to Dave and said: "I hope it's not one of our guys".

He said: "don't worry, it won't be".

We got back and they told us that two of our guys had been hit. They said it was Woody and one other. At least one was Cat A. Cat A means critically injured and many guys are Cat A, but come through, so it wasn't over. I went for a cigarette and the Padre joined me.

I saw the Padre get called over by the QM [Quartermaster] – he was smoking as well. I knew something wasn't right because he had quit.

We got back into the vehicle and headed back to the compound. As we pulled in, one of the troop sergeants said: "don't get out of the truck, get back in". He told us that Woody was dead.

We went straight up to the hospital to get some more information. We found out that Reggie was stable, that he was in theatre, but that he was going to be ok.

It was all a big shock, there were some tears and the rest of it. It wasn't good at all.

He was a really liked guy and everyone said it, but it was genuinely true. He was a really good guy. Really keen. He loved doing his job.

The guys on the ground didn't find out he was dead until they came back in off the ground that same night. Everyone was in shock, we all felt numb, exhausted and gutted.

The following day we had a service led by the Fijians, similar to the one for Foxy. There were readings, the OC read a poem and then the Fijians sang a hymn.

It was emotional, the song was so beautiful. The harmony of them singing; big tough Fijians but really beautiful voices.

I could feel my eyes starting to water. The Corporal Major said to us all: "if you want to cry, you can, we are in our compound. He's a good friend, just let it go if you want to", and some of the guys did.

It just shows he was a really good lad and he will be missed. After that we returned to work.

We had the vigil and the repatriation ceremony. At around half twelve, we were all lined up on the flight line and as Woody got carried on to the Herc., it was incredibly emotional as well, because you see the coffin going past and you know that he’s actually lying in that coffin. It's a weird feeling.

For the last few days we've just been handing over kit. Things like that, getting everything sorted; making sure the compound is clean, accounting for everything. Just getting rid of everything on our flicks and making sure the new guys coming in know what they are doing.

Yesterday we got called together. It was almost a day off – or as near as you'll get to one out here. And the OC said: "Foxy's funeral is happening right now." He said a few words about him, about his family. And we had another minute silence.

In the afternoon we played troop volley ball. One of the guys came out wearing just a pair of red boxers, nothing else, with sides rolled up. He looked like a porn star prancing about on the volley ball court. We had music going, it was a good atmosphere.

Other than that, guys are getting back into the routine of doing phys, going to the gym.

Today we were getting squared away for the medals parade that is happening in a couple of weeks' time.

Our OC wants the medals parade to be informal rather than marching about. I think he's done that because Benny - Guardsman 'Benny' Bennett – lost a leg a month or so back and this way he can be a part of it. It's a really good idea, really thoughtful.

A lot of people have made plans for what they'll do when they get back. They talk about it a lot. Everyone is talking about how this time is just dragging so much.

When everyone came in from the final op, you would have thought everyone would be happy, but the fact that Woody died, everyone was devastated. Everyone was thinking this was the last op. Why is someone dying on the last day before we become non-operational? Everyone was really cut up about that.

But it boils down to, we have a job to do and as bad as it may sound, Woody died doing the job he loved doing and he will never be forgotten.

It's been a difficult tour. We have had three people killed in action and many more who have been injured, including one, Barni, who managed to finish a patrol on foot despite having a broken an ankle, which is pretty amazing. At least twice, people have had binoculars shot from their hands.

But we've got a lot to be proud of. We have achieved so much in just six months. The boundaries have been pushed.

The Colonel of the Household Cavalry Regiment spoke to us the other day. He told us that we had set the standard for all other BRFs to follow. That we had reset the boundaries of what can be achieved. This is what LD, Foxy and Woody will be remembered for.

This is what we joined to do and what we get paid for. And we're doing it for the right reasons. Large parts of Afghanistan are safer now because of what we have done.

People can move about. They can go to the market. They can send their children to school. Some people back home are uncomfortable that people like us actually enjoy what we do.

As long as we do it for reasons like that, then we can't go far wrong.

47 Air Dispatch (AD), Lance Corporal Katie Guntrip

2010-03-31T20:33:00.002+04:30

I am TA soldier on my first operational tour, currently deployed on a three month detachment with 47 Air Dispatch (AD) based in Kandahar. We are a crew of six Air Despatchers with seven local employees assigned to work with us.

The Air Despatch role is used to supply vital stores, equipment, rations and water to ground troops who may be unable to be re-supplied by road or who require an urgent re-supply. The day to day job involves rigging the equipment, aircraft loading and flying on the air drop sorties. There are also other tasks that are completed such as vehicle and store management which are crucial to support our work. We work very closely with the RAF C130 Hercules crews and together we re-supply any military unit or service on the ground.

The tour so far has been a relatively busy one. On top of our normal workload we were required to support Op Moshtarak by preparing 110 containers ready for airdrop over a 10 day period, working around 14-16hrs a day. The crew was on 24 hour standby over the course of the Op if required.

Our role in the operation was to allow the ground troops to maintain momentum by re-supplying with rations, fuel, water and ammunition. This was a large amount of work to be completed to support multi-national forces from France, Estonia, Afghanistan as well as British ground troops. Our hard work didn’t go unnoticed as the Det later received an Air Commodore’s Commendation for our efforts on the Op.

Our regular taskings have also meant us air dropping to Forward Operating Base and Patrol Bases. I have flown on one sortie which was a really good experience, very different from the training sorties that I fly at weekends, mainly because we fly at night observing through the doors wearing night vision goggles, body armour and with our weapons.

On a personal note I have found my time here very rewarding and feel that as a crew we have worked well and proven to a large audience that we can react quickly and achieve a great deal in a short space of time- even if that meant a 24hr working day which has happened on more than one occasion on our tour!

It is a big contrast to my normal civilian desk job but will look back on my time here with a sense of achievement and pleased that we had the opportunity to be involved in the Op, proving that our role although relatively small, can be a key part of re-supply missions.

Lieutenant Mark Lewis,10 Platoon Commander, D Company, 1 Royal Welsh

2010-03-29T10:48:00.010+04:30

I am a platoon commander for D company and am currently based with company headquarters in a compound in Loy Aderha. We have been there since the start of Operation Moshtarak.

Our first two weeks here consisted of meeting and greeting the locals we met on patrols and explaining that we are in the area in order to provide enduring security as part of combined force operations. With us in Loy Adehra we have 1 Company from 1/3/201 Kandak of the Afghan National Army (ANA) with their French mentors and 50 Afghan National Police (ANP).

We also held shuras at our compound led by the ANA. This work paid off with people gaining the confidence to tend their fields and attend at the twice weekly bazaar; we had over 1,000 people turn up at the last bazaar.

However, during this last week insurgent activity has started to pick up. Firstly we had a failed IED strike on one of the main routes through the village. Shortly after this we conducted patrols around the area and discovered an IED in one of the fields near our compound.

We followed this up with a compound search and discovered IED component parts that matched that of the device. From this we, along with the ANA, were then able to detain one of the insurgents and further questioning and tests confirmed he had been handling explosives. During questioning I was able to ascertain that he was involved with the IEDs and we were able to send him back to Bastion to be questioned further.

Yesterday, we were on a routine patrol through a local village and my vehicle was involved in an IED strike. A pressure pad IED with approximately 50 kg of explosive lifted the Mastiff across the narrow street. The Mastiff did what it was designed to do and took the brunt of the explosion.

I was top cover at the time and blown out of the turret but stopped from landing in the nearby field by the cam net. Once the dust settled I could hear the lads in the cabin moaning and yelling. I dropped down fearing the worst, not knowing what I would see next. Thankfully both lads were ok, with only minor back and leg injuries. The next day we were straight back out on another patrol.

To break the monotony of rations, once a week we have fried sausages and homemade chips from potatoes bought in the bazaar.

We also take pictures of our latest recruit, a frog, as he goes through his training.

Non Kinetic Effects Team - Colour Sergeant Johns

2010-03-28T21:05:00.007+04:30

I am part of the D Company Non Kinetic Effects Team, 1 Royal Welsh. I am attached to D company and have been based with their HQ element since Operation Moshtarak started in the western Babaji area.

During Operation Moshtarak I have been working alongside WO2 Anthony MacGann who is a member of the Military Stabilisation and Support Team (MSST). Our roles vary from providing support to the local population and aiding with reconstruction to dealing with Psychological Operations (Psy Ops) which makes use of the sound commander (a form of loud speaker).

On the ground I may use the sound commander to let the local population know of upcoming shuras, to encourage people to meet their District Community Council representative, to let them know we can provide emergency medical treatment and to advertise for skilled workers in order to employ them in local reconstruction and development projects.

On a day-to-day basis we deal with walk-ins which vary from people asking for compensation for damaged property to requests for emergency medical assistance. The most common medical complaint we see is scalding for children and infections from cuts for adults. We also had one child who came in who had been shot in the shoulder some weeks back (prior to the troops’ arrival to the area). We checked the wound and the doctor gave him exercises to do to strengthen it and prevent the muscles from withering away.

My basic Pashtu is developing. Prior to deployment I took part in a five day course designed to enable us to be able to issue orders to locals when on Vehicle Check Points and conducting searches. Since arriving in Nad-e Ali I have used greetings and developed my general conversational skills with the children.

I work with the MSST in organising shuras which are then run by the ANA. We have bought carpets, glasses and tea pots for the chai in order to be able to host the locals properly. Before each shura we buy fresh chai and cakes. These are all bought from the local bazaar. If people are staying for lunch then we will serve fat-tailed sheep; a delicacy that is named from the local sheep which have fatty bottoms!

The fat is fried and is a bit like crackling. It is cooked, along with the meat, with potatoes and red onions by the ANA and served with rice. It is not heavily spiced, is quite greasy but tastes good and is always a treat to eat fresh food. The largest shura organised at this location so far has been for over 80 people.

The local bazaar has increased in trade due to the improved security in the area and because it is serving the newly arrived ANA and ANP in the area. We visit the bazaar too; every Friday we buy potatoes which we then use to cook chips. This is the first time I have worked as a member of the Non Kinetics Effects Team. Though it can take time for the positive effects of our work to show it is a highly rewarding job.

Colour Sergeant Damo Hudson, Forward Air Controller (FAC), D Company, 1 Royal Welsh

2010-03-24T19:55:00.001+04:30

I have been the FAC for D company, 1 Royal Welsh since the start of their tour. My role is to advise the company commander on the assets available for Close Air Support (CAS). I also direct Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) assets to where he requires them and interpret the images that are relayed back to me via the downlink. In addition, I guide the helicopters in to helicopter landing sites (HLSs) when the company is being resupplied or we have people leaving or joining us.

This morning I woke up and checked what air (ISTAR or CAS assets) I had been allocated. The company commander then gave me my tasks for the day. Today, I am looking for signs or movement that would indicate IED placements on one of the roads going into the village. So I settled at my desk in the ops room, hoping for a quiet day.

My job is mostly reactive so a quiet day is a good day. The ops room has been set up in one of the rooms in the compound we are operating from and currently houses the HQ elements of 1 Royal Welsh and number 1 Company of 1/3/201 Kandak and their French mentors.

A couple of hours into the start of the day there was an almighty explosion; one of our Mastiffs had been hit whilst going out to pick up some engineers from a Check Point (CP).

Thus my quiet day turned busy. I radioed back to our headquarter element in Camp Bastion for an ISTAR asset and I was given a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to provide over-watch of the area. I was able to use this to provide protection to our lads who were dealing with the incident outside the compound.

After the area was checked for further IEDs, I tracked the recovery of the vehicle back to our compound. Again, my role was to provide over-watch in order to protect our guys during the process. I also used the UAV to scan the rest of the route for signs of further IEDs.

Finally, I used the UAV to provide security for a funeral procession that passed along the route later that day which the ANA and ANP attended. We had a fear that the IED attack might be followed up by small arms fire, or worse, and so we kept the UAV on task to ensure that the funeral could take place in relative safety.

As the day ended, I had a short rest before putting in requests for assets required over the next few days and starting my night shift of maintaining over-watch over the areas requested by the commanding officer.

In order to do this job I have been attached to 1 Royal Horse Artillery who are based in Tidworth. I will hold the post of FAC for two years before returning to the Royal Welsh. This job is very different to what I have done before and I have enjoyed it.

Corporal Dave Morrison, Information Co-ordinator, Royal Air Force Police

2010-03-21T22:55:00.006+04:30

I am asked from time to time to attend local events in villages around Camp Bastion to help out with security and find out what concerns the locals may have. We have got a large event on, with a good crowd gathered to visit a medical clinic. I have to get to work straight away because some of the locals have arrived early.

It’s a really good sign that so many people have showed up even before the security forces from the Afghan National Army and ISAF have pitched up; guess the radio works for local Afghan stations as well as BFBS does for us. Anyway it’s a case of setting up our cam netting and making a shady area to chat to locals in. Who wants to be talking outside in 33 degree if it can be helped?

Since my Pashtun is pretty poor to say the least, I have Mohammad Ali the interpreter to help translate my conversations. Well he says his name is Mohammad Ali….. I enjoy the challenge of adapting my rapport as some people just want to be business like when we talk, whilst others like to sit down and chat and just a few like to jump up and down!

I meet with a variety of local Afghan men with ages ranging from 16 to 60, probably seeing nearly forty. Most are local farmers who by and large are tending wheat crops. They nearly all are saying that the wheat price is pretty good at the moment and seem upbeat on prices they are getting. But like most farmers, they could probably do with a bit more.

There are couple of people whose jobs are more to do with looking after farm machinery and general maintenance. I asked these guys how they are finding using the solar powered water purifier that was installed about a month ago. They said that it was a bit strange at first and people were quite suspicious of it. But, now they have got used to it and it helps a lot. Most of the local villagers are still a little unsure exactly how it runs but at least there are a couple of people now who are getting confident with the day to day running of the kit.

Corporal Simon Smith, D Company, 1 Royal Welsh

2010-03-14T22:06:00.004+04:30

I am a multiple commander with 10 platoon, D company. My working pattern currently finds me located in the main company Patrol Base (PB) doing two days guard followed by two days patrolling.

Corporal Simon Smith briefing his patrol before heading out.

Our patrols have ranged from a company sized operation of 70 Afghan National Army plus 40 ISAF soldiers to multiple sized patrols (a multiple is 12) for security.

For the first 14 days I had a platoon that was composed of 15 ISAF and 15 ANA living in a single, small compound. This was a huge learning experience as we were two different cultures in a very small compound and there was just the one interpreter enabling us to talk to each other. We used that compound to mount joint patrols in the area.

Whilst on patrol we look to reassure the locals that we are here to provide security. We seek out projects that will improve the area and yesterday we took books to a mosque that teaches 100 children. Today we will focus on route clearance.

The illegal checkpoint with the white Taliban flag

When we first conducted a route clearance we tackled an area that was a cross roads where the Taliban were running an illegal checkpoint. It had Taleban flags flying from a tree.

There was even a sign that read: To all Muslim people in our country the Taleban are laying bombs in this area at night, stay away from this area. We cleared the route then the ANA changed the flag to an Afghan flag, watched by the people in the local area. It was a good start to Operation Moshtarak.

Last night 11 Platoon found an IED. This morning we went out and they handed over the task of over-watch of the area to us and we checked a nearby compound. The more we searched the compound, the more IED component parts we found, from battery packs to explosives.

We had kept an eye on the man who owned the compound whilst this was going on and, once we’d finished searching, the ANA that we were working with went and arrested him. Further tests confirmed that he had been handling explosives. Today has been a good day for us, as it means less IEDs are available to the insurgents.

The Afghan flag up which was a good start to Operation Moshtarak

I am particularly proud of my multiple as it is newly formed; not one of my soldiers has been in the Army longer than a year. They have all stepped up to the mark and remained professional throughout. We have managed to gather a lot of intelligence through speaking to locals and working closely with the ANA and ANP. I think this is in part due to our having done so much Pre Deployment Training before coming out to Helmand.

Whatever the reason, their professionalism and positive attitude has enabled us to have successful days like today.

Corporal ‘AD’ Adrian Dixon, 28 Section Engineering Support Group

2010-03-11T10:29:00.004+04:30

It’s a bit like being Nick Knowles from DIY SOS. But instead of sorting out a delipidated bathroom in 24 hours we have to make an all singing, all dancing Patrol Base here in Showal, Nad-e-Ali in less than 3 weeks. This is not an easy task when you have to put in a check point first to protect the area. So you have to turn infantryman to make sure there is no IED threat, put your builders on sentry duty and then put in the basics of any checkpoint – sangars, firing points, chicanes and search bays.

Now the patrol base we are building required a Medium Girder Bridge to bridge the gap over a small irrigation channel. It was about a 5-6 metre gap and without the bridge no building supplies or stores could be brought in by the 60 vehicle Combat Logistics Patrol. It also had to be sturdy enough to take some significant weight from containerised lorries. We started building it at 0530 and it took us a day to complete.

We are on a tight timescale of no longer than 3 weeks to make a complete Patrol Base that will house Afghan soldiers and coalition troops. We are working in partnership with ANA engineers but it is a challenge as site foreman to relay building instructions in Pashtun! I find hand gestures work much better – oh and use of an interpreter. We are working 18-20 hour shifts until the base is built, with only 6 hours off to rest for each person.

We did have some dramas when our plant broke which fills aggregate into the hesco security bins. However, we reverted to type 1 spade and filled the bins in by hand. The only thing then that stopped the plan was a sandstorm that raged on for 7 hours. However, we are on schedule and I’m very proud of what our lads have achieved.

Picture credit: Squadron Leader Dee Taylor

Corporal Steph Hodgson, Emergency Ward Nurse at Camp Bastion Field Hospitall

2010-03-03T22:58:00.005+04:30

Nightshift 2 – 3 Mar 10

Whist writing this blog there is pandemonium going on behind me, banging, raised voices, some in anger…… no, there isn’t a mass tauma situation going on, its Team Alpha playing cards on a nightshift! Thankfully nights are usually calm (you never actually say ‘Quiet’ as that only means trouble!!) My name is Corporal Steph Hodgson and I am a nurse working in the Emergency Department of Camp Bastion. My day job is working the NHS as a Sister in trauma plastics back in blighty, but as I am in the Territorial Army (TA), I have been deployed to Afghanistan. This is my second tour. Now I have been asked to blog a week of my life in Afghan, and as I have never blogged a week in my life anywhere, this is going to be…. interesting for me! But looking on the Brightside I am a woman, so I can talk for ever.

I have been attached to 205 (Scottish) Field Hospital and, as I am English, I thought that I may need an interpreter to understand the Scots, let alone the Afghans, but they are a professionals and kind bunch and ignore my poor attempts at a Scottish accent. I am working with a mixed bunch of regular and TA soldiers, and a first for me; I am working with the Americans! This is a Joint Forces and Multi National run hospital, so we work closely together to provide the best care for our men and women of all nationalities. The accent isn’t so much of a problem this time but some of the terminology can be a little ….. confusing, such as ‘fanny bag’, that’s bum bag to us, and to be honest the rest is unprintable. Oh and someone must have mentioned the Q word as we’ve just been given notice that we have two ‘Cat A’s coming in by helicopter, (now I’m going to bore you with the actual work bit). The estimated time of arrival (ETA) is 0130hrs. We have a priority system that all incoming patients are given on the seriousness of their injuries. This is called a ‘nine liner’. Cat A is life threatening and needs immediate treatment, Cat B is injured or ill but stable and Cat C is what we call ‘walking wounded’.

We are expecting a Gun shot wound (GSW) to the abdomen, and GSW to the left leg. The trauma team has been alerted, which includes an anaesthetist, specialist surgeons, Doctors and of course us nurses and medics. I just need to go and help my mates set up the bays ready to receive the patients and then I will come back after we have cared for the causalities.

Right it’s now 0323hrs and we’ve spent the last hour and a half dealing with both the Cat A’s and a Cat B…. they’re like buses, none for hours then three come all at once!!! They all are quite stable now and tucked up in bed, as they’re not as seriously injured as first thought. This often happens, the nine liner does not always match the patients actual trauma, hence why we’ve renamed it the nine liar!!! Your never know exactly what’s coming through the door! That’s what makes this job so challenging

0500hrs trauma call, another Cat A……..

Picture Credit: Captain Jon Ward, Adjt Camp Bastion Field Hospital

Lance Corporal Jeevan Rai, Queens Own Gurkha Logisitics Regiment

2010-03-01T09:50:00.004+04:30

It was 0400 and there were people everywhere preparing vehicles and checking routes. Whilst noisy and busy, each vehicle knew exactly where it fitted into the convoy to resupply A Company, 1 Royal Welsh at Showal. We were not only taking re-supplies but bringing in building equipment to build a new Patrol Base at Showal.

This was no mean feat as there were 59 vehicles and 188 people involved in the move, known as Op Clay 5. We were one of the vehicles at the front of the convoy and were there to provide Force Protection. I was in charge of Whiskey 3, a mastiff with Counter-IED rollers, a formidable beast of a vehicle. My team and I have lots of experience of clearing routes and making convoys safe. It makes me really proud to be able to do this and it also feels quite a big responsibility knowing that other people’s safety is in my hands.

Breakfast had been at some crazy time (about 0200) so we cracked open our plastic pot of noodles that we shared around after about 1 hour on the road. Bit spicy but just the way we like it.

The journey to Showal was 3.5 hours long and after about 2 hours my driver shouted “Stop!” The vehicle in front of us had spotted an IED. My team got out the mastiff to assess the danger and the decision was made to divert the convoy on another route. Its our business to create by-pass routes and provide that safe passage. Was I nervous? Well actually not. Though it sounds big headed, I don’t get nervous easily but I am cautious and careful.

And so was the convoy which reached Showal on time. We were greeted by the engineers who were in a hurry to see us and in a bigger hurry to build the patrol base.

Pictures: Sqn Ldr Dee Taylor, RAF

WO2 Greg Reece RA – Military Stabilisation and Support Team - Op Moshtarak

2010-02-27T00:47:00.004+04:30

“It will be a success if it is a total anti-climax.”

That was what we were told. In reality we planned for a big fight, platoon size, out of area fighters willing to stand their ground. All roads IED’d. Possibly IED’d helicopter landing sites.

First light on a cold morning on the outskirts of Naquilabad Kalay and the insertion had gone better than expected. No IEDs, no firing, a slightly longer walk than expected (thanks RAF!) and we were looking down the main street of the town ..... from a safe distance.

“Suppose we better go and meet the locals”, a small group of curious local Nationals were stood at the edge of town wondering what all the fuss was about.

After talking with them for a very short time we realised these weren’t the ‘out of area’ fighters we were expecting and they invited us to walk with them down high street. They really wanted to show off their town. The commander agreed and Neil (our intelligence officer) and I were leading the patrol, carried on a wave of people that slowly grew until we reached the town centre.

We were invited to hold an impromptu Shurah, for 300 locals! I remember looking at my watch. It was 1000hrs on D Day. “I’m sure we’re not supposed to be here doing this until D+10, maybe later, what are we going to do with the next 9 days?”
“Total anti-climax!”

If you were looking for a fight it most definitely was an anti climax. If, like me, you were supposed to stabilise and support the local community it was the exact opposite.

What we found in Naquilabad Kalay was a thriving (if not scared) community. Well kept trees lined the main street with hand pump wells every 20 metres. Good irrigation, healthy people, healthy animals. In fact quite an affluent society, happy to see ISAF, just needing a bit of security ‘Thank you very much!’
So, job done; everyone happy, hand your bedding in, we can all go home! Don’t know what all the fuss is about!

The truth is however, what do I do now? My job is not to rebuild lives, homes and jobs. That’s done. “A little bit of security, thank you very much!”

Maybe they could do with a leisure centre!!!

Major Mike Taylor, D Squadron 1 RTR: Manoeuvre Support Group

2010-02-25T13:58:00.004+04:30

Viking Armoured Personnel Carrier

We are back in from the first phase of Op Moshtarak and it is great to be back in camp with hot showers and fresh food.

The last few weeks have been a real experience working as part of the Manoeuvre Support Group; a combination of Viking Armoured Personnel Carriers and the heavy engineering vehicles of 28 Engineer Regiment whose job was to clear a major route into the strategic town of Showal, a settlement with a reputation for being a drug trading haven as well as the ‘seat’ of government for the Taliban.

During the pre operational training we really bonded together well. Our role was to provide the firpower and protect the slow moving column of vehicles. So we had to practise our drills together to allow the Engineers to do their job: using new equipment to plough through or explode IED belts, build bridges, fix roads, etc.

I’m a tankie by training. I’ve got D Squadron of the Royal Tank Regiment out here. We miss our Challenger tanks, but the guys love the Viking Armoured Personal Carriers and they actually enjoy being out on the ground.

On D Day (Sat 13 Feb), several hours after the helicopter assault went in, we trundled out from Camp Bastion with my Vanguard Force in front. They are a very strong, cohesive troop commanded by Lieutenant Anthony Kaulbeck who had to guide us safely around or through the areas laid with IEDs. He recced along less obvious routes to avoid classic ambush points, searching for signs of unusual human activity on the ground. I have to say that Ant has a particular talent for this. Of the 35 IEDs that the Viking Group has discovered, he has been responsible for at least half of them. Life saving stuff really.

Our most rewarding moment of the long route clearance came on Day 2 when we were observing arcs around the leaguer (that’s the place where our 44-vehicle convoy was located, Viking APCs around the outside to provide a ‘metal fort,’ with Engineering vehicles in the middle), when one of the guys on sentry, Sgt Andy Ford, picked up abnormal behaviour in a field 200 metres away.

It was three young men and an elder. What was odd was that the men were acting aggressively towards the elder, pointing and remonstrating, which is a disrespectful way to carry on in a culture that respects age. The elder went back to his compound and soon a people carrier appeared. There was a lot of activity; the women and children were bundled into the vehicle. Meanwhile the men in the field were pretending to work, bending down and sowing seeds but all the time looking up at the leaguer location.

We suspected that the men were insurgents, and their likely plan was to take over nearby family compound to use as firing position that night.

I immediately broke out a Viking Quick Reaction Force (QRF) and headed to the compound. We managed to get there and stop the family leaving. And although they said that there were no insurgents around their fear was palpable. They wanted to get out.

We talked calmly to them and searched the compound. In the meantime the three young men had run away. The local people relaxed slightly. We reassured them that ISAF and Afghan forces were moving into the area to stay. In the end we got a decent night’s sleep without the small arms attack which had been brewing. Prevention was better than a firefight in this situation.

The locals do seem to want us here, but understandably are worried about the transition period when the Taliban still have influence. I have never spoken to a local who, in private, has a good word to say about the Taliban and the influence they hold in society. Maybe they are saying it because they are talking to ISAF, but I sense that people are starting to realise we are not necessarily the bad guys in all this.

Flank Protection for the Manouevre Support Group

Over the next few days we continued to provide protection as the Royal Engineers used Trojan to plough a new main route, and Python was deployed and detonated to clear a particularly difficult point with multiple IEDs on the ground. A couple of bridges were laid to improve the route access until, finally, we drove into the town of Showal and linked up with A Company 1 Royal Welsh. They had spent the week securing the town following their helicopter insertion and were very glad to see us because the route we had just cleared was soon to be used by the logistic guys bringing in fresh food, water, equipment and vital materials to build a proper patrol base.

Maj Tim Harris, Officer Commanding A Coy 3 RIFLES

2010-02-24T00:12:00.002+04:30

Reflections on Op Ghartse Ghadmahe, Sangin, Northern Helmand

As I look out across the Sangin Green Zone from Forward Operating Base Nolay, I see green shoots. Perhaps it is too soon to describe them as the ‘green shoots of recovery’ but the seasons are changing and the wheat and poppy crops are beginning to appear; they represent a sign of hope. Most of the fields near me are wheat: the Afghan government’s wheatseed distribution last October was widely seized upon, although hopes of any altruism behind the local farmers’ choice of crop are wide of the mark.

They grow wheat because it is profitable, nothing more. The fields are busy – farming here is labour intensive and involves these hardy people stooping for hour after hour, nursing their precious crops by hand. This makes it doubly difficult for a soldier to identify who is a farmer and who might be laying an improvised explosive device. If we are not sure, we will observe them and make a note of the area so that we might treat it with caution when we next patrol there. But my men now have a good idea of what constitutes ‘farming’ and what is more nefarious. The Afghan soldiers we work with are even more culturally tuned in; together we form a strong team which is the essence of embedded partnering.

There have been dark days, days when our luck has deserted us, but I am confident that there have been more days when the enemy must have felt that fate was conspiring against them. We have given him a bloody nose on more than one occasion, and more importantly he is no longer able to patrol the agricultural ‘green zone’ to our west with impunity, weapons on show to scare the locals. They are still around and among us, and are still hell bent on intimidating the people and stopping us from achieving our goals, but the Rifleman is a resolute beast, and does not scare easily.

It is very easy after we take a casualty to find yourself asking “are we doing the right thing?” The answer, most definitely, is ‘Yes’. Progress can be hard to measure in counter insurgency: the metrics are often difficult to define. In ‘conventional’ warfighting, we can measure success by yards gained, relative body counts and key enemy equipments destroyed. It is easy to demonstrate progress.

However, in a counter insurgency battle where the people are the prize, how do you measure victories, when a victory may simply be a local who decides in his own mind to stop hosting out of area fighters? It is difficult to show graphically how Sangin ‘feels’ better over time. It is sometimes worth going back into old reports and comparing them with today’s circumstances; in doing so I have realised that areas in the summer that would only have been visited at Company strength are now patrolled by Platoons, or even sections. As a barometer of success this is encouraging. But the question we now have to answer is: can the progress that has been made during the winter be maintained over the summer?

Talk of a ‘fighting season’ misses the point. The insurgency is locally based with support from outside (whether foreign countries or other areas of Afghanistan). Contrary to popular myth, most of the insurgents we fight do not pack up and go home for the winter period. They are locals, who fight for a wide variety of reasons: vengeance for the death of a family member, money, status, coercion or in some instances for fun.

The summer brings with it the complexity of the maize crop, which will replace the wheat and poppy that I now see growing. The maize provides, well, a maze for the insurgents to move about in. Up to ten feet high, it is a serious issue. If the gains that have been made over the winter are to be held throughout the summer by our successors, the Royal Marines, we must provide a solution now, perhaps dwarf varieties of maize, that will give the locals a profitable crop that can feed their families and make some money, but do not obscure fields of view.

The seasons change, time marches on and the wheat serves as a daily reminder that the maize is coming too. If we get this right, we can really begin to ‘take the fun out of fighting’ for the insurgents, and make further steady demonstrable progress, however glacially slow that progress may sometimes appear.

Sgt Colin Pentith RLC - Fire Support Company 1 Royal Welsh

2010-02-23T22:03:00.005+04:30

Sgt Pentith greets a local elder

We had been on the ground for 3 days and, so far, everything was going very smoothly. The boys were into a good routine and the locals had started to actively engage with us throughout the area. The challenge for me now was to lead a Shurah at a check point established by the Afghan Army and Fire Support Company, 1 R Welsh East of Garbay Noray.

This was to be my first Shurah. A far cry from my usual job as a Royal Logistics Corps Chef! The transition from hotplate to hot stabilization really began last year when I got selected to work with 1 Royal Welsh as part of it’s non-combat role in what we call ‘influence’. Effectively it is working with other non military organizations and the locals to make progress through communication, information and initiating local projects.

The elders I met treated me with respect and what struck me from the meeting we held was that the concerns of the locals are just what you would expect anywhere. They are concerned about security first and then basic welfare – schools, hospitals, power and so on. It is up to us to reassure them that we and the Afghan National Security Services will deliver that. This was also the start of our process of getting to know who is who in the local area so that we can identify the key leaders that will make things happen.

Afterwards, as part of the stabilisation process, we distributed blankets and radios together with footballs and pens for the children. They genuinely seemed happy and there were lots of smiling faces so I think it went well. It made me feel good that, having come into their area as ‘foreign’ soldier, I could make a small but positive difference straight away.

Major Richard Gregory - Fire Support Company 1 Royal Welsh

2010-02-22T19:32:00.006+04:30

Op Moshtarak Day 5 - Taliban Flag hauled Down

The Company and our Afghan Army partners have now firmly established a Patrol Base, east of Garbay Noray in Nadi Ali, Helmand Province.

The Patrol Base cooking area

For the first couple of days we focused on base security and defensive positions. This involved clearing all the compound areas and surrounding routes for IEDs, filling and placing sandbags for firing points and setting up a home from home in the base. A cooking area, washing area, toilet and even an improvised gym where all quickly created to make life bearable.

Toilet in Use!

By the second day we had started to build positive relationships with the elders and families in the area, holding local shuras to discuss their needs and concerns. Meanwhile our Afghan partners proudly raised the Afghanistan flag to fly above the Camp.

However out on the ground the Front Line was still clearly marked. For four days a plain white Taliban flag has flown just 300 metres away from the Patrol Base, an area where only a few of the locals are willing to go. In much of the area the threat of IEDs remained high.

As the Counter IED Team came in and cleared a route through the area the next phase of Operation Moshtarak, the ‘hold’, is beginning to take effect. The daily Shurahs held by myself are bringing the locals on side. And the regular joint patrols, led by the Afghan Army are showing that security is being brought back to the area.

Today, the fifth day of Op Moshtarak, Afghan soldiers moved in unopposed and took down the Taliban flag, removing the remaining symbol of insurgent control in the area. Another symbol of success on this operation and out on the Front Line another small victory for ISAF and the Afghan National Army.

Padre Mark Christian - Thought for the Day

2010-02-21T21:47:00.004+04:30

Camp Bastion Memorial to all those who have fallen in Helmand Province

Thought For The Day by Padre Mark Christian, Task Force Helmand Senior Chaplain
Radio 4, Today Programme Thursday 18 Feb 2010

Last night here in Lashkar Gah, in the tent that is our church, we had a simple Holy Communion service, drawing crosses of ash on our foreheads and saying the traditional words from the Ash Wednesday service which marks the beginning of Lent ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ’.

I am not sure if you could say there's ever a good time to come out on military operations, but the season of Lent reflects the atmosphere here better than any other church season. The men and women serving here live a very simple and basic existence.

All the distractions and many of the comforts of home are missing. Everybody works relentlessly, but in the times you do have to yourself, living this life helps you focus on what is important - family and loved ones at home of course, but also the people around you, who serve with you, and upon whom you depend – sometimes to keep you alive.

At the heart of the Lent theme is sacrifice. A quality that's paramount to any soldier, but especially at a time like this, during a major operation. The concept of sacrifice is so important to the army that it appears as ‘selfless commitment’ in our six core values.

Every day, soldiers in Helmand put themselves in harms way for the sake of the security of our nation and to bring peace to Afghanistan:

The young rifleman who knows that he will be attacked almost every time he leaves his patrol base.

Every soldier, who in the face of the enemy understands that he is expected to show 'courageous restraint' – not to open fire if there is any chance of civilians being killed, even if this puts him in greater danger.

The courage, the fear, the sacrifice, the loss of friends and the hard won successes, amongst other things, make a tour of duty in Afghanistan an emotionally intensive 6 months. It changes everyone who serves here – not necessarily in the negative ways that you'll hear on the news or read in the papers, but it deepens our understanding of life because everyday in one way or another we reflect on, and are challenged by, issues of morality, mortality, faith and human relationships.

On my recent leave I visited some patients at Selly Oak hospital. I was talking to one recently injured soldier for over an hour. He was talking about his friends – the ones who had died and the ones he had fought with. About how scared he was, but how he knew he had to go on.

At the end of the conversation I noticed that he was holding one of the brigade dog tags that his chaplain had given him. He read from the verse of scripture that is on the back of the tag from Joshua chapter 1 verse 9 – ‘I will be strong and courageous. I will not be terrified or discouraged; for the Lord my God is with me wherever I go’. He looked at me and said “do you think I have been strong and courageous padre?

I think you can guess how I answered him.

Captain Anna Crossley QARANC. Inkerman Company, Grenadier Guards

2010-02-21T13:56:00.004+04:30

Sharzad, Central Helmand, is a long way from the green hills of the Brecon Beacons but here I am, the first female Nursing Officer the Grenadiers have ever had! It’s taken them a bit of time to get used to the idea, but the lads will pop in to see me to discuss any problems they have or just have a chat. I hope this shows that they have accepted me as part of the team.

I'd already spent three months working in Bastion, so I've come across pretty much every type of injury you can imagine, which is extremely useful preparation for this job out at the Patrol Base where every injury, no matter how serious, will be initially dealt with by me and my team.

The soldiers here have been busy for the last few weeks. Before Op Moshtarak kicked off last weekend they were carrying out what we call ‘shaping’ operations – basically setting up and reinforcing checkpoints in the area to deny the insurgents freedom of movement. And this week they have been full tilt on Op Moshtarak going beyond the original frontline into Taliban held territory.

Back at base the majority of the work I do is primary care: treating minor ailments and making sure the troops are combat effective, that is to say, they are not prevented from doing their job by illnesses and ailments. But we are always at a high state of readiness to deal with more serious injuries.

We maintain constant contact with the Operations Room so that we are prepared to receive the patients when they arrive, but if I hear a loud bang I will always pop next door to see if we are going to be needed.

I have a team of combat medics who are on the ground and work as part of the patrolling teams. They are first on the scene and play a vital role in delivering first aid in the crucial first few minutes when something happens.

Sharzad was the original American HQ for the team that led the irrigation scheme in the 1950s. It was this scheme that created the fertile ‘Green Zone’ that runs down the Helmand River valley today. So the building we operate from is a solid 1950s brick and stone build, with all the original plans, drawings and records still here.

The facility we run is unique within the UK context. It is effectively a mini Accident and Emergency Department and we carry an extensive range of specialist kit to be able to treat people in this location. We also stabilise any more serious casualties for forward transit to Camp Bastion, and the full working hospital that is located there.
Life is busy, but the job satisfaction when we save a life out here is immeasurable.

Patrol Base Sharzad, Grenadier Guards

Sgt Jason Thrasher 32 Regiment Royal Artillery – UAV Image Analyst

2010-02-20T21:15:00.005+04:30

It is day 4 of Operation Moshtarak and I am watching a bank of large screens in front of me. The black and white images are crystal clear, showing me a bird’s eye view of the mighty Python moving into position on one screen, and a foot patrol of Afghan troops and Royal Welsh soldiers on patrol in a different location on another screen.

The Python is about to clear an area of suspected IEDs along the new route being created into Nad e Ali heading towards the key town of Showal. This is the first time that it is being used in Afghanistan and a small audience has gathered behind me to see what happens.

In another cabin next to the operations room the ‘pilot’ of the un-manned Hermes 450 is flying the aircraft directly over the Manoeuvre Support Group, 28 Regiment Royal Engineers. He looks like he is playing on a grown up version of a play station as he deftly guides the UAV over the tactical position on the ground.

We are in constant communication with each other because as I watch the images I can talk him through adjusting the flight path so that I can scan the whole area. My job is to make absolutely sure that there are no local Afghans, military personnel or rural compounds in the blast area. It is going to make one hell of a bang when it goes off!

Image Analysis can be a nervous business! If you make a wrong call lives could be lost. So you have to ‘Confirm in your head …confirm in your head….confirm in your head’ before you make any decision.

I confirm that the area is clear for firing.

The message is relayed to the troops on the ground, and as I watch from Camp Bastion Python lets rip! I can’t hear the sound but the black and white image in front of me explodes in an impressive cloud of dust.

Job done. Back to providing overwatch of the Combined Force 31 foot patrol as it carefully makes its way through another area of Nad e Ali. Our task to hold a secure area in Central Helmand continues with everyone working hard to keep the Taliban out and bring the civilian stabilisation teams in.

Royal Military Policewoman LCpl Christy-Lee Ray, attached to Fire Support Company, 1 R Welsh

2010-02-17T20:59:00.002+04:30

The last week has been a real experience for me. I have been in the Army for three years now and, in addition to my RMP training, I did a whole year of special training for this tour. Just recently returned from my home leave (R&R), I landed back at Camp Bastion expecting to return to my job with The Rifles. However I discovered that I was being attached to Fire Support Company, 1 Royal Welsh for Op Moshtarak.

I was genuinely excited to be part of such a massive operation, yet loading onto the helicopter in the dark and the dust on the first night I was also a bit nervous. But really you just get on with it. The entry into our objective was tough – we were cold, wet and muddy. Also we all had to carry extra equipment as well as our normal kit. I am only 5’3” and so the weight is tough for me. The first 24 hours out here I found it quite hard, but I have got a used to it now.

Currently I am one of only two females in the Patrol Base. The other girl has to go back to Bastion shortly so then it will be just me. However I just muck in with it all and the lads can see that I do my job just the same as them so there is no difference between us. I do everything that they do but I am also a team medic so when we go out on patrol they will look to me if things go wrong. Working in this environment with the local people I am also a valuable asset as a female searcher.

I won’t go into the full details, but I have already started my main role which is to collect information on the local villagers and movements in the area. I then feed this information back to my boss so it can be used to build a bigger picture of conditions on the ground. It all helps in our efforts to provide a safer environment for everyone in our area of responsibility.

So far it all seems to be is going really well on and the locals have been friendly, helpful and seem to be on side. It is a bit strange really for life to be this quiet, but hopefully it will remain that way and I can just keep on with my job.

It is amazing how the Patrol Base has changed in the short time we have been here. From a bare compound when we took it on D Day, there is now a wash area, a cook area and even a makeshift gym. Most importantly the solar showers arrived by helicopter re-supply and I did enjoy having my first shower for several days.

Mortar Section Commander Cpl Stephen Hall - Fire Support Company 1 Royal Welsh

2010-02-16T22:46:00.003+04:30

D Day - Op Moshtarak

AS we moved off the helicopter we were expecting the terrain to be boggy, but no-where near as bad as it was. As soon as we were off the helicopter we were up to our knees in mud. With all the weight we were carrying and the mud it was really hard going. As well as our standard kit and the mortar equipment I also had the radio so the total weight I was carrying was huge.

Once we were on the ground I had to immediately get the light motor set up in case we were contacted or the entry into our objective needed motor fire. I was soaking wet, very cold and covered in mud, but just kept on going to make sure everything was set up straight away and ready to go.

For my mortar section the worst bit was waiting for the initial assault section to go into the Compound. We were hoping for a “Green Knock” – when the lads go in without a shot fired – but we were sitting there in the dark, freezing and soaked to the skin, waiting for it to “Go Red” at any time. That is the nerve racking time for the boys.

As dawn started to break and we still weren’t in, this was the time I started to get really wary. The initial section and the Afghan soliers still hadn’t got into the compound and we were all out in the open and really exposed if the insurgents opened fire.

Luckily we weren’t contacted and we got in safely. Once into our objective the boys worked really hard to get everything set up in quick time. They were dog tired and operating on their reserves by this time, but they did well.

We have now established a secure Patrol Base and are getting on with our task of providing mortar fire support to the troops when they need it.

So far I think Operation Moshtarak seems to have gone pretty well for us and it does seem to be working, but we are just cracking on with our job now.”

Sergeant Alan Winchester – Air Traffic Control Camp Bastion

2010-02-16T21:21:00.001+04:30

A ‘crow’s nest’ view of D Day – Operation Moshtarak

The helicopter flight line had been a hive of activity for days with troops practicing their loading drills and engineers carrying out last minute serviceability checks on the airframes. The pilots; British, Canadian and American, all attended detailed briefs. This was vital considering the scale and complexity of the task.

When I attended the initial briefing for the operation it looked as though there some potential ‘pinch points’ within the timescale envisaged. We needed to be switched on in the tower if anything unplanned happened to the Air Traffic plan because we were dealing with so many different aircraft types – Chinook, Merlin, Apache, Lynx, Canadian Griffin, Blackhawk and Sea King.

D-1: My night started off as normal at 1900 hours and without incident, setting the scene for the embarkation phase of the operation. As the sun set in Camp Bastion, my view from the tower showed row after row of helicopters on the tarmac primed and ready to go. At 0330 hours the Joint Helicopter Force Lines started to gear up in darkness.
D Day at last!

Below me muted lights on the runway and blinking lights from the helicopters created a weird pattern as the dust kicked up from the ground created a hazy effect.

At the sound of over thirty rotors running I could feel the rush of excitement kick in. Finally, I was able to feel directly linked to the frontline and I knew that I would be supporting, as closely as I could, the troops on the ground.

However, when the first aircraft launched calm descended and despite a few unexpected moves all traffic departed on time and landed safely to ensure that troops reached the drop off zones at the correct time. Wave after wave were talked out and back in to Bastion as hundreds of troops and then their additional kit were ferried out into Nad e Ali.

I felt a distinct pride when the op launch was complete at 0600 hours and learnt that every aspect had gone to plan and had been a complete success. I left work at 0700 hours exhausted but content.

Major Richard Gregory, Officer Commanding Fire Support Company, 1 Royal Welsh

2010-02-15T12:01:00.004+04:30

Maj Richard Gregory attends a local Shura with village elders

I have never felt the burden of responsibility the way I did when we came in on this Operation. Not in Northern Ireland nor in Iraq. Things went smoothly at Camp Bastion getting the guys loaded up and onto the helicopters. It was very tense flying into the landing zones but we were pleased to get out on the ground with very little drama.

Heavy mud in the fields made the going tough but when we had made it safely in to our compound after being up to our knees in the mud in the dark I thought - we have got it right. The Patrol Base is now established, however the hard work is still to be done. We now have to prove ourselves to the local population and show them that we can provide them with the security they need.

The next phase of Operation Moshtarak has already begun with meetings with the locals set up and patrols sent out to re-assure the surrounding population of the security provided by the ISAF presence.

A Shurah (local meeting) was held in the Patrol Base and a number of local elders attended. I feel very confident that things are going well so far, both with my guys, the Afghan soldiers we are working with and the locals.

Following the Shurah the Afghan soldiers led out a joint patrol of Afghan (ANA) and 1 Royal Welsh troops into the surrounding area and the ANA Platoon Commander discussed the security situation with the locals.

I was really pleased with the way that Patrol went. The ANA Platoon Commander is taking the lead. We still have to prove ourselves to the locals but we have now started that work. To say I am relieved about how things have gone so far would be an understatement. And I am bursting with pride when I see my soldiers here getting on with things that will have a really positive impact for the future of this area.

Cpl Lucy Marrow Combat Medical Technician

2010-02-15T00:09:00.003+04:30

I normally train US soldiers in battlefield first aid but we’ve been building up for Op Moshtarak for a few days now, thoroughly checking our medical kits and the equipment in the vehicle. I’ve been training the Gurkha soldiers from the Logistics Regiment here in Camp Bastion as they load up all the supplies ready for the next phase of the operation. Now all the excitement of the helicopter drops is over it is up to these guys on the ground to keep the momentum going.

It has given me the chance to work in A&E at the Camp Bastion hospital, working on casualties and practicing my clinical skills. We don’t normally do this but my Squadron took the opportunity to filter us through the hospital to gain additional experience.

I’ve been out on several Combat Logistic Patrols, working from a Mastiff ambulance that can carry one stretcher casualty. It’s the same as any other Mastiff out here, but inside it is fitted out like a Battlefield Ambulance – so it can carry oxygen and has places for all our medical equipment. I used to be apprehensive when I went out but the Mastiff is a tough vehicle and I have already survived one IED strike where the Mastiff was slightly damaged but my team walked away without a scratch!

The Gurkhas are great guys. Being a girl they really look after me – if I need the toilet they will clear a path out to some cover for me so I can have some privacy. Other than that I’m treated pretty much like the lads.

Everyone is ready to go out there and support what the Royal Welsh and Afghan soldiers have achieved so far. Word is that the first two days have been easier than expected but they will need more rations and other vital supplies to keep going so we have been given notice to be ready to move any time from now.

Flight Lieutenant Chris 'Haz' Hasley , Joint Helicopter Force, Camp Bastion

2010-02-14T16:26:00.006+04:30

Flight Lieutenant 'Haz' Hasley in the cockpit of his Chinook

After an in depth planning and briefing process my crew and I walked to our Chinook for the morning assault. We had known about Op MOSHTARAK since our arrival in theatre back in December and as we loaded our troops and engaged the rotors, we were acutely aware of the complexity of the operation we were about to execute.”

With 8 minutes to go to launch I noticed a splattering of oil accumulating on the windscreen. We consulted our ground crew who advised us shut down the aircraft so that they could climb on top for a closer look. After a short interval, which seemed like a lifetime, they told us that there was a leak from one of our rotor blade nods but that the Chinook was safe to fly. With that information we set about restarting the cab as quickly as possible; a process that normally takes 15 minutes. We were airbourne and in formation in less than 5 minutes, overall a minute later than planned.

We struck out at low level under the moonless night towards our objective which was the insurgent held town of Showal. En route to target the ambient light levels were so poor that even our NVGs struggled to provide much more than a dark green nothingness.

On short finals to the target, the formation of Chinooks tightened spacing and pitched noses up hard to decelerate quickly. The back wheels dug into the soft ground of the muddy field and we disgorged our complement of Royal Welsh and ANA troops. Seconds later we were wheels up and racing back to Bastion airfield to pick up our next chalk of soldiers.

In just over 2 hours our packet of 4 RAF Chinooks had delivered approximately 650 soldiers to the heart of the insurgency. An insurgency who after being forewarned of our attack wisely kept their heads down or fled the scene.

At 0610 we stopped the rotors and after a quick debrief headed for bed. We wouldn’t get much sleep as we were taking over the Immediate Response Team helicopter later that day.”

Lieutenant Colonel Rosie Stone at Camp Bastion

2010-02-13T06:54:00.005+04:30

Pictures by Staff Sergeant Will Craig

Lights from my vehicle briefly lit up a line of tense faces as I passed column after column of British and Afghan soldiers interspersed with French and Estonians en route to the helicopter flight line at Camp Bastion. It was 3 o’clock in the morning and finally, after weeks of training and preparation Op Moshtarak was officially underway.

The heavy sound of dozens of rotor blades turning filled the air, and dust kicked up by all the activity hit the back of my throat as I stepped out onto one of the forming up points.

My team’s job was to ensure that all the embedded journalists who will be covering the operation from the frontline were delivered to the right helicopter on time. It marked the end of the busiest 48 hours the Media Operations Centre has experienced since the start of 11 Light Brigade’s tour in Helmand Province.

As with the Battle Group soldiers and aircrew gathered throughout Bastion we had experienced laughter, nerves and a sense of camaraderie with our media guests, but now everyone was firmly focused on the job ahead.

Large groups of men moved into their pre allotted holding areas. Some carried ladders over their shoulders, ready to be used for climbing over the walls into village compounds. Others were burdened with the powerful general purpose machine gun and heavy belts of ammunition. Corporal Lino Woolfe from the Royal Army Veterinary Corps quietly knelt beside his specialist search dog, patiently waiting to be loaded onto his assigned Merlin helicopter.

It was a scene that I have never experienced before in the twenty two years that I have served in the military and will likely never experience again. The mix of tension and anticipation was tangible from the Battle Group.

At the designated time loadmasters signaled for the groups to move, and in a well practiced drill hundreds of troops shouldered their kit and marched in single lines up the helicopter ramps and disappeared from view.

I then moved round to the end of the runway and witnessed an historic sight as wave after wave of helicopters rose up from the dust and the darkness, heading North East towards Nad e Ali.

My enduring memory will be looking up into the sky as the lines of helicopters gradually faded into the distance looking like a string of pale amber fairy lights.

Major Richard Streatfeild, OC A Company 4 RIFLES

2010-01-27T22:10:00.000+04:30

It's a paradox. Having achieved relative control of our new area the fight is now on to keep control.

The insurgent is tenacious as well as brutal. We treated a local who had stepped on and partially detonated a roadside bomb. He was flown by us to the hospital in Lashkar Gar.

During his stay there his family came to the patrol base where he had been treated to see if we had any news. As they departed they were followed.

We found out that the insurgent intended to question them and stop them ever talking to us again. The unveiled threat of the bully. We paid for his father to take a taxi to the hospital.

Our man now is back, down a foot unfortunately but extremely grateful for his treatment and speedy evacuation.

The Platoon Commander who organised the evacuation is now a family friend. An invitation to supper has been extended.

Of particular interest to the Afghans is the presence of a female medic. She provokes confusion and admiration in equal measure.

In this conflict the front line is not a line in the dust. It is waged over the human geography. It is politics with an admixture of other means; the battle for trust and support over coercion.

However, in Afghanistan people trust what they can see.

The presence of a patrol base may bring explosions and fighting but people feel safer.

The greatest paradox of all is that in our area, as the casualties in the security cordon continue, the centre of Sangin is as safe and prosperous as it as ever been.

Army doctor recalls her biggest challenge

2010-01-11T08:27:00.000+04:30

An Army doctor worked in the beam from a tractor's headlights as she battled to save lives after a bomb blast in Afghanistan.

Captain Lydia Simpson, said the incident provided her with the biggest challenge of her career.

Just a week after she arrived in the battle zone, a lorry carrying Afghan troops was blown up.

Capt Simpson had to deal with eight casualties, whose injuries ranged from shattered legs to shrapnel and head wounds.

As the sun began to set she had to use the lights from a tractor to help her work.

She said: "The ultimate responsibility rested on my shoulders.

"It's not something I will forget easily. Hectic

"It was quite hectic, especially in the dark.

"I was trying to treat people and direct my medics at the same time.

"None of the casualties spoke any English and we didn't have any interpreters around."

Capt Simpson had spent four months working in the busy emergency department of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, but never before had to deal with that number of casualties by herself.

She said: "The difficulty was trying to prioritise what to do."

The 27-year-old focused on treating a patient with severe head, neck and chest injuries.

He survived, but one man died and another lost both his legs in the explosion.

Capt Simpson said the incident in October, soon after she arrived at the base in Kajaki, in a remote and mountainous part of southern Afghanistan, improved her confidence and she thought nothing she had to deal with afterwards would be as bad.

On December 28, Capt Simpson, attached to C Company, 3rd Battalion The Rifles, was however tested again when she found herself treating Rifleman Aidan Howell, who had been caught in an explosion and eventually died.

"It was a lot more difficult because I had been working with him for the last three months," she said.

"That adds an extra dimension, not so much at the time, when your training kicks in and you do what you need to do, but afterwards, when you are reflecting on it."

As one of only three women in the camp, she has to deal with a lot of banter from the soldiers but with three older brothers - Tom, 35, Simon, 32, and Phil, 30 - she is used to it.

Her 65-year-old father Peter Ash and her mother Janet, 63, keep in touch with their daughter by phone.

Mr Ash said: "We're very proud of her and the work she is doing. But that is what she signed up for, she is answering the call of duty."

Capt Simpson met her husband, Alistair Simpson, who is also a doctor, when she was working in Edinburgh.

Dr Simpson, of Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, lived and worked at a British research station in Antarctica for 18 months before they married.

Capt Simpson said: "Even though Afghanistan and Antarctica are totally different environments he had some similar experiences down there."

"I chat to him on the phone if I need to talk about medical problems as well."

Dispatch From Sangin, Afghanistan

2009-12-30T18:05:00.002+04:30

Lt Col Nick Kitson - CO 3 Rifles BG

Christmas Eve seems as good a time as any to provide the latest update from the 3 Rifles Battle Group, based mainly in Sangin, and with elements up in Kajaki, here in Northern Helmand.

Since I last wrote towards the end of November, the theme has been one of continued progress on all fronts. The temperature, the reduced winter vegetation and the pressure which the insurgents face – from us and others - have all acted in our favour. We have been ruthless in exploiting these advantages and every soldier in the BG has worked tirelessly, with great commitment, to ensure we press home every opportunity to increase the security in our areas and convince the locals to reject the insurgents.

Mobilising the population to reject the insurgency is the name of the game; our Afghan Army and Police partners are working with us towards this goal. Having conducted several significant operations to establish ourselves in new, smaller patrol bases with a broader and more comprehensive footprint we are now living at much closer quarters with the population. This has helped us achieve the meaningful interaction with them that is the essence of Counter-Insurgency – interaction which the enemy do their utmost to prevent. That in itself speaks volumes.

Now that we are genuinely their neighbours in a large number of places (there are 29 security force locations of various shapes and size in the BG area, of which we are present in 23), we can communicate with the locals on a continuous basis, understand their hopes and fears and tell them the truth about what we are trying to do.

This is a traditional and remote rural area with few trappings of the modern world, even by Afghan standards. Yes, there are battered old cars (normally White Toyota Corolla Estates from the 80s containing at least 15 people), motorbikes and the occasional ancient tractor but even the ubiquitous mobile phone has no functioning network here. The people have not had the benefit of meaningful modern education. The limited healthcare is normally in the hands of profiteers offering little but quackery for a populous that knows no better. Government services do not stretch much beyond the odd electricity line, knitted together and only occasionally carrying a current.

There are 50 policemen for a population of about 35 000; that’s less than 20 on duty, measured against the sort of shift system that we would recognise at home. As such the locals are highly prone to the tallest of stories that the Taleban have to offer. This intimidation and misinformation is purely to cow the population into submission – and rejection of the modern world - for no other purpose than to retain the dominance of power hungry extremists and smugglers with no interest beyond their own status and material gain.

By getting amongst the population and interacting with them on a persistent basis we with our Afghan colleagues provide them visible, tangible security and protection from these abuses. We can communicate and discuss the pros and cons of the progress we hope to bring without then leaving them to the devices of the insurgents once we have gone back to our big bases. We explain what it is that we are helping the government of Afghanistan to deliver and put all our powers of leadership and persuasion towards mobilising the population to reject the insurgency.

This sets us up to ‘win the argument’ as our 2* Regional Commander, Maj Gen Nick Carter (also a Rifleman), calls it. The majority of the people we speak to dislike the insurgents and what they bring but they say they are powerless to resist. Our job is to convince them that only they can comprehensively rid this place of the insurgents and that they will have to put their own heads above the parapet, with the ANA’s and our support, to do so. By being amongst them and providing real and visible signs of progress we hope to convince them of this.

In terms of progress, our ‘crown jewel’ is the Sangin Bazaar, bustling, prosperous and ever expanding as new stalls are renovated and stocked daily. It is unrecognisable from only last year and the local population is able to go about its business there peacefully and relatively unmolested. Such is its success that it is an increasingly visible thorn in the insurgents’ side to the point where they are prepared to send suicide bombers in its direction. This is a desperate attempt to push back on the progress that we and the Afghan Government are delivering there.

The insurgents clearly have no compunction about sacrificing the lives of local Afghan civilians in order to achieve their nihilistic and self serving objectives. In stopping just such an attempt on 15 Dec, we suffered the tragic loss of LCpl Kirkness and Rfn Brown, alongside two brave Afghan Army ‘Warriors’. Two other Afghan soldiers were seriously injured in this incident when not one but two suicide bombers on the same motorbike, heading in the direction of the bazaar, realised the game was up when they ran into our vehicle checkpoint. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those devastated by this event but we draw immense comfort and pride from the fact that these sacrifices averted a much larger tragedy, both in terms of human suffering and our mission out here. These courageous soldiers died doing exactly what we are meant to be doing, which is keeping the fight away from the population centres so that they have a chance to re-generate and show progress that people can believe in and carry forward themselves.

That event was the start of what you will know has been a particularly tough patch for us regarding casualties. Since that day, the Battle Group has lost LCpl Pritchard (RMP), LCpl Roney (3 RIFLES) and LCpl Brown (PARA) as well as an Afghan interpreter. In amongst those tragedies we have also had several Riflemen wounded, some seriously. All these have been sustained in the course of the daily acts of courage and determination we witness out here. These losses are a bitter blow to us and take away highly valued and capable individuals. We have no choice but to dust ourselves off and carry on, ensuring that their sacrifices are not in vain. Once again our thoughts and prayers go out to families and friends, particularly as they and we all do our best to celebrate Christmas under testing circumstances.

But to put this in a perspective that rarely comes through in the media at home, these are our first losses for a month during which time we have continued to fight as hard, continued to take casualties, continued to engage with the locals and continued to make progress alongside our Afghan colleagues.

An upturn in casualties such as this is not in itself an indication of increasing success, failure or even activity in terms of our campaign here. It is simply luck - good or bad - and events taking their often unpredictable course in this most unpredictable of environments. None of these things stop the steady surge of progress that we are making and which gains momentum as it goes along. The background noise, the intensity and frequency of the fight, the daily routine remains largely unchanged – the difference between good and bad outcomes is often a matter of inches and seconds, as all soldiers know. We’ve had some bad luck but we continue to have plenty of good fortune and success at the same time.

In the past 10 days, we have opened up three new Patrol Bases and brought the beginnings of security to new communities yet further out from the centre of Sangin. Initially, our new presence is contested by the insurgents but they cannot keep it up for long; we hit them hard when they show themselves and most of the population in the new areas welcome us. This is as hard a blow for the insurgents as our decisive but measured military response to their desultory shoots and desperate, indiscriminate IED laying.

The locals are war weary and want the prosperity the Afghan government promises. They do not reject us but rather fear the day we might have to leave. That is why we also work hard to bring our Afghan comrades on, sharing bases and patrols with them as we do, setting them up for the time when they can take this on themselves. We are dominating our ground and pushing the enemy away from the ‘crown jewel’. Our task is to allow Afghan development and governance to flourish in central Sangin by creating the space for it to take root.

The brave soldiers of this Battle Group are doing just that, through thick and thin. The enemy is out there and we are doing battle with him but he is not at the gates. Fighting is less frequent, less destructive and further afield. Eid al Adha was celebrated openly here for the first time in four years, women who choose to can go about unveiled, people are moving back into their homes.

A brief mention of the home team in Edinburgh and more widely who are doing such a great job of looking after our wounded and our families. It is a source of great strength to us here that our loved ones at home are so well cared for, whether they be anxious families on ‘the patch’ or those who have sadly been affected by events out here. Reports from Selly Oak, Headley Court and elsewhere about the determination, good humour and positivity of our wounded are truly inspiring and humbling.

The generosity of our supporters who have contributed so comprehensively to our Wristband Fund has made it possible to show how much we as a Battalion and a Regiment care and are prepared to go the extra mile beyond the excellent medical care already provided. The generosity and support of the great British public, manifested through parcels and messages, is heart warming and means a great deal to us all. We shall all miss our families over Christmas but we at least have the comradeship and close bonds that sharing in this tough fight brings. Christmas this year will be celebrated with our military family – our brothers in arms.

To purchase a wrist band click here

Happy Christmas, from Helmand

2009-12-26T18:30:00.003+04:30

This year instead of waking up to two very excited little girls with stockings full of presents, I prised myself out of my winter sleeping bag and stepped out into a bitterly cold Christmas day in Helmand Province Afghanistan.

I have been in the reserves now for just over eight years and have spent lots of time away in places like Iraq and Kosovo and I have been to Afghanistan once before. But this has been the first time I have spent Christmas out of the country let alone away from my family.

In all that time although far from home in some very challenging places I know that it is harder for wives and children than it is for us soldiers. Christmas is such a special day and with the girls just four and nearly six they are very aware that daddy is not there to share it with them.

But I was with a small team of British soldiers at Patrol Base Talibjan near Musa Qala, and we were just two kilometres from what is called the FLET or Forward Line Enemy Troops. And it was to the FLET that we headed out to on Christmas Eve.

The Brits I was with work alongside the Afghan National Army, sharing the same basic mud walled compound. Each day they patrol the surrounding area talking to the locals, meeting with the Afghan National Police and reassuring their rural community with a ‘hearts and minds’ campaign. But Christmas Eve was different. While I would have given anything to back with the family the lads and I had to keep those thoughts at the back of our minds.

As you slept tucked up in bed with snow flakes falling outside we were already in the thick of a fire-fight with the Taliban. Christmas Eve was a different operation altogether, not just one of the usual patrols. We were there to intentionally probe the Taliban, to test their positions and to test their resolve. To ensure we had the upper hand we brought in support.

Once the Taliban took us on and tried to out flank us, we pushed out our Scimitar light tanks and the armoured Mastiffs broke cover. For what seemed like ages the air filled with the sound of gun fire and the sonic cracks as Taliban bullets whizzed pasted our heads.

As we pushed them back an RAF Tornado flew in low drowning out every noise in its wake, reinforcing how serious we were in our intent that day.

The team had been awesome. We pushed back the Taliban, swept through their compounds and captured a raft of components destined to make deadly IEDs, the improvised explosive devices that soldiers here fear more than anything else. But we didn’t get them all. One of the vehicles got hit by and IED. Luckily no one was hurt, the armour did it thing. It does make you think that as infantry on foot we can go where ever we choose. But in a vehicle you can be channeled by the terrain and targeted.

Not until we marched back through the fields and over the hills and once the heavy body armour and day sacks were off, did we start to think of home – wondering what our loved ones were up to – maybe sledging. Then deep in our own quiet thoughts as the events of the day sank in, did we really start to miss them.

But, being British soldiers we crack on and move forward. There was much to do. The Taliban don’t take Christmas off, so nor do the troops. But we can always squeeze in a bit of a celebration as nothing gets in the way of Christmas. Many of us had parcels from family with Santa hats and treats. We even had a small Christmas tree, not a real one, but it was there flashing away in the ops rooms.

A frozen turkey had arrived together with stuffing, carrots, potatoes and sprouts. And the Afghan soldiers’ bread oven had inspired our ammo tin oven built into one of the compound walls that cooked the turkey to perfection.

With the sun blazing in the sky, I have to say I sat down to one of the most unusual Christmas lunches I think I will ever have. I pity the girls who will no doubt hear the tale each and every year as they grow older. But this year using a satellite phone to talk to them I told them Santa had visited the little boys and girls here, just like he had at home. For now they think that I am out here to help the little boys and girls have the sort of life that they take for granted. In a way that is what we are here to do. But for now, how we do that can wait as they need not worry like my wife.

Hearing them laughing and giggling with excitement on the phone makes you realise how much you miss them. But, you have to stay strong and reassure them. However you feel at the time, it is not for them to hear, so that is not what they get.

With half of the tour complete there is still a long way to go. Looking to the future I can see that I will be back here again. But, things are improving. The ANA we fought alongside are getting better all the time. Once we get them up to speed fully and they can master their own destiny we and the International Security Assistance Force can come home.

What a day, what a Christmas Eve and what a way to celebrate Christmas. I know it isn’t the norm but it is what we are trained for, it is what we expect. It is hard out here and the environment is tough, but we take pride in what we are doing and we will do the very best that we can.

Lying here, in the cold on my cot bed with what seems like all of my clothes on, there is just one thing left to say and that’s ‘Happy Christmas’ from Helmand. We’re thinking of you.

Major Paul Smyth, RIFLES
TA soldier

Follow Major Paul Smyth on twitter: http://twitter.com/MediaOps

To see more pictures from the front line at christmas click the links below:

On route from Musa Quela to an OMLT Patrol Base
On ops with the OMLT from Patrol Base Talibjan
Reassurance patrol from PB Talibjan
Christmas Eve reassurance patrol from Patrol Base Talibjan
Christmas day in Patrol Base Taliban
British Troops Tuck Into Xmas Lunch in PB Talibjan
UK troops celebrate Christmas on the frontline
.50 cal sunrise on Boxing day
Living at Patrol Base Talibjan

A Day in the Life of A Thinking Rifleman

2009-12-15T18:00:00.000+04:30

Rfn Phil Thomas - 3 Rifles BG

The day normally starts with a kick to the cot bed I’m curled up on. Its six o’clock in the morning and I can see my breath as a cloud of mist against the dirty white of the wall in my room.

“Get up Tommo! Time for a scrape.” My Plt Sjt Tim Exley says. I force myself out of my doss bag, and head down the well. The lads have fashioned a pulley system to get the water out so we don’t have to dip in to our valuable “brew water” supply.

We moved into these two compounds about eight days previous and, with the help of an engineer section, have transformed them into something resembling a home. After washing and shaving comes breakfast around the communal fire, the hub of the camp. There is the usual bartering over ration packs (usually with ALOT of corned beef hashes left in the corner, swiftly followed by the platoon commander Lt Dixon sniffing around for seconds).

The plan for the day is a routine patrol for a couple of hours and then some down-time till my multiple takes over the guard of the patrol base. We spend the next couple of hours getting kit ready, oiling weapons, checking comms and, for some of the lads, getting some head down (a good soldier sleeps when he can).

Its soon time to head to the loading bay then out the front gate. Today we have the ANA (Afghan National Army) with us, it’s a major bonus for us because they really excel at interacting with the local community in a way that ISAF forces could never achieve and this helps with building up the hearts and minds initiative that is so vital to rebuilding the country.

Whilst walking around we tend to attract groups of children looking for sweets or pens and, in the case of some of the riflemen’s attempts at Pashtu (the local language), something to laugh at. It is slow and hard going, with the weight of the kit combined with the drills we use to combat the IED threat. But we have all known people who have either been killed or injured by these devices so you don’t hear any complaints.

We meet a local mullah (elder) and the Boss discusses improvements to local amenities such as the mosques and schools. We head back to the patrol base and say farewell to the ANA until the next patrol. After a short debrief then it’s off to fill sand bags and carry on making little improvements to the camp (a plt serjeant is only happy when his men are working hard rather than hardly working).

While we were out, some mail was dropped off so the lads spend some time reading letters from loved ones and parcels full of sweets. As it’s the run up to Christmas as well, we have started to get cards and mince pies and all the usual paraphernalia that comes with it. We’ll be having the local ANA commander over for Christmas as we were kindly invited over to his base for Eid (Islamic equivalent to Christmas) where I tried goat for the first time and for the record it’s like a really fatty lamb. Christmas is a chance to have the great tradition of the boss and sjt cooking and serving us all Christmas dinner.

My turn for sentry comes around far too quickly so it’s time to wrap up warm and sit on a cold sand bag for an hour at a time, not the most exciting job but considering we’re in Sangin, a necessity none of us take lightly. Its 21:00 by that time and I’m glad the lads have gotten the fire going so when I come off the sangers, I can warm my ice cold hands and listen to the banter, with the lads coming from as far south as Cornwall and as far north as Newcastle (plus anywhere in-between) it’s quite varied, mostly at me for being the only Welshman.

By half ten it’s time to hit the hay. It’s surprising to how tired you can get, thinking you have to do the same thing tomorrow, but as we’re finding out no day in Sangin is ever the same as the one before.

A Day in the life of LCpl Paul Livingston

2009-12-15T08:21:00.002+04:30

Its 0300 hrs and the Fire Support Group (FSG) A Company 3RIFLES from FOB NOLAY, just south of Sangin are preparing to move out on a Company operation to find and arrest a known Improvised Explosive Device (IED) maker.

I am LCpl Paul Livingston, a ‘Jackal' armoured vehicle commander and currently acting as A Company’s FSG second in command. Early starts like this are common because they allow us to move into position without the enemy knowing where we are, giving us the element of surprise. Our role is to secure a route for the Company to move along, and then using the high ground, provide overwatch to allow the Company to move forward safely to the target compound.

Not every morning is this busy. Usually my day starts at around 0600hrs. I get into my morning routine, washing, shaving and getting some breakfast, before attending the daily operational brief, which tells us what patrols are happing during the day. This is important especially for the FSG, as we are the quick reaction force (QRF) if any patrols need assistance”

The rest of the morning is spent doing essential maintenance on all the Jackal armoured vehicles, making sure they are fighting fit for whatever task the FSG may well find itself dealing with. As the second in command of the FSG my main responsibility is that we have enough ammunition, water, fuel and man power to carrying out any tasking we are given. The vehicles we have are the key to our mobility, so if they are in rag, we are practically useless.

Lunch at FOB NOLAY usually consists of noodles, pasta, and any leftovers from breakfast, but every now and again something special gets laid on like frankfurters or quiche. Usually after lunch a trip to the gym is usually on the menu. The gym at NOLAY is pretty basic, but there is enough here to beast yourself with. Hopefully there will be some extra gym equipment in time for Christmas.

Throughout the day there is the usual task of ‘Stagging on’, in the Sangers to provide protection for the FOB. Constant improvements to the FSG’s accommodation are always taking place. The most recent additions to the FSG, two chickens and two goats have meant that a new enclosure has been created to keep them till Christmas, where they will make a fine addition to the usual lunchtime meal of noodles. The evening is an ideal time to try and relax. We all try and get together and watch a film or play a few games on the Wii games console.

Over the next few days I will be leaving NOLAY to be a part of an ISAF operation to establish new patrol bases along a key supply route. The days leading up to this will be taken up by battle preparation, getting all the vehicles, and ourselves ready for the challenge. I’m really looking forward to the operation. Once it is complete it will bring much more security to a large area and will cut down movement to the insurgents.”

I wish my girlfriend a Happy Christmas, good luck with the birth, and I can’t wait to see you

LCpl Livingston platoon commander Captain Andy Michael says “LCpl Paul Livingston is an exemplary soldier. He is physically robust, professional, and cares deeply about the rifleman in his charge. He is much liked by his commanders and all members of the A Company FSG”.

Major Richard Streatfeild, OC A Company 4 RIFLES

2009-12-11T22:54:00.001+04:30

THE AFGHAN GAME

If you want to understand the Afghan then look no further than Buzkashi. Not my words but still relevant.

The national Afghan game is called Buzkashi. The translation of the name is "goat pulling".

It involves two teams of 15 setting off from a single point on horseback. They race towards a dead goat placed in a circle. The goat is grabbed and they gallop towards a second marker. The teams must get the goat round the marker and back into the circle.

The game is violent. The peculiarly Afghan element is that once a team has the upper hand the goat will often be stolen by players within that team in order to get the final glory.

The game is played in the barren desert with distances of over a mile between the markers and the circle.

I have asked our interpreters whether Buskashi is played in this area. The answer is yes but that was before the fighting.

The cultural point is that, faced with a common enemy the Afghans unite, but quickly argue amongst themselves when the external catalyst is gone.

Perhaps our answer to this is cricket, where the game is played over five days, a good tea is very important, and the most likely result is a draw.

Cricket is also played in Afghanistan courtesy of our imperialist past. We have had several six-a-side games in the FOB. Our interpreters are generally from Kabul and are archetypically good slow bowlers or wristy batsmen with a good eye.

The playing surface leaves a little to be desired, which makes the occasional LBW hotly contested.

The common ground is found in football for which we have enough room for a small five-a-side pitch.

Again the surface is a bit dodgy. But after work, if there is still enough light, I will often find a group of Tiger Team Afghan troops mixed with Riflemen, interpreters, and our locally employed civilians enjoying a kick about that more often than not turns into an international friendly.

Sport doing its bit to turn colleagues into friends.

Major Richard Streatfeild, OC A Company 4 RIFLES

2009-12-09T22:27:00.001+04:30

DONKEY ATTACK

There is no such thing as a normal day in Afghanistan.

One of my platoons has begun to partner a Platoon from the Afghan National Army. The Afghans have already got a small team of UK mentors in their camp, but this move is part of the renewed effort to help the Afghan National Army take on the insurgency with more vigour.

All the planning and conduct of patrols is done jointly. The platoon has worked extremely hard in the last forty eight hours to give their new home enough protection.

The insurgents have responded in a number of ways but today they out did themselves.

The Afghan Army Platoon had received some information that the insurgents were going to try to strap an IED to a donkey and send it towards the camp. Donkeys do not have the reputation of being the most compliant animal, so it was treated with some scepticism at first.

Then in the afternoon the gate guard realised there was something suspicious going on. A group had just let go of a donkey a short way from camp and hurried off. He tried to divert the animal with flares and other warnings.

Obstinacy not being the best quality in that situation, the beast of burden eventually had to be stopped by a rifle shot.

The team went out and established there was something very suspicious under the bundle of hay carried by the donkey.

Eventually one brave ANA warrior set fire to the hay with a flare from a distance, and 30 seconds later there was a considerable explosion. No one was hurt.

Swift appropriate action had saved them from an unusual attack. But it is impossible to report a donkey IED up the chain of command without either a wry smile at the ridiculousness or a feeling that the world is slightly off its axis.

Mother of all baptisms on first tour of Helmand

2009-12-08T14:00:00.001+04:30

FLIGHT Sergeant Tony Kyle’s first shift on his maiden tour to Afghanistan is one he will never forget.

The Bishop Auckland-born nurse had been in Helmand Province only a matter of hours when he was faced with a major incident.

The 38-year-old arrived in Camp Bastion at the start of last month, but was almost instantly plunged into an emergency.

Multiple injuries were reported to the Medical Emergency Response Team (Mert) and once he had flown via Chinook helicopter out to the scene, miles outside of Camp Bastion, he discovered four patients – all with legs severed and bleeding heavily, more victims of improvised explosive devices – the Taliban’s deadliest weapon.

It was the Mert’s job to pull them out of trouble, treat them and make sure they arrived at the medical centre, at Camp Bastion, in the best possible condition. All the patients survived – it was the mother of all baptisms for Flt Sgt Kyle.

Back at the Mert’s camp, sitting on a large wooden table, covered with graffiti and names carved into the grain, Flt Sgt Kyle explains that it is something that he would soon get used to.

The former Parkside School student, from Oakenshaw, near Willington, County Durham is currently off duty, having completed a 24-hour shift – the norm for the Mert.

The team camp has been well personalised – a Mert sign, scrawled with marker on a piece of wood hangs above the door, just next a joke bag of blood.

They even have their own pets – a ginger kitten playfully attacks flies in the warm afternoon sun at the door to the canvas tent. Many camps will use vaccinated cats to control vermin.

Flt Sgt Kyle started his medical career in St John Ambulance before gaining a nursing qualification at Bishop Auckland College and going on to practise at Freeman Hospital, in Newcastle.

He joined the RAF, gaining an emergency nurse degree and worked in Portsmouth and Birmingham before being posted to Afghanistan this autumn.

His 24-hour shifts start at 10am with a briefing before the team, normally made up of a doctor, two paramedics and a nurse, heads to the helicopter to prepare equipment should a call come.

After that it is just a case of waiting. There’s admin work and other tasks to be done, but everything is immediately dropped if a casualty needs treatement. It’s not always as serious as Flt Sgt Kyle’s first shift.

“Sometimes it’s as simple as appendicitis or a high temperature, but that still means we fly out to the front line,”

says Flt Sgt Kyle.

Every trip comes with its dangers – the vital role of the Mert doesn’t go unnoticed by Taliban fighters.

“We have been shot at and had rounds go through the cabin because they want to take the helicopter down.

“One of my colleagues was in the front of the helicopter when a round just missed his head and it was only afterwards that you realise how close he came.

“When it is happening the adrenaline is pumping and you just don’t have time to think.”

Flt Sgt Kyle said he regularly speaks to his parents Norma and George, who live in Oakenshaw, but rarely goes into detail about his job.

“My mum and dad are petrified for me, so I try to keep as much from them as possible.

“I have had to treat Afghan children and it is at times like that you start reflecting on things back home,” said Flt Sgt Kyle, who has one son and another child on the way.

As part of the Geneva Convention, Flt Sgt Kyle is required to treat an injured member of the Taliban with the same care and attention that he would give to a British soldier. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that two men who hours earlier had been involved in a gun battle against each other, could be lying side by side in a hospital bed at Camp Bastion. But Flt Sgt Kyle says giving medical treatment to the enemy is not something that concerns him.

“Patients are patients to us,” he says.

“We are here to save lives and it doesn’t matter if they are Taliban, Afghan or British – it could be anybody.”

Just a few hours before speaking to Flt Sgt Kyle, Camp Bastion had been under a communications lockdown – when there is a ban on outgoing phone calls in the wake of a fatality or serious injury.

This time, it is following an injury to a soldier, but Flt Sgt Kyle says news of a communications lockdown always brings on sadness among soldiers.

“There is a depression that sets in and people do grieve because they know that someone is badly hurt or dead,” he says. “But one thing I have realised is that people here are so professional they get on with their jobs. Even though their best friend might have died, they just carry on.”

Welcome to Helmand

2009-12-04T00:24:00.002+04:30

Tim
Economic Adviser, Afghanistan

I work in a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand province, Afghanistan – part of the international mission to support the Government of Afghanistan and help Afghans govern their country for themselves.

I work in a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand province, Afghanistan – part of the international mission to support the Government of Afghanistan and help Afghans govern their country for themselves. My job title is Economic Adviser. I work with the local government to support economic development in Helmand and help give people the chance to earn a decent living - so they aren’t forced to join the Taliban’s ranks out of desperation.

We’re a multinational team, made up of staff from the UK, Afghanistan, Estonia, Denmark and the US, and working closely with the UK and US military, known as Taskforce Helmand and Taskforce Leatherneck respectively. I’m the new kid. I flew in from Kabul last week – so I’m still getting used to the way things work and learning all the military terminology. (To me, M&E means monitoring and evaluation. To the military it means mines and explosives. It’s important to be clear exactly what we’re talking about).

Life here is very different from the picture of Afghanistan you see on the news. I’m based in the town of Lashkar Gah, Helmand’s provincial capital, which sits on the Helmand River 200 miles from the southern border with Pakistan. The Helmand River valley is actually one of the most green and fertile regions in Afghanistan. But security remains very difficult, and British soldiers are laying down their lives in the fight against the insurgency. Yesterday I attended a memorial service for two soldiers from this base who were killed by an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). It brought home the stark reality of the situation here.

The aim of the Provincial Reconstruction Team is to help the Government of Afghanistan improve security, create jobs and deliver services to the Afghan people. It’s a crucial part of the international mission here. I’ve already seen some of the successful projects we’ve delivered. In the photo I’m standing next to a bus station which we helped to build.

We’re providing small-scale loans so local farmers can buy land and equipment. And as a result of a US funded project, people in Lashkar Gah recently started receiving a reliable supply of electricity for the first time, generated using hydro-power from the Helmand River. Businesses can now operate more easily. Families can switch on a light and listen to the radio. Winter is approaching in Helmand and one of the Afghan staff in my team who lives in Lashkar Gah told me that he can now use an electric heater for the first time.

This is just the beginning of the story. Over the coming months I’ll try to explain what it’s like working here and what my team is trying to achieve in Helmand.

Major Richard Streatfeild, OC A Company 4 RIFLES

2009-12-03T22:31:00.002+04:30

FOOD

For all soldiers in Afghanistan, the basics of living assume much greater importance.

Food, drink, sleep, cigarettes for some, press-ups for others, or a visit to the deep trench latrine, are all important rituals in the day.

Food is by far the most important element of this. There is an army joke that the chef's course is the hardest in the Services because no chef seems to have passed it.

Whilst variety and taste has improved immeasurably in recent years, the staples are still there - bacon grill, sausages, tinned tomatoes, powdered egg and beans for breakfast. Generally with porridge. Noodles and soup for lunch with a couple of rice or pasta choices for supper.

Military efficiency being what it is, the food is chosen for its nutritional value and ease of preparation. In this base we are particularly lucky that the chefs are doing an outstanding job.

Given limited ingredients the four chefs from of the Royal Logistic Corps have done us proud. The processed cheese cheesecake, tinned fruit crumble, pizza, spam balls in sweet and sour sauce, chicken jerky and fresh bread have all been added to the daily fare.

We all eat together on bench tables in the cook house. Cardboard plates and plastic cutlery are the order of the day in order to prevent the spread of illness.

But whilst there is much that is functional about the food the best days are reserved for when fresh rations come in. Steaks to order were a particular highlight, as well as fresh fruit in place of the processed fruit bar.

Being well fed is probably the single most important aspect of a soldier's morale. We still march on our stomachs.

Major Richard Streatfeild, OC A Company 4 RIFLES

2009-11-21T20:55:00.003+04:30

BATTLE OF WILLS

The start of a tour is always incredibly busy. Every day is a new experience.

Yesterday we held a Shura at the base. Or more accurately, we had a Shura come to us. A large group of elders arrived to protest the innocence of a man who had been arrested in a security operation. There was no doubt that they had been sent by insurgents, but they were a notable gathering.

In Afghanistan, age, gender, and facial hair are all indicators of seniority in open society. Inside the compound there is alleged to be a matriarchy, outside, in Helmand, mature men with long beards get respect. It was as an impressive bunch of beards as you are likely to find.

We talked for about two hours. They are good talkers and the conversation moves at a sedate pace. "You have the watches but we have the time" is a popular Afghan jibe.

We sat on our haunches until my western joints creaked and we moved to benches. Green tobacco is taken with care. Small globules of spit form a circle of dust balls on the ground around each chewer.

Afghans often suffer myopia alleged to be the result of a lifetime of dehydration. They break into your personal space to look closely from behind a beard and leathery skin tanned by a thousand Afghan suns.

At one point I was told that we both believed in the same God. "There is only one god," he assured me. We had been going for an hour an a half at that point and I felt we might have only just warmed up if the theology continued. So I felt inclined to agree and left it at that.

We arranged to meet again in three days to see if their issue had progressed.

It all appears to be a caricature and a slightly idyllic one, but it is not. The Shura had been delayed for an hour because two children, both nine, had been brought to the FOB having stepped on an IED. Innocent victims in the battle of wills.

I will not describe the full extent of their injuries but horrific barely does the scene justice. Our doctor, medics and medically trained Riflemen worked for 35 minutes to save them. They were alive when we put them on the Chinook helicopter to the hospital in Camp Bastion with relatives. They died of their injuries there.

It is hard not to believe it was a small mercy. Their uncles returned later in a taxi with the two coffins. They were buried today.

We are left with the moral dilemma of having found, marked clearly and avoided that device only for two children to detonate it.

VIDEO: Life on the frontline with the Afghan Army

2009-11-10T20:50:00.000+04:30

Filmed on the 1 November 09. Moving along one of the many canals in the Nad-e-Ali Valley in Helmand Province, Corporal Phillip Hodgson from Operational Mentoring and Liaison Team (OMLT) Four 2 YORKS, noticed something odd about the troops surroundings.

The locals we just passed all took off, said Cpl. Phillip Hodgson. So keep a look out for any enemy activity. It usually means we are going to be under attack soon.
After being here for five weeks, Hodgson and the rest of the OMLT have started to notice the subtle clues that help keep them on their toes while on patrol.

Its like a sixth sense you pick up when you are out on the ground, said Lieutenant Tom Dawson, the team commander. After being out here for a month you start to notice everything going on.

Minutes later, the OMLT come under attack from small arms fire. As soon as the team hears the shots, they quickly jump into the nearby canal. The ditch is filled with waste deep water and mud that swallows their feet as they take cover from the incoming rounds.

After 40 minutes of back and forth firing, the shots from the enemy slow down and the enemy retreats after being ineffective. After the fire fight ends, the team decides to return to their compound to plan for their next mission. For these troops, these events are a near everyday occurrence.

We come in to contact with the enemy about 80 percent of the time we go out, said Hodgson.

When the OMLT goes on patrol, their primary mission is to mentor the Afghan National Army. The patrols are lead by the ANA with the OMLT supervising. The OMLT gives guidance and helps the ANA to be better Soldiers. The OMLT does not limit the training for patrols only.

When we find time, we try to give them medical lessons and practice finding IEDs and other tactical training, said Dawson.

Although the troops are mentoring the ANA, they have been learning from them as well.
They have taught us how to pick up on improvised explosive devices better and to pick up on the atmospherics of the area we are patrolling. Sometimes you even pick up on a bit of the language, said Dawson.

Major Richard Streatfeild, OC A Company 4 RIFLES

2009-11-07T22:59:00.004+04:30

HOPES AND FEARS

It's finally here, day one on Operation Herrick. It's been some time coming as I was first told that A Company would be going to Afghanistan in early January. A Company is usually part of 4 Rifles. For this tour we are under command of another Rifles Battalion, 3 Rifles. We are to form part of Battle Group North in Helmand which is based around Sangin.

A Company is over 100 strong and with attachments from other branches of the army is considerably more than that. We have been training together since Easter.

As I look back it seems like an incredibly long period of training for the mission we are going to undertake. That said I've never heard anyone in my position say we were too well trained for the task.

The training has many aspects. Everyone going to Afghanistan needs to know how to operate safely. They need to know enough about the culture to avoid inadvertent offence.

We learn a bit of Pashtu to be able to break the ice and give basic instructions. We all do first aid training and the majority of the company are trained to a more advanced level.

And of course there is the requirement to keep people physically fit and healthy.

The collective training has been a tour of all the most delightful parts of Britain. Kent, Northumbria, Norfolk, Wiltshire and Wales - twice.

We were the second group through the new Afghan village complex in Norfolk. At times on Army training areas it is hard to replicate a civilian population this however was about as realistic as it gets, manure and straw with a number of the Afghan diaspora.

I got put through my paces in a post mission Shura trying to convince the local population that we had done something that would increase their security. Not an easy sell.

I also found it amazing how much of Norfolk is irrigated in the same way as the valley of the River Helmand. Good practice manoeuvring around the ditches, wet feet, deep mud and not much commander's dignity.

After the bulk of the training was complete we were able to take a couple of weeks leave. Whilst the training is vital there is nothing as dangerous as fatigue. Tired minds and bodies are prone to bad decision making.

We have had the chance post leave to do some refresher training and get the administration of the company in order. We will get our final training top up on arrival in Afghanistan just to get the latest from the guys who are already there. Then we'll be good to go.

Every father has hopes and fears. It is part of having children. I am no different from every other father in the land in that respect.

My greatest desire in this regard has crystallised round the hope that I will be able to take my son to the first day of an Ashes Test at Lord's. My greatest fear being that I will not be there to go with him.

This fear may be no different from other parents' but it is perhaps brought into sharper focus by the prospect of six months in the Upper Sangin Valley.

On a professional level it is rather different. We don't generally deal in fears. We harden our hearts against the prospect of some very difficult decisions.

My personal hopes and fears are wrapped into the same moment. Making the right decision. Through training, experience, character and enough thought I hope I make good decisions.

I will spend a good deal of time planning and conducting operations. During that process and over the course of my tour there will be plenty of decisions to make.

Most of the time the result of a bad decision will be rectifiable, yet in my profession and very obviously in Afghanistan it is sometimes about life and death.

It is an incredible privilege to command a company of Riflemen and all the soldiers and officers who will be part of the Company Group. I have got to know some of them and their families extremely well.

I know from friends and colleagues that the worst moments of their professional lives have been in the moments of grief following the death of a soldier for whom they feel totally responsible.

I hope that I can face that with stoicism and sensitivity. It is easy to get fatalistic about operations in Afghanistan but there are Companies in Battlegroups that all come back. I hope we all come home.

The summer has been sobering in that regard and the families and comrades of those serving in Afghanistan this summer have barely been away from my thoughts.

There will be many factors involved but I certainly feel that the decisions I make and have made during training will play their part. It is a good pressure if used properly.

My final hope is that the Company Group can do a difficult job in the right way. I hope we can understand, persuade and influence as well as clear, secure and protect.

I hope we can hold and build on ground that we clear of insurgents. I have no doubt that this is not just a six month project but I hope we can make a positive difference.

Soldier tells of enemy attack on the front line

2009-10-31T00:31:00.001+04:30

A soldier who is serving on the front line in Afghanistan has spoken of the moment he came under enemy fire.

Corporal Jamie Hilton, of the 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, was deployed to Helmand province in August. As a section commander, he is in charge of eight men.

Since the summer, he and his soldiers have been involved in operations to expand security.

They have also built two new checkpoints and are building a bridge across a canal to allow greater freedom of movement for locals, as well as the military.

Cpl Hilton, aged 23, said: “We were under some heavy enemy fire.

“We were suppressing the enemy. Then a rocket-propelled grenade came in and made an explosion and blew me off the roof. One of my lads was right in front of my face shouting man down. I was hanging off the roof by my arm, wedged in by my weapon system. I looked round and my platoon sergeant was behind me with complete shock on his face. Once I realised I was all right and everything was in the right place I jumped down.

“Me and my platoon sergeant had a laugh and I got back on the roof albeit with incoming fire still coming in but someone had to be up there to help my lads get through it, to identify the enemy and start putting rounds down.”

He admits his parents and wife, Jen, find it hard when he is away. He said: “It is never easy for them.

“In some ways it is harder for them than us because we know what is happening on the ground.

“All they see is on the news — British soldier killed or hurt and they don’t know who it is. We can’t ring home obviously to tell them it’s not us.”

Humbled by his riflemen - Lt Col Robert Thomson, CO 2 RIFLES

2009-10-30T17:47:00.004+04:30

Lieutenant Colonel Rob Thomson with Major Karim of the Afghan National Army

When we were told in 2008 that we would become the Battlegroup responsible for the town of Sangin and the Upper Sangin Valley, we were only too well aware of the challenge that lay ahead.

Having deployed each and every year over the last ten years, we had the right operational experience but there was not one iota of complacency as we headed out to Afghanistan on our toughest assignment yet.

We have a saying in the Battlegroup that one is only as good as the next operation so, as we grabbed our rifles, body armour and packs, we knew we would be called upon to strain every sinew over six hard months. We were not wrong.

Our area of operations, the patch, was about the same size as Dorset, approximately 2,225 km2, a massive area for a Battle Group numbering 1,100 soldiers; there were over 25 different cap badges represented in our ranks including the RAF and one sailor! A Company 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers joined the Battlegroup to make us five Companies strong.

The Battlegroup was focused on the town of Sangin which has a population of 20,000 people, all living on the equivalent of about $2 per day. Life for the Afghans is harsh. Most are farmers or bazaar stall holders. Electricity, while limited, is improving and water all comes out of a well.

But the people of Sangin are as clever and committed as anywhere else and are determined to build a future for their children, free from the Taliban and its horrific threats.

The threat this summer has been growing rapidly. The enemy knows he loses when he fights us openly so he has resorted to indiscriminate and lethal Improvised Explosive Devices (the infamous IED) which also kill and maim innocent locals.

So, the enemy has planted IEDs in a greater number than ever before, trying to restrict our movements. It has been a hard battle but the Riflemen have found more than 200 IEDs across the Area of Operations.

We have targeted the bomb-maker in his home and in his factory and when he is putting the IED in the ground.

Since the end of July, we managed to kill four IED teams who were laying IEDs. It is difficult to describe accurately the intensity of this fight. When on patrol, everyone is fixed on the job in hand. The Rifleman operating the VALLON metal detector literally holds the lives of his comrades in his hands.

One of My Riflemen has found 19 IEDs whilst on patrol. This extraordinary job is made more difficult by the heat (temperatures have been above 40 for most of our tour) and the weight we all carry (most hump over 40 kilograms around on their back when on patrol). It is not a job for the faint-hearted.

Furthest to my north was I Company at Kajaki Dam, a stunningly beautiful and striking place, but one which harboured a lethal enemy.

I Company faced a largely conventional fight to keep the enemy from the strategically important dam that delivers electricity to the entire Upper Sangin Valley.

Coming south and only seven kilometres north of the Sangin District Centre, home to the District Governor, is Forward Operating Base Inkerman, home to the men and women of B Company. FOB Inkerman is critical to interdicting the routes of the enemy as they try to infiltrate into Sangin from the enemy bases in the Upper Sangin Valley.

B Company has fought fiercely with a tenacious enemy who combine improvised explosives with small arms fire ambushes.

Sangin DC and the town centre was protected by A Company, the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police, all based out of FOB Jackson, which sits on the banks of the wide-flowing Helmand River.

Here, military operations seek to protect the people and prevent the enemy from getting its grip on the town centre.

A British Stabilisation Advisor works shoulder to shoulder with the Afghan District Governor, one of the local tribal elders, to improve the day to day lives of the Afghan people.

FOB Wishtan, just to the east of Sangin, where C Company lived, guards the eastern approaches to Sangin. Like the rest of Sangin, it is a place strewn with IEDs and all movement is dangerous. We have been fighting a battle of wills with the enemy here and gradually we have been able to increase our control of the area and our freedom of movement.

Finally, FOB Nolay, my most southern base, guards the southern route into Sangin, vital to our own resupply but also provides a commercial lifeline for the bazaar in Sangin.

Conditions have been refreshingly basic (austere is the posh word). There are no soft mattresses, no hot showers for the mornings or nights, the most basic toilets you've ever seen and very little fresh rations. But one gets used to a simple and basic existence very quickly.

The heat was the hardest thing to get used to - one could never drink enough and I am not sure I need to eat pasta for a while!

But the true test is whether we have left Sangin a better place. For me, progress in Sangin has not been dramatic but we have moved forward, indelibly so. We will definitely leave Sangin in a better state then when we found it.

Security in the heart of the town has improved, based on new Police Checkpoints and an increase in police numbers.

Afghan Governance has also improved as District Governor Fazil Haq has moved out of the FOB and now works from his offices in the secure Governance zone, protected by Afghan security forces.

A Mayor has been appointed - a first for Sangin - who will pick up some of those unenviable bureaucratic responsibilities which make local government work. The bazaar has got bigger under a sponsored regeneration scheme.

One hundred new stalls were added in June and more are planned. The Afghan Army opened a new Patrol Base which has reduced the enemy's freedom to operate. And the enemy has come off second best on countless occasions.

There are too many tales of heroism to tell here but if you want to know more, come and ask.

All of this has not been without a heavy cost. The Battlegroup has lost 24 soldiers killed in action, 13 of them Riflemen from 2 Rifles, and more than 80 soldiers have been wounded in action.

We will never forget the sacrifice made by those who have given their lives and we are holding their families close. The wounded are in the best of care and have got the strength of character and determination to fight back - we will be in close support.

The commitment, courage and sheer grit of every man in the Battle Group has been humbling.

In extraordinary times, extraordinary men and women have day in, day out done extraordinary things for the good of our Nation and for the benefit of the impoverished people of Afghanistan.

Some as young as 18 have taken the fight to the enemy in some of the most arduous and demanding situations faced by British soldiers for a generation.

That they have retained their sense of humour and sanity is, to me, quite remarkable. You would not believe me, but we have faced donkey-borne IEDs - it fell off and the donkey sat on it with inevitable consequences.

So, as we come home to those we love dearly, our first thoughts and prayers are for those families who will not be able to wrap their arms around a loved one because he has gone.

But they would be the first to say, 'thank you for holding the baton high, now go and rest.

We will celebrate our return - the noise will, I am sure, be heard, far and wide, but we will also remember the sacrifice and the courage of every man and woman in this extraordinary Battle Group.

4 RIFLES CO reflects on OP HERRICK 10

2009-10-26T23:32:00.002+04:30

Lt Col Rupert Jones
CO 4 RIFLES

AS THE Election Support Force elements of 4 RIFLES prepare to fly home, and A Company start their Afghanistan commitment, we can reflect on a period of achievement and uncertainty.

The Riflemen operated in the Nad e-Ali District in the extreme south of the UK area of operations in Helmand Province. ISAF moved into the area for the first time late last year, so it is still in the early stages of development and the insurgent threat remains high. The Riflemen faced a constant and debilitating threat from Improvised Explosive Devices and operated, in the main, in austere locations living a very basic existence.

B Company operated very much alone, working through the difficult summer to keep the insurgents at bay and protect the ISAF push into Babaji to their north. Progress was deliberate and steady, but in the last month a number of local national families who had moved into the desert for security have started returning home.

While there are many reasons for their return, they would not have done so if they did not feel that the security situation was improving. This is a legacy that the Riflemen can be proud of - small steps, but ultimately it is the local population who will decide the success of this campaign and it is they who are the real judges of security and progress.

These are early days in Nad e-Ali District, but the Riflemen have set the area up for further development.

As ever, our return will be tinged with sadness for those who are not with us and their families - LCpl Taran Cheeseman who tragically died of cancer early in the tour and Rifleman Daniel Hume killed in July. We all look forward to seeing our seriously injured brother Riflemen, for whom life will never be the same. Our homecoming in Bulford will bring a mixture of joy, pride, relief and sadness, but the Riflemen know that with the support of our families that they have done a great job.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Thomson, commanding officer of 2 RIFLES

2009-10-13T15:37:00.002+04:30

Britain's success in Afghanistan is measured in small steps

Better security, a health post, more schools – you know of the sacrifices, but let me tell you about the real progress

Both parents were inconsolable. They stood at the front gate of my patrol base in Wishtan, Sangin, and pleaded for help to find their child. We could give no satisfaction — their six-year-old daughter had stood on a Taleban pressure-pad IED (improvised explosive device); there was nothing left of the poor child. The parents continued to plead — a small part of her broken body would suffice. They had to have something to bury. The 2 Rifles Battle Group know about grief: we have seen friends killed but we had at least been able to salute a coffin. With the heaviest of hearts, my riflemen watched helpless as those heartbroken parents returned home to mourn the loss of a Muslim child who could not be buried.

It is this kind of IED that has been the Taleban’s indiscriminate and careless weapon of choice in the Upper Sangin Valley this summer. I have seen too many Afghans fighting for their lives in my trauma bay. As a battle group, 2 Rifles has dealt with more than 400 IED incidents in our six months here, finding more than 200 devices.

In my first tour of Northern Ireland in 1991-92, my platoon dealt with four IED incidents. We had nine platoons in the battalion then, so perhaps my commanding officer at the time had to deal with 36. These statistics provide some notion of the scale of the fight. One more will suffice — last year in the same period, there were 158 incidents.

And it is in the face of such adversity and such an insidious enemy, which adjusts its tactics almost weekly, that the courageous men and women of this battle group have fought. It is hard to describe the courage required to operate at all, let alone leave one’s base and take the fight to the enemy. But the riflemen and fusiliers of this battle group have patrolled Sangin and its immediate area daily to protect its people. The commitment, grit and indomitability have been humbling to observe.

The heavy cost has been recorded and rightly so — we will never forget the sacrifice made here this summer, and the hole each fallen rifleman has left behind in this battle group is enormous. I remember gathering my officers together to tell them that one of our platoon commanders had been killed. My leaders needed to know before everyone else so they could grieve briefly and be ready to lead their riflemen back out that day.

I remember telling a tough bunch of sappers late one night after they had come off the ground that the man who made them laugh the most had not made it. The cost is perhaps clearer to our country this summer than at any other time and I am grateful to the bottom of my boots for the support we have had from all corners of our nation.

But what has not been so well told by the media is the progress we have made here. The enemy has been hurt hard here in Sangin. Many of its fighters have died at our hands. We have disrupted its IED networks and are maintaining pressure on the bombers at every opportunity. We have removed four active IED teams, permanently, and the gratitude of the Sanginites was palpable.

Yet this campaign is not an attritional one; that is not the route to progress. As soldiers, we have to provide sufficient security to enable Haji Faisal Haq, the district governor, to do his job. His area, just outside the forward operating base , is now secure. He works there daily and is much more accessible to the people of Sangin. The numbers of police have increased.

We have built new police checkpoints in the bazaar and more are planned. As a result, Taleban physical intimidation has ceased and attacks have reduced. People can go about their lives with a touch more freedom. We have opened a small health post, the first government-sponsored public health provision in Sangin. And the bazaar has got bigger. It is definitely not Bluewater but an extra 100 stalls make a real difference.

As commanding officer, I spend as much time discussing reopening the schools (banned by the Taleban in a country fiercely proud of its tradition of learning) as I do where next to go and prove to enemies that they are not invulnerable. And we have done all this while fighting shoulder to shoulder with some very tough Afghan soldiers and policemen who become more capable each month.

All of this would be worthless if Sangin was unimportant. But Sangin is important and has a significance at the provincial, regional and national level. The town is a political centre with reach to Kabul; the tapestry of tribes here in the upper Sangin Valley has an echo in Kabul. Its market, which supplies the whole of the upper Sangin Valley, is a vital commercial centre. For the drug barons, Sangin is a gateway that helps to fund the Taleban and their terrorism. And the Taleban use Sangin as a route along which to infiltrate fighters, IEDs and technology further south into Helmand. The Taleban will continue to fight us here in the coming months. As a result, our work has been not just important and urgent but full of purpose.

Success has not been glamorous — as soldiers in Sangin, we talk of edging forward, taking small but essential steps in the right direction. This battle is not one we have lost nor are we losing. There is much to do but as I take my gang of extraordinary men and women home, I know that the baton in Sangin has not been dropped (nor is it likely to be) and we have played our part in the security challenge of our generation that, for the UK and this region, we must tackle. And, in a small way, we have helped to improve the lives of impoverished Afghans of Sangin. It has been the campaign of our lives.

Maj Rupert Follett, 2 RIFLES BG, FOB Wishtan

2009-09-23T15:10:00.000+04:30

Update from Forward Operating Base Wishtan – 23rd September

The end of the tour is almost in sight, the days are ticking by and our replacements have started to arrive. The new Royal Engineer section has now been here for over a week, new signallers arrived today and the first man from 1 SCOTS is in and getting used to his new surroundings. All our replacements will receive a thorough handover during the coming few weeks, so that they are prepared for the challenges of living and operating in Wishtan. The R and R window has now closed so the FOB is as full as it has been for months.

Operationally there is no let up and the tempo remains high. 5 Pl under Lt Parry and Sjt Clark deployed on a 4 day expeditionary patrol and worked closely with the Afghan National Army with great results. C Company are now a routine presence in the Sangin Wadi, which is one of the main arterial routes into Sangin District Centre. We patrol to extend ISAF influence, deter insurgent activity and reassure the locals.

9 Pl under 2Lt Little and Cpl Scott recently deployed to Patrol Base Chakaw and will remain there until the end of the tour. Sjt Moncho has remained in the FOB to conduct the G4 handover and has his hands full accounting for kit and equipment. We have said goodbye to Sjt Heng who was the previous G4 stores account holder, he has finished his tour and has headed back to 7 Rifles.

Election day is now a month ago and we still feel the tragic loss of Pte Young YORKS and Sjt McAleese who were killed that awful day. Now that we have BFBS television and internet we have been able to watch some of the coverage surrounding their deaths and their funerals, all of our hearts go out to their families and friends.

C Company also feel the loss of Sjt McGrath, killed in action recently near FOB Keenan. He was our Mortar Fire Controller in FOB Gibraltar before the Company moved to Wishtan and again our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

We have had the RSM patrol up from FOB Jackson to spend a few days with us. It was good to see him and he helped to reconstruct our outdoor gym. Sideburns have noticeably lengthened since he went back to FOB Jackson! On a lighter note the Company Serjeant Major, WO2 Thompson, continues to play the same tracks from ‘The Wurzels’ greatest hits every night. Cpl Rowley has just returned from Bastion, where he managed to squeeze a morning’s work into 5 days as he checked the signals account. The Pharmacy Road Cricket Club has been formed, 2Lt Hilliard fashioned a bat from a piece of wood, a pole from a cot bed and a lot of black nasty tape. Regrettably on the very first ball delivered by our Doctor – Capt Cranley, 2Lt Hilliard’s enthusiasm got the better of him, as an Australian he was probably trying to win back the Ashes, and he smashed the ball over the perimeter wall. No one has yet been brave enough or daft enough to go and retrieve it. It is hoped that a game against the Salamanca Cricket Club founded by Lt Horsfall when he was in Patrol Base Chakaw can be arranged.

We are all looking forward to coming home as it has been a long and brutal slog. The number of Riflemen sun bathing in any spare moment has increased, in an effort to look suntanned and interesting for our return. I cannot finish without mentioning all the welfare parcels and mail we have received throughout the tour. It has been overwhelming and really does make a marked difference to morale, so huge thanks to everybody who has supported us.

With best wishes

Major Rupert Follett
Officer Commanding FOB Wishtan.

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 19

2009-09-01T01:25:00.000+04:30

Greetings friends and readers at the Marwood, Worcester!

This will be my last blog for a few weeks as I will soon be going home for some rest, I hope to see some of you in person as I will make a visit to the Marwood on my return.

This week the theme, if such a thing exists with my ramblings, is departures. We have all seen the news and know of the great losses sustained in the fierce fighting here. What is less publicised is the soldiers who return home injured or at there end of tour, both of which deserve attention and recognition for different reasons.
For those injured soldiers the road to recovery may be a long and painful process and we must guard against not including them as the friends and comrades that they are.

This is difficult as the pace of operation’s here continues and on return the drive to restart lives put on hold is intense. For some seeing again the injured and the results of such injuries can be a traumatic process that will force them to relive moments that will have been buried deep. Individuals will deal with this in different ways and I for one will not judge any man who finds meeting casualties again too much.

After our previous tour I made a few visits to the Forces rehabilitation centre at Hedley Court. I was struck by a number of things but mostly the quantity of the casualties and their absolute refusal to be defeated by the injuries inflicted upon them. It sounds like a cliché to say that I was humbled by these soldiers, but I was and I still am.

If the pictures on the news of the crowds at Wooten Basset teach us one thing, it is that soldiers will always be soldiers, regardless of when their service ends and indeed for what reason. I sat here and watched with my colleagues the pictures as the hearses drove through the town. For us who serve here this was an emotional time as we had seen these men on to the plane that would take them home and then they were there, in the spotlight of the world media for all to see and acknowledge.

I must admit that a small part of me did not want to see this, as if by avoiding it the truth would be somewhat diminished and some of the shock dispersed. Alongside the well wishers and the general public were soldiers old and new, some of whom will have tasted the bitterness of loss and the sadness of seeing good friends injured in the line of duty.

We as a Battalion have sent many friends home, some of whom will take many months to recover if they can at all. I speak of people like Major Stuart Hill one of the Company Commanders who was injured badly in the incident that took the life of Private Robbie Laws. He is now in a fight of a different kind as he must now try to climb the mountain of recovery which is set before him. He will do this in the same way that he conducted himself here, with pride, dignity and the tenacity that befits an Infantry soldier.

We have also sent friends home who have completed their time with us and in doing so have built strong bonds that have been tested to the limit in a place that does not support petty unit differences or minor grudges. In this case I speak of people like Colour Sergeant Al Dunn, who has got to be the angriest man I have had the pleasure of meeting. Al came to us with the Company from the 3rd Battalion the Royal Scottish Regiment and was given to us to be a Company Quartermaster Sergeant. This task involves ensuring that men and material get to the right place at the right time and is as difficult a task as it is critical.

Al while being angry secretly possessed a heart of gold that was well hidden, but not unseen beneath a gruff archetypal Scottish exterior. Indeed I recall vividly him enjoying himself greatly with us all as he sat and enjoyed the feast we had on St Georges day, surrounded by Englishmen as if he was born to be there!
To Al and others who will be gone by the time I return from leave I wish only the best of luck and if there is any justice we will meet again near a bar so I can secure the pint that he owes me.

In all of this I am reminded that departures can be the saddest of times but on reflection they can be the foundation on which great memories are made. We are given over in this life to make many partings some of which will inspire us, some of which will rend our hearts in two. Experience of such comings and goings are the fabric by which we make the backgrounds for our life, they bring meaning and substance to the ebb and flow of all that we are and as such we must embrace the opportunity to keep moving forward while fixing an eye on those of whom we have left behind.

Soon I will be amongst my family and friends and it will be strange for some time to not wake up and go through the routine of my day here, for a time I will miss my friends that continue on in my absence but I will rejoin them soon enough.
For the time being readers be careful, be safe and remember to live in the now. I will leave you with a short poem I wrote after watching the repatriations of so many of our number that to recall it brings me sadness.

REPECT AND HONOUR

The villagers of Wooten Bassett stood,
As the hearses all went by.
Above the sky had opened,
As if the clouds themselves did cry.
Old and young stood silent,
As they thought about the cost,
While families of fallen men grieved from sudden loss.
Meanwhile several hours ahead and a thousand miles away,
The fallen soldier’s comrades had seen out another day.
Another day of fighting in this distant brutal land,
Another day of being the line drawn in the sand.
Soon the fallen soldiers name will be chiselled into a wall,
Please remember not the statue,
Remember,
All gave some, some gave all.

FCO Blogger: Lisa Bandari - Waiting for the election results

2009-08-27T00:29:00.002+04:30

Lisa Bandari
First Secretary Political, Kabul

We, like everyone in Afghanistan, are in suspense, waiting for the election results. I attended the first of the long-awaited IEC press conferences on Tuesday 25 August, to announce the first 10% of results for the presidential elections. Everyone was there, from journalists to researchers, to election observers and diplomats. The atmosphere was buzzing, with journalists deep in conversations with contacts at the corners of the room before the conference started, and everyone comparing notes so far.

We all eagerly scribbled down the figures when they finally arrived, in Dari and English, checking with each other on decimal points and provinces. Journalists were the first to start calculating what they might mean for the overall turnout and result, ready for release on the wires - although it remains guesswork at this stage.

Earlier this week I visited the National Tally Centre, where all the results from the provinces are being collated. Beneath an imposing looking hangar in the IEC compound is an impressive data entry centre, with lots of young people sitting at computer screens tapping away at keyboards. I chatted to a couple of the candidate agents observing in the gallery section, and asked them where the results had come in from, and whether any had been quarantined. After one candidate agent moved the conversation on to Iranian pop music, I beat a hasty retreat.

I’ve just been looking at the new website www.iec.org.af/results, with an attractive interactive map, but again, just not quite enough information to draw conclusions on the overall results. I and my colleagues will continue to follow the results through the IEC website and their press conferences - the crawl up the hill to the Intercontinental for those is made up for by its striking views over Kabul.

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 18

2009-08-09T23:46:00.002+04:30

This week I will be short with my letters as we have been struck once again by the loss of one of our Mercian brothers. As you will have seen in the news we are currently engaged with the insurgent forces on many fronts, as we seek to deprive him of his last hiding places in the wider Helmand Province.

Be in no doubt that we are in the fight of our generation, the future of this place will be decided in part by what we do now. In such times we live that young men will give all and in doing so sacrifice their precious futures.

On the news they will show impressive graphic projections and they will discuss the merits of one vehicle against another until you the supporters of the Regiment are confused or disillusioned. Allow me if I may to make things very simple, the fight we are in is to dominate key ground, this ground has been the home of insurgents, bandits and drug lords for some time and if we are to proceed with our mission of bringing peace we must remove these men and replace them with stability and law.

Key terrain like this can only be taken by soldiers making the hard yards on the
ground. For these men their world is what they can see in the front of them as they fight metre for metre with a ruthless cunning and determined enemy. With a sweep of his or her arm the news presenter will allude to the ground being covered and taken, the reality of which is that every metre will be paid for with blood sweat and brute force.

This is nothing new and Infantry soldiers have done the same thing since records began, that is why they exist and are so very much in demand here, where ground that is not held by force will be occupied and subjected to the lawlessness of insurgents and violent men.

At the beginning of the tour in an interview I was asked what I thought of the troubled times that may be ahead. My answer is the same now as it was then, your Mercian Soldiers and their colleagues from many fine Regiments will be more than the match for those who believe we will be forced to leave here in ignominy and defeat. Despite the cost we will become stronger as your soldiers become tempered like steel in the Helmand fire.

As a soldier not currently near the fighting I take little credit for the bravery, fortitude and sheer tenacity of those who are fighting in this our greatest endeavour. They have my greatest respect as I am sure they do yours.

To finish this weeks short letter I would urge you to continue your support of your troops here and if you have a quiet moment in your hectic lives spare a thought for the young men and their families for whom the world is in darkness. I have written a short poem that gives voice to some of my thoughts at this time.

DUTY DONE
A makeshift cross on broken soil,
The final marking of the soldiers toil.
Gone to serve at General Command,
In a distant, unforgiving land.
A place where death and danger walks,
Among the ripened poppy stalks,
And on that final, fateful day,
The enemy stole his life away.
They took his future, but not his past,
Among his friends it will always last.
At home the grieving has just begun,
For a grieving mother for her fallen son.
Many will stop and question why,
This young many should early die.
Beside the arguments and great debates,
The soldier died beside his mates.
As all that’s left when the enemy attack,
Is the friend behind you, watching your back.

Until next week be careful be safe and be good to one another.

Part 2 - Op Panther's Claw: Lt Col Stephen Cartwright, CO Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland

2009-07-28T02:48:00.005+04:30

The final air assault and armoured thrust - 20-27 July 2009

It seemed apt that, having been involved at the very start of the British strike in Babaji, we should be allowed to take part its finale. Once again, we were given enough Chinooks to lift the aviation element of the Battlegroup in a single wave. As with our first battlegroup operation, the key lay in surprising the insurgents.

“The Battlegroup for this operation consisted of Alpha (Grenadier) Company, 3 SCOTS, C Company, 2 R WELSH mounted in Warrior fighting vehicles (their role mentioned above) and Assaye Squadron, Light Dragoons, in armoured recce vehicles; 500 personnel and 60 vehicles.

A Company swooped on the target area by Chinook, Charlie Company led an armoured punch in through the Green Zone (the first of its kind) from the east using Warrior armoured fighting vehicles. They were joined by Assaye Squadron. Our logistics tail followed up in Mastiff troop carriers and armoured trucks.

It became immediately clear that the Brigade plan had been a huge success. The isolation of the area and the success of the Light Dragoon Battlegroup’s battle in the North East had taken its toll against the insurgent. Both the aviation assault and armoured manoeuvre avoided the expected IED screen and the remaining insurgents realised that they were completely overmatched by the combat power and melted into the ‘Green Zone’.

The local population was initially cautious but slowly they realised that ISAF intended to stay in the area for good and became very helpful. In turn, we provided our doctor to start conducting medical clinics. The Light Dragoons even organised a football afternoon which attracted 30 youngsters.

Further to the west in our operational area, A Company was dominating the insurgents’ old ground. Shuras were arranged quickly and the relationships are developing well. The insurgents mounted a lame attack on the night of 24th July but they were quickly overwhelmed by the A Company. C Company did a fantastic job of clearing a supply route north, linking us up to the Luy Mandah Wadi that the Battlegroup seized at the start of the operation. They found several IEDs laid waiting for them, which their attached bomb disposal officers destroyed in situ.

Tragically, our luck ran out on 25th July when my Fire Support Group, who had re-inserted into the area in Jackal vehicles, hit an IED. One soldier was killed and several others wounded. Another IED also caused injuries. The Fire Support Group had been searching for potential polling station locations for the Presidential elections, underlining stark contrast between the aims of the Battlegroup and the insurgents’ aims in the area.

Throughout the next 48 hours it became clear that there were insurgent IED teams operating in the area and several inadvertently killed themselves whilst laying devices. A Company continued to dominate the ground, understand the locals’ concerns and kill insurgents, wherever they could find them. The Battlegroup extracted by vehicle and Chinook early on 27th July.

It has been an immense operation; emotionally and physically exhausting but exhilarating at the same time. As the Regional Battlegroup (South), I am delighted that 3 SCOTS have contributed so much to 19 (Light) Brigade’s Panther’s Claw. I am certain that everyone in the Battlegroup will look back in a few years to an extraordinary operation when we did our jobs in the most demanding environment.

The main factor of the success has been team work from the lowest infantry section to the whole Brigade.

I am very proud of my jocks, gunners, sappers, redcaps and signallers. Their contribution to the UK’s summer offensive has been outstanding. The Battlegroup’s attention now turns to other operations in Southern Afghanistan but we will never forget those that they gave their lives during this one.

Major Nigel Crewe-Read, OC C Coy, 2 Royal Welsh

2009-07-28T02:28:00.003+04:30

The armoured thrust through Babiji 20 – 25 JULY

Accompanied by artillery from 52 (Niagara) Battery Royal Artillery, Engineers from 11 Field Squadron Royal Engineers, IED clearance teams, and military civilian reconstruction teams, we conducted a swift night move from Bastion to Forward Operating Base Price. As dawn came the Company was escorted down through the areas that had been liberated from the Taliban. It was obvious that there had been quite a fight to achieve the earlier goals of Panther’s Claw.

Crossing the line of departure, everyone was braced for what could be a very bloody fight. Breaking off the main track to avoid IEDs, the Warriors began to move into the Helmand Green Zone. This was the first time Warriors had ever actually been taken into the complex terrain of the Green Zone which consists of many irrigation ditches, flooded fields, and sprawling compounds. Not easy terrain for 36 tonnes of armour to cross without becoming stuck.

The lead platoon scouted a route ahead with the rest of the Company following behind. Engineer support was integral to the Company and proved useful in fording many of the ditches. Combat aircraft, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Attack Helicopters coordinated by the Artillery provided air cover and overwatch as the Company swept forward.

The first objective, the village of Tabella, was reached at midday and the Company formed up into assault formation. The time for the assault came and the Warriors surged forward across the open bazaar onto the objective. Meeting no enemy resistance, we dismounted from our vehicles and began to sweep through the village to check it was clear of insurgents. Conducting a thorough clearance took time, but by 1700, the village was deemed to be clear of insurgents. A local shura was then conducted with local Afghans to reassure them of ISAF’s good intentions and that ISAF would remain in the area to provide security for them.

At 0600 on the second day, 21 Jul, the clearance of the next village, Bahloy Kalay, started. This was an even bigger objective to clear than the previous village. Three platoons were tasked with this, and they made good progress through the intense heat of the Afghan day. Local Afghans greeted us and proved very friendly offering us refreshments, as well as passing us information and even lending a helping hand to repair a broken down Warrior. By evening the village was clear of enemy fighters and a further 92 compounds had been cleared. Again, a shura was held at 1630 to reassure locals of ISAF intentions.

At 0530 on 22 July, the Company handed over the secured villages to the Light Dragoons battlegroup and moved to clear a route from those villages up to the Welsh Guards Battlegroup in the North West. The Company moved down to a vast cemetery and then turned north to clear the route.

Progress was measured as the Company moved forward with dismounted patrols providing flank security, the IED clearance team working flat out, Engineers providing essential support to cross large irrigation ditches, and the Artillery coordinating the air cover. After a day of hard work the Company paused overnight in a defensive position and then moved forward again at 0500 on 23 Jul. Progress continued to be made and by 1800, the Company had reached the Welsh Guards Battlegroup, linking the two Battlegroups together.

Overall, although the operation had not involved any fighting, it was a great success. Locals stated that the Taliban had run away as soon as they saw the Warriors coming. A total of 198 compounds had been secured, 12 kms of Green Zone had been crossed in heavy armoured vehicles, and the area had been cleared of armed Taliban fighters, allowing the Government of Afghanistan’s influence to begin in this area which had once been the heartland of insurgent resistance.

Op Panther's Claw: Lt Col Gus Fair DSO, Commanding Officer of The Light Dragoons

2009-07-28T02:21:00.004+04:30

The sweep across Spin Masjed and Babiji 4-8 Jul and 10-14 Jul 09

The clearance of Malgir and Babaji was one of the final phases of Op Panchai Palang and was very much dependant on the hard work put in across the rest of the Brigade. Having effectively sealed off the Green Zone, with the Welsh Guards blocking the West, the Danes the North and the East, and A squadron of Light Dragoons the south, The Light Dragoons Battle Group was tasked to clear the Green Zone of Taliban and free the local people from their intimidation and brutality.

This we have done. The Battlegroup broke in through a bridgehead secured by the Danish Battlegroup and fought its way South through determined enemy resistance. We subsequently cleared our way west, and have now cleared the enemy from Malgir and Babaji.

This was the most intense fighting over a protracted period I have experienced in my 20 years in the Army. The men, women and equipment delivered more than we had any right to expect. The conditions could barely have been more testing and I am humbled by the extraordinary bravery, determination and resilience that I witnessed from soldiers ranging from the young female medic who walked every inch of the way to the 49-year-old TA WO2 (Territorial Army Warrant Officer Class two) who ran a sniper team.

As a result of this operation many more Afghans are now living under the control of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan; people who were previously subject to the rule of the Taliban. They can now live without the fear of the Taliban visiting in the middle of the night; they have the freedom to vote in next month’s elections; the chance to look forward to enjoying some of the rights and privileges that we are lucky enough to take for granted.

Progress such as this does not come for free, and we have paid a heavy price. The fierce fighting resulted in the deaths of Pte Laws 2 MERCIAN, LCpl Elson 1st Bn Welsh Guards, and LCpl Dennis and Tpr Whiteside from The Light Dragoons. 4 Afghan soldiers have also lost their lives fighting alongside us, and their commitment and dedication to their country’s future should not be underestimated. The cost on the enemy should also not go unreported; we have comprehensively defeated the Taliban wherever we have found him, and his losses have been far in excess of ours.

Some will ask whether the progress is worth the cost. I can answer for everyone in my battlegroup when I answer with a resounding yes. At the beginning of this tour, the battlegroup deployed to Garmsir, now under command of the US Marines. Many of the soldiers had fought there in 2007 as we battled the Taliban for control of the District Centre. The progress we saw there was remarkable. Where we had once fought in a deserted and ruined town, there is now a burgeoning market and people able to go about their day to day lives in peace. Wheat was being grown instead of poppy, and the people were able to determine their own future independent of either ISAF or Taliban control.

That progress is achievable in Babaji and Malgir, and already we are seeing people attending shuras with both ISAF and the local governance. However, the Taliban recognise the threat, and progress will not come without the continued efforts of the soldiers under my command and those that replace them. Some of them will give up their lives to achieve this, as will some Afghans we fight alongside, but we know that we owe it to those killed and injured over the last month, the people who we have liberated with the promise of a better life, and the people in the UK whose way of life we seek to defend, to ensure that we do not fail.

Op Panthers Claw: Colonel Frank Lissner, Commanding Officer of the Danish Battlegroup

2009-07-28T01:36:00.002+04:30

Siezing the entry crossings along the Nahr E Bughra Canal - 2 and 8 July 2009

Our role in Operation Panchai Palang was to seize two of the crossing points along the Nahr e Bughra to allow the Light Dragoons Battlegroup to enter an area which was under the de facto control of the insurgents.

Prior to Panchai Palang, the insurgents in the region have skillfully and determinedly resisted any attempt by the Danish Battle Group to patrol in the area; both through fierce fighting and extensive use of improvised explosive devices, blocking all access points into the area. It had become a safe haven for the insurgents from where they launched attacks on both local Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) checkpoints and objectives in Gereshk.

Soldiers from Battle Group Center have, for the last year, both risked and lost lives patrolling in and around the operations area, and the Battle Group therefore very much welcomes the developments on the ground brought about by Panchai Palang.

This operation could indeed turn out to be the beginning of the end for the insurgents in Central Helmand.

Following the cessation of fighting in the northern areas, most of the local population has now returned to their homes and have welcomed the ISAF forces in the area. Our task is now to assure enduring security within the area assisted by ANSF, local key leaders and the population.

Operation Panther's Claw: Lt Col Doug Chalmers, CO 1st Battalion of the Welsh Guards

2009-07-28T00:29:00.004+04:30

The Push up the Shamalan Canal - 25 June - 25 July 2009

Our battalion has responsibility for Battle Group Centre South which means we are responsible for the districts of Nad-E-Ali and Lashkah-Gar. HERRICK 10 has seen the area under the Government of Afghanistan’s control within these districts grow considerably.

Very early on in the tour a large ANA led Operation pushed the insurgents out of a town called Basharan and then kept them out. After a couple of days of fierce fighting the village was secured and has gone from strength to strength ever since. There is an increasing air of confidence in the village as they regain a sense of normality.

Within Nad-E-Ali District Centre the bazaar has continued to grow, with new shops opening every month. The residents, although still wary, have gained a degree of confidence in their future. They now believe us when we say that we are here to stay. Outside of the District Centre there is insurgent activity but it is been mitigated by joint ANA, ANP and ISAF patrols. The fact that the farmers continue to work their fields and deliver a considerable amount of produce that includes vegetables and melons, indicates that they too have sufficient confidence to stay and work their land.

Less than a month ago in one of the opening moves of Operation PANTHERS CLAW the ANP, assisted by the Prince of Wales’s Company, moved rapidly north and secured the town of Chah-E-Anjir. This is a large town that had effectively been under siege for over a year. The population is slowly gaining in confidence and we are starting to see the number of shops increase along with the variety of items for sale. It is early days but in several months it is likely to be at the same stage as the District Centre is today.

More recently the Battle Group fought up the Shamalan Canal to secure key crossings and prevent more insurgents flowing into the Babiji area. This has worked and at the moment the farmers that work around these check points have returned to their fields and started to interact with the ANA and ISAF Soldiers on the Canal.

These significant gains have been secured at a high cost in terms of lives and injuries to the Battle Group. But the sense of achievement is palpable and this does make the sacrifices easier to bear. We are now focused on deepening the confidence of the local residents in the areas that we have secured. They deserve a chance and we are giving it to them.

Operation Panther's Claw: Lt Col Stephen Cartwright, CO of The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland

2009-07-27T23:04:00.007+04:30

Operation Claw

First air assualt into key drugs bazaar - 20 June 2009

The Battlegroup was privileged to be given the task of breaking into the Babaji area at the start of Operation Panther’s Claw. We knew the enemy had laid an IED screen to the north of the area so I decided to launch an audacious air assault of 2 aviation strike companies behind the insurgent forward defences.

To achieve tactical surprise, the Battlegroup used 10 Chinook helicopters and inserted 350 men at 3.30 am on 20 June in one wave. It was very successful and we had occupied defensive positions of our own by first light. The remainder of the Battlegroup, in armoured and wheeled vehicles, approached from the north to link up. However, the enemy were watching us and began their assaults from 7am targeting our positions with a mixture of small arms fire (SAF) and rocket propelled grenades (RPG).

These initial attacks delayed our link up but we consolidated our positions and defeated the enemy with our ability to overmatch their weapon systems. Our snipers were particularly effective in these early hours, although we did require support from guided rockets and attack helicopters. B Company to the West secured the compounds that dominated the wadi crossing and A Company to the East cleared the drugs bazaar of 15 IEDs whilst under harassing fire.

It was during this operation that an ANA soldier, Wahid, was tragically killed by an IED as the Company cleared to the extremities of the bazaar. Lance Corporal Stacey Quinn, a medic, was first on the scene, but despite her best efforts he died shortly after the explosion. Despite this setback, we successfully brought in our armoured vehicles, our logistics and the engineer equipment required to build the force protection. The aviation assault was supported by fast air, command helicopters and UAVs and given its complexity was an overwhelming tactical success.

For the next four days we consolidated our bridgehead into the insurgent held territory and pushed them further to the south. The Royal Engineers built a protective ‘Hesco’ Bastion wall across the wadi to control the population and to prevent the insurgents from escaping to the North. It was quickly nicknamed ‘Hadrian’s Wall’. B Company began to establish their operating base by building up the fortifications. Sporadic attacks continued every day and although we were in a defensive posture, the companies pushed forward with aggressive patrols to afford us the initiative that is so vital for a defensive battle.

On the second night, up to 30 insurgents assaulted A Company in the bazaar but were beaten back after a 2-hour engagement. A conservative estimate would suggest that over half of their force was killed in this engagement alone.”

C Company, in their Jackal vehicles, pushed to the West and seized the top of the Shamalan Canal in preparation for the link up with the Welsh Guards. They too had to deal with a determined and persistent enemy who realised that they were losing their dominance of the area.

After the engineer work had been completed, the majority of the Battlegroup extracted to Bastion, leaving B Company to cover the whole area with their 180 personnel. They dominated the area, constantly keeping the enemy on the back foot and won every engagement. More importantly they starting engaging with the local nationals to the north of the wadi and established positive dialogue with the aim of getting them to return to their homes as soon as the fighting had ceased. Our contribution ended when B Company handed over area to No 2 Coy Welsh Guards on 4 Jul.

Maj Iain Moodie, OC B Company, 2 RIFLES BG - blogs from Helmand, part 3

2009-07-21T15:26:00.000+04:30

JUNE UPDATE

The two principle subsistence harvests, of poppy and wheat, are now over. The maize is already a foot high and the fighting has resumed again in earnest. It is a cat and mouse game out there in the Green Zone, but fortunately, although the mice are dangerous, we mostly play the cat. Our patrols continue to disrupt the insurgents and constrain their freedom of movement. It all seems quite predictable. We leave as early as we can to try and beat the heat and the dickers who constantly watch our every move, relaying to the insurgents where we are and where we are heading.

Gradually, during the course of the morning, once the insurgents have completed their call to prayer by the local Imam and had breakfast, they find their weapons and make their way towards the patrol to get into position. Our patrol, in many ways, is a big block of cheese. Once they are confident that they are in a safe position, especially with adequate safe routes to extract, they open up on us with everything they have got. It is very difficult to see the insurgents before the contact because of the thickness of the vegetation, the numerous compounds and rat runs all provide ample cover from view.

At this stage, the mouse has the upper hand but not for long. Once the firing points have been located, the Company puts down a staggering amount of small arms fire which results in the suppression of their firing points. We then set about trapping the mouse with artillery and mortars, using aircraft and attack helicopters to search in depth. We close the trap of indirect fire and soon we are engaging directly onto their firing points. Occasionally, an insurgent will break and dart for a safer location, only to run into the Riflemen’s fire. The game is now well practised and routine.

Life in the FOB continues peacefully and we find respite in it from all the challenges and discomfort of patrols. It is a comfortable existence however R&R is now in full swing and we are doubling up duties in order to release our comrades for their much needed break. The task is not onerous with the knowledge that they will soon be repaying the favour. The rations continue to fill us and although we have not had any frozen food for 37 days now, we are all resigned to the fact that something or somewhere is a higher priority than us. We are just grateful that we are getting out for R&R. Our E-bluey machine has been a godsend during this period and although the parcels and other mail are taking their time reaching us, the written word is nearly immediate and much appreciated.

Fashion trends are beginning to emerge whilst we are out here. Not just the normal things like 70s-style moustaches and extra-long sideburns but others too. In particular, washbags are clearly a prized FOB accessory, but not just any washbag. They have to be re-cycled claymore anti-personnel mine bags. It is amusing to see the NCOs strutting to the showers with their claymore bags across their chests, like some metro-sexual man bag. There is also a pecking order to get access to this re-cycled equipment, with the NCOs having access to the claymore bags whilst the Riflemen have been seen using 5.56mm ammo containers for theirs.

Most of us have been subjected to a haircut since we have been here now. Mostly, we have tried to leave it as long as possible but the heat and sweat has meant that most have opted for a short crew-cut. Others have resisted and seem intent on doing so until R&R and so we have a few Art Garfunkel lookalikes cutting around. Whether they are resisting a poor cut or the dire hairdressers’ chat that goes with it is unconfirmed. I had my haircut by Cpl ‘Slick’ Alford, our Forward Air Controller, the other day and most of the time I was sat in the chair was spent listening to him natter to Gunner Kean, who spends most of his time in tanning oil and army issued underwear obscenely ‘tucked in’ to maximise exposure! Their mid-cut work chat is excruciatingly painful.

We are looking forward to 5 Platoon returning shortly to the B Company fold. They have been attached to A Company in Sangin and their return will be most welcome. We have watched with interest their progress in Sangin and their contribution to the security of the town has been great. After a short adjustment we will be united at last to take the fight to the insurgents in the Upper Sangin Valley .

Throughout all of this our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of Rfn Cyrus Thatcher and Lt Paul Mervis. In addition, we thrive on the spirit, guts and determination of the injured who are recovering exceptionally well in the excellent medical facilities in the UK.

Maj Iain Moodie, OC B Company

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 17

2009-07-20T01:36:00.002+04:30

On the 27th June the Nation has chosen to honour its Armed Forces with a day of there own, a move that is very welcome to those service personnel serving throughout the world including your soldiers here in Afghanistan.

Often I ask myself what it is that defines us as soldiers and what is it that marks us from the general public. For myself I grew up around soldiers and the military way of life and as such perhaps some of the mystique of service life is lost to me. That said now that I am serving here in a more logistic capacity I can see why people admire the actions of our troops, as I hear the recollections of fellow soldiers as they come back from the “sharp end”. Of course not everyone could or should be deployed forward and everyone out here fulfils a vital role, some of the people here will never receive the front page headlines but will never the less save lives in their quiet dedication to duty and these people are no less worthy of our admiration.

We certainly live in times where mistrust, fear and difficulty are part of every day life and I believe in these times people look for examples of the opposites of these problems so that they can lift themselves above the darkness. There are many examples of this from everyday life and service personnel are just one. It does us good to recognise the sacrifice and dedication of others no matter what they do, as it serves as a catalyst for us all to be better even in very small ways.

In a previous blog I mentioned Captain Brigham and Sergeant Mark Giles as they dealt with a large explosive device. In this weeks blog I would like to relate an incident they have recently been in as an example of the extraordinary courage and professionalism, with which your troops conduct themselves daily.

As no British soldiers were badly injured and thank God none were killed you would never normally hear of these events. I believe that this is a shame as the example set by these fighting men serve as a lasting record of all that we value in the Army. Courage under fire and leadership in adverse conditions cannot be taught and therefore the display of such qualities are worthy of recognition.

They OMLT team commanded by Captain Brigham and Sergeant Giles have recently moved to a location known simply as Patrol base (PB) south. The PB is situated in an area long dominated by insurgents, drug lords and bandits and is also key, as it dominates one of the main supply routes all of these groups use to move arms, munitions and other contraband. The PB itself is very basic providing little respite from the daily attentions of a determined insurgent force that is continually frustrated by the ISAF, ANA presence.

To cover every contact with the insurgents would take too long as this area has experienced more than 24 full engagements in just 21 days! Due to the situation they find themselves in, sitting and waiting for attacks is a fruitless endeavour so they must push out, or more accurately fight their way out of the Fob to continue to dominate the local key terrain. The proximity to their adversaries reminds me of a visit on a battle field tour to the fields of Belgium where at one point the front lines were so close that they could even hear the enemy talking and could quite easily see them as they tried to kill each other.

On the day in question Captain Brigham gave orders that the British troops and their ANA counterparts were to push out and patrol the area as a show of force and to reassure any locals that the insurgency are not the masters of this area.

Very soon after leaving the Fob the patrol was forced to cross open ground which is the reality of dominating key terrain. To say this in such a matter of fact way is to do these men an injustice, moving across ground known to be covered by insurgents with an array of weaponry is an act of courage in itself.

In the movies the soldiers saunter across the skyline, whistling and talk about home, reality is much more serious as men laden with equipment must mentally contend with the fact that any time they may be engaged from any direction, by insurgents who will fire from defended compounds that are difficult to identify and even more difficult to capture.

Not far in to the Patrol and the inevitable happens, the staccato ring and zip of small arms fire announces the insurgents intent to initiate the next round of hostilities. In an area so devoid of cover, each man does his best to make himself as small a target as possible and will seek even the smallest of covered areas to gain respite from attack. Captain Brigham and several soldiers manage to find a very small ridge and take the smallest of advantage from it, at this time little return fire is being made, as the patrol mindful of local innocent civilians will not fire until they can positively identify the insurgent position. This is in direct contrast to the insurgents who will initiate contact knowing civilians may be caught in the crossfire.

Very quickly basic skills and instincts take over and those lessons in why things are seen on the battlefield? Pay dividends. The insurgents are using a corner of a compound as a firing point and from there they are pouring a fair rate of fire into the open ground. Now that the insurgents are fixed, Captain Brigham urges his troops and the ANA present to return fire as this will be vital to any attempt to extract from what is known as the “killing area”.

Just minutes in to the engagement an ANA soldier just inches from Captain Brigham is shot, despite the danger of exposing himself to the accurate fire Captain Brigham attempts to save the mans life but unfortunately he dies right there on the ground. The Platoon Sergeant through all of this has been encouraging and marshalling his men, giving them the guidance and confidence that can only be gained from a leader who has the absolute trust of his men. Leadership in these situations is no longer an abstract concept; it is a combination of guts, training and a great belief in ones personal skills.

To assist in the extraction of the ANA soldier and in an attempt to break clear of the insurgent fire a B1 bomber is tasked to drop munitions on the compound used by the insurgents. Again every precaution is used to ensure that the use of such force is proportionate and necessary, however it is clear to Captain Brigham that more fatalities will result from inaction. The B1 drops a bomb on the compound which in itself is something to behold and makes the earth shake for miles around.

After a brief lull the insurgents begin to resume the engagement and are therefore subjected to a further attack from the bomber, this time it has the desired effect and the call sign begins to extract, this with heavy equipment and casualties is difficult and slow, but done methodically with the correct drills will save lives.

Not long into the extraction and disaster strikes again as an ANA soldier initiates an explosive device and is instantly killed. The bond between these soldiers and their mentors of the Mercian Regiment is such that the idea of leaving them on the battlefield despite the inherent danger is not even considered an option. Sergeant Giles once again takes the initiative and while his boss conducts the move out of contact, he conducts the removal of the fallen ANA soldiers. This is despite the fact that he was just meters from the explosion when it happened and was thrown a large distance only to be stopped by a wall.

The patrol eventually extracted and by virtue of their determination and grit, was able to get everyone out of the contact area. The sad loss of the two ANA soldiers was a blow to all but the insurgents were known to have been dealt a harsher blow that day.

What I have portrayed in this blog may sound like the script to a Hollywood movie, but it is a factual rendering of true events. This situation is not isolated and will happen many times to those who live, and are on the front line of the battle to secure a meaningful peace for the Afghan people.

As with most things in life that have true meaning, there is a cost, but when weighed against the eventual prize it is a cost worth paying. Freedom and all that it comes with is never free, but must be levied against the price of those who paid for it. Your soldiers in Afghanistan, once again in your name have epitomised the motto of the Mercian Regiment as they continue to

STAND FIRM STRIKE HARD

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 16

2009-07-14T16:02:00.001+04:30

Greetings friends and readers at the Marwood, Worcester!

Today we have received an influx of new soldiers fresh from the UK and soon they will be sent forward to join what will become their close friends and colleagues. In the history of learning curves this must rate up there with taking over a plane when the pilot is taken ill. You can tell that they are new both to the Army and particular to the theatre of Operations as they have the fixed expression of a rabbit caught firmly in the headlights.

In days gone by the Colours that are the standards of the Regiment and are gifted by the Royalty were paraded through the assembled ranks. This is so that they could be recognised and become a rally point is the fiercest of battles. Today the Colours are not present on the battlefield as they once were, but I believe the soldiers of the Regiment eventually become the embodiment of the Colours and what they mean to those who have served under them.

To see these young soldiers of the Mercian Regiment is comforting as we know that the future of the Regiment will ultimately rest with them. New recruits joining the Colours in difficult surroundings and circumstances is not a new thing, since the formation of the first Regiments young men have answered the call to arms and found themselves far away from home in strange, unfamiliar and dangerous surroundings.

It is vital then that these young soldiers are given support from home and are given strong support by the Regimental chain of command. This they will receive from the highly experienced and operationally seasoned Sergeants and Corporals who will become their new family for the time being.

What then is the difference between these young men and those new insurgent recruits who have been sent up country to get blooded and experience in combat? The main difference I suppose is that our soldiers have received the best training that can be provided and they will have been made aware of the risks associated with this operation. Also they will be given the best equipment available to protect and support them in their task.

The training given to the young or old new insurgent must be rudimentary at best and non existent in most cases. It is sometimes possible to feel almost sympathetic towards these men who may be sacrificed in the name of other people’s higher ambitions.

The existence these insurgents live must be one dominated by fear and to live in fear must bring great pressure and stress. They are rejected by the majority of the community and are given no quarter by coalition forces or the Afghan forces. This is entirely right as any man who holds human life in cheap regard must count his own as such.

Regularly now we see young men who were like these new soldiers not so long back passing through our location on route to well earned leave. They are unrecognisable from those very young looking men they were before, now they look, talk and have the actions of soldiers who have seen soldiering at its toughest and can now class themselves as fighting men.

Often at night I sit and listen to music and contemplate the scale of what we are doing here, at times there seems to be no dawn from the dark and we are in a state of high tension, just waiting for the next incident or tragedy. For those on the front line living amongst the population and within striking distance of the insurgents, it must be much harder to maintain positive momentum and they have my greatest respect for their mental fortitude and personal discipline. It is perhaps the truth that our troops are not braver than everyone else, rather they are just braver for longer.

In the calm of the evening as the sun sets and the heat continues to radiate from the iron hard sand it is easy to almost romanticise the nature of conflict here and to try and somehow balance the nature of what we do and in its doing what we have become. To question the morality of intense fighting in an attempt to secure peace is futile and will raise perhaps more questions than answers. All I know as a simple soldier is that your soldiers are the very best of men, fallible, often crude and prone to aggression but there is no other way for them to be and still exist in this turbulent world.

Having a conversation with one of the OMLT Commanders the other day he reminded me that it is not always the big things that can make a difference. He reminded me how it feels to be eating rations every day and not having a fridge to get a cold drink from; even a normal toilet can be a luxury if you have spent enough time away from one, how easily we take certain things for granted in our frantic lives!

We have already taken part in several high intensity operations and we will see many more in our time. The Afghans we mentor are increasing in capability and skill which coupled with their enthusiasm and determination will make a difference.

Soon those new soldiers of you Regiment will be in the thick of it, learning the ropes from their commanders and becoming true Infantrymen. In doing so they will join the thousands who have gone before them, upholding and adding to the traditions, standards and history of this fine Regiment.

“STAND FIRM STRIKE HARD”

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 15

2009-07-08T14:55:00.000+04:30

Greetings friends and readers at the Marwood, Worcester!

As we are now approaching the middle of our tour here I have been in a reflective mood this week. In situations as I find myself in now I believe it is important to take stock of what is being achieved and at what cost.

Over the last few weeks we are all too aware of the high cost of operations in this the most dangerous of provinces. We have collectively lost friends and many more have been injured, some very seriously.

While reading a paper the other day I was forced to pause at a picture of villagers in Wooten Bassett turning out to pay their respects yet again for another fallen soldier. Many would say that the community spirit in these darker times is diminished; however I believe such public demonstrations of solidarity show that we have not gone completely in to isolation and can still recognise great sacrifice.

Many of those assembled were dressed in blazers showing a vast array of Regimental ties, berets and an impressive haul of medals. It is interesting to me that many of these men had most likely seen conflict themselves and in doing so a line of shared experience was continued and acknowledged.

The photo reminded me that while the nature and methods of conflict have changed almost immeasurably, the British soldier had changed very little. Those men stood proud and with a respect that is rare in these turbulent times. You could see in many faces the recollection of personal triumphs, failures and great loss. All of this started me thinking on what made the British soldier and also what marked him out from everyone else around him or indeed her.

Having served over 16 years in the Army to date I have met almost every type of man and almost every type of soldier, many of whom are the finest of people and a few who were unfortunately cruel and without saving grace. The soldier is normally the person to be found in the corner of your local with his back to the wall, laughing and telling stories about some outrageous stunt or someone who was “the craziest person he’s ever met” with examples!

In writing this blog and my book I have remembered many personal events long lost to the memory and like a map they point the way my life has gone hand in hand with my service, the two being inextricably linked. Those older gentlemen on parade must have similar memories that occasionally at reunions are dusted of with the medals and are given a new shine in the telling.

It is difficult to explain to those who have little experience of soldiers why we are as we are and at times I am forced to wonder what it will be like when I must let all this go and embrace the fact that I will be an ex soldier. To sum up the events that make up a life in the Army is to tell story that is almost impossible to sum up in words. I do not consider myself extraordinary in any way and in many ways my service could be classed as routine, however such things I have seen that most could say they had done.

As I am constantly around soldiers it is easy to forget what a collection of people we are, most of whom would never normal meet under normal circumstances. And are those circumstances so different from the soldier fifty years or even 100 years ago? I am sure that those soldiers right back to the days of the foundation of the Worcestershire Regiment still moaned the same way that we do, yet in the same breath fought equally ferociously.

The core of it all is that soldiering is quite unlike any other profession as Philip Massinger said:

“To dare boldly,
In a fair cause, and for their country’s safety;
To run upon the cannon’s mouth undaunted;
To obey their leaders, and shun mutinies;
To bear with patience the winter’s cold
And summer’s scorching heat, and not to faint
When plenty of provision fails, with hunger,
Are the essential parts that make up a soldier.”

On the news and in the papers it must be easy to see the Army and its soldiers as grim faced, serious individuals. At times this is very true but there is also great humour and perhaps a large measure of humanity that comes with seeing the very best and the very worst that man will do to one another. Ultimately we are a reflection of the society that we were recruited from and we remain proud to serve that society even in these hard times.

We will continue here and we will endure the attacks from the enemy as we do what we have done before many times. Others will follow us in this place and will make memories of their own, but for now as I sit here I am thinking of home that for us, for now, will remain one more day away.

“STAND FIRM STRIKE HARD”

Lance Corporal Rhian Evans - B Coy Medic, 2 RIFLES - FOB Inkerman

2009-07-07T13:26:00.003+04:30

I am LCpl Rhian Evans and I am the B Coy medic. I am one of five females here at FOB Inkerman and have the task of telling you what life is like here in the FOB from a female’s perspective.

I will start by telling you that it is not that different from a male’s perspective! I eat the same food even though it is the same every lunch time, consisting of noodles, rice, corned beef and a bit of tuna. I wash in the same facilities as the lads do but the females have one shower sectioned off so it is more private. I do most things just like the lads, so really it is not that different but I would like my hair straighteners and to let my hair down and to use some make up occasionally, just to feel like a girl once in a while. I will have to wait for my R&R for that and I really cannot wait!

My daily routine in the FOB is to look after the everyday needs of the soldiers on camp and the Local National ‘walk-ins’ seeking medical aid from primary care and the seriously wounded. Local Nationals come into the FOB virtually everyday with some sort of medical reasons. We had one Local National come in when he had been shot during a land dispute and on another occasion, we had two Local Nationals come in with lacerations all over their backs from a knife fight. The reason for the fight was that one of them had stolen the other’s milk. We have quite a few children come in where they have fallen over and opened their heads and needed stitches to grazes that needed dressing, so in all I think we have a well trusted medical facility for the locals to come in for treatments.

My normal day in the medical centre starts at 0745 when I go and check and feed the people in The Priory (Diarrhoea & Vomiting (D&V) isolation ward) accommodation. The Priory is a HESCO building with a tin roof next to the burns pit where all the soldiers with D&V, or just showing the signs of D&V, go. It is not nice being down there and I have been unfortunate and have been down there myself. It is hot and really boring so if you have not taken a book or your Nintendo DS down there you will be pulling your hair out after a day. The average soldier will spend about 2-3 days down there. You get treated like you have leprosy; no one wants to come near you just in case they catch it, and it’s only the Doctor that can discharge you from there.

When that is done I go back up to the medical centre where I treat the soldiers that have come in on sick parade, but hardly anyone comes in unless they are dying! So my mornings are quite boring.

On most days I go on patrols into the Green Zone or sometimes we do desert patrols, so I sort out my kit to make sure that I have everything in my medical kit sorted and re-supplied, my camelpak is filled and my stretcher is secure onto my day sack and go to orders.

FCO - Stabilisation Advisor - James Donally - Goodbye to all that

2009-07-04T01:55:00.002+04:30

Well, my year in Musa Qala is nearly up and it’s time to say my goodbyes to my Afghan and British friends here. I must say the time really has flown by and much has happened in this small corner of Helmand, not least improved security, leading to increased freedom of movement and an uplift in business in Musa Qala.

And some basics are in place: school, clinic, some roads, improved electricity supply. But to fill the security "envelope" provided by the Afghan security forces and their British counterparts, the Afghan government needs to step in and be seen to be working full time in the district; Afghans deserve a government that listens to its people and is trusted.

Until now in Musa Qala, we foreigners - civilian and military - have sometimes seemed to be the only people the local population could approach to discuss their problems and get things done. But the Afghan government understands that it has to assume its proper place in the lives of the locals, and in other parts of Helmand this process is already under way, led by an energetic and progressive Provincial Governor.

I really believe the people of Musa Qala are ready for that next step: they are interested in the future of their country and are now gearing up for August's presidential and provincial elections. Successful voter registration earlier this year means that people are at least in a position to vote - providing they feel safe and know enough about the choices on offer.

Even if we sometimes lacked Afghan attention, we certainly weren’t short of British visitors to Musa Qala, from Ross Kemp through assorted generals to the PM, all have shown huge interest in the people of Musa Qala and the UK military who have come here to help them.

I will leave here with an enormous admiration for the British military who have hosted this strange civilian with great patience and I wish them all a safe return home. At the same time I commend our exceptionally brave and talented local staff and other local partners who I hope will remain in their country to continue to improve the lot of its people.

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 14

2009-07-01T01:32:00.002+04:30

Greetings friends and readers at the Marwood, Worcester!

Today we have received an influx of new soldiers fresh from the UK and soon they will be sent forward to join what will become their close friends and colleagues. In the history of learning curves this must rate up there with taking over a plane when the pilot is taken ill. You can tell that they are new both to the Army and particular to the theatre of Operations as they have the fixed expression of a rabbit caught firmly in the headlights.

In days gone by the Colours that are the standards of the Regiment and are gifted by the Royalty were paraded through the assembled ranks. This is so that they could be recognised and become a rally point is the fiercest of battles. Today the Colours are not present on the battlefield as they once were, but I believe the soldiers of the Regiment eventually become the embodiment of the Colours and what they mean to those who have served under them.

To see these young soldiers of the Mercian Regiment is comforting as we know that the future of the Regiment will ultimately rest with them. New recruits joining the Colours in difficult surroundings and circumstances is not a new thing, since the formation of the first Regiments young men have answered the call to arms and found themselves far away from home in strange, unfamiliar and dangerous surroundings.

It is vital then that these young soldiers are given support from home and are given strong support by the Regimental chain of command. This they will receive from the highly experienced and operationally seasoned Sergeants and Corporals who will become their new family for the time being.

What then is the difference between these young men and those new insurgent recruits who have been sent up country to get blooded and experience in combat? The main difference I suppose is that our soldiers have received the best training that can be provided and they will have been made aware of the risks associated with this operation. Also they will be given the best equipment available to protect and support them in their task.

The training given to the young or old new insurgent must be rudimentary at best and non existent in most cases. It is sometimes possible to feel almost sympathetic towards these men who may be sacrificed in the name of other people's higher ambitions.

The existence these insurgents live must be one dominated by fear and to live in fear must bring great pressure and stress and are rejected by the majority of the community. This is entirely right as any man who holds human life in cheap regard must count his own as such.

Regularly now we see young men who were like these new soldiers not so long back passing through our location on route to well earned leave. They are unrecognisable from those very young looking men they were before, now they look, talk and have the actions of soldiers who have seen soldiering at its toughest and can now class themselves as fighting men.

Often at night I sit and listen to music and contemplate the scale of what we are doing here, at times there seems to be no dawn from the dark and we are in a state of high tension, just waiting for the next incident or tragedy. For those on the front line living amongst the population and within striking distance of the insurgents, it must be much harder to maintain positive momentum and they have my greatest respect for their mental fortitude and personal discipline. It is perhaps the truth that our troops are not braver than everyone else, rather they are just braver for longer.

In the calm of the evening as the sun sets and the heat continues to radiate from the iron hard sand it is easy to almost romanticise the nature of conflict here and to try and somehow balance the nature of what we do and in its doing what we have become. To question the morality of intense fighting in an attempt to secure peace is futile and will raise perhaps more questions than answers. All I know as a simple soldier is that your soldiers are the very best of men, fallible, often crude and prone to aggression but there is no other way for them to be and still exist in this turbulent world.

Having a conversation with one of the OMLT Commanders the other day he reminded me that it is not always the big things that can make a difference. He reminded me how it feels to be eating rations every day and not having a fridge to get a cold drink from; even a normal toilet can be a luxury if you have spent enough time away from one, how easily we take certain things for granted in our frantic lives!

We have already taken part in several high intensity operations and we will see many more in our time. The Afghans we mentor are increasing in capability and skill which coupled with their enthusiasm and determination will make a difference.

Soon those new soldiers of you Regiment will be in the thick of it, learning the ropes from their commanders and becoming true Infantrymen. In doing so they will join the thousands who have gone before them, upholding and adding to the traditions, standards and history of this fine Regiment.

"STAND FIRM STRIKE HARD"

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 13

2009-06-17T02:47:00.002+04:30

Welcome one again readers from the Marwood Worcester and any one else who has taken the time to read the Blogs so far.

To set the theme this week I would like to offer the words of George Bernard Shaw as I believe his words reflect well the thoughts I have had these past seven days.

There are fine things which you mean to do some day; under what you think will be more favourable circumstances. But the only time that is surely yours is the present; hence this is the time to speak the word of appreciation and sympathy, to do the generous deed, to forgive the fault of a thoughtless friend, to sacrifice self a little more for others.

Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed, and to use your God-given abilities for the enrichment of someone less fortunate. Today you can make your life - significant and worthwhile. The present is yours to do with as you will.

You will of course know by now that over the last few weeks the Insurgents in this land have claimed the lives of several British troops and less well publicised a number of brave Afghan National Army soldiers. The second Battalion the Mercian Regiment has itself suffered, as has many others but as we have said before we will not be moved from our aim.

The Afghan soldiers that serve along side our own forces, are even more committed to the cause of a free and democratic Afghanistan than we are and fight fiercely against those who they see as corruptors of their land and way of life.

This week we have had the pleasure of the company of the BBC and other press representatives. They have come here to see for themselves the conditions and reality of the situation here. During a visit with the Unit Press Officer Captain Cresswell they themselves found out what it was like to be “in contact with the insurgents” and I am sure the stories they take back with them may have a little more colour than they anticipated.

It is my hope that they can return with no small measure of pride in your troops and can therefore attest to the fact that we your soldiers are serving in your name with distinction and dedication.

The Battalion is still committed on a daily basis to improving the capability of the Afghan Army; this in turn brings them in to frequent conflict with the Insurgents, who at the moment are engaged in a battle fought with explosive devices and short violent engagements.

Having spoken to many of the lads coming through camp Tombstone to go on leave, there is little doubt in my mind that the insurgents are as determined as ever to capture and dominate key areas for themselves, as to control an area is to control the population.

Just over a week ago a good friend of mine Martyn Chatterley who is working as a Sergeant Major with the Brigade Reconnaissance Force (BRF) was involved in such an incident and this is a brief summary of what he could remember all be it in my words.

As the BRF we are often tasked to seek out where the insurgents are, this enables future planning to take action against areas deemed under their control. This task is essential as information provided by other sources can be unreliable and sketchy at best.

These tasks are in themselves inherently dangerous as we must cover ground not used in some time and also we will be operating in the insurgents 'back yard'.

The insurgent forces will almost always attack any formation they see approaching or encroaching on their areas of strength.

On the morning of the incident we were tasked to try and establish where the front lines of the insurgents are in a particular area. This would involve moving towards areas indicated by intelligence until the Insurgents engaged us, thus unmasking their positions and confirming their locations.

On our approach to the possible insurgent location we moved as we always do with as much stealth as possible, offering as little a target as possible at all times. We were getting very close when my vehicle was hit by an explosive device. In the movies when this happens the vehicle lifts of the ground and comes down on intact wheels in a cloud of smoke. Reality is very different, I don’t recall the whole of the event due to the initial shock of attack and my injuries; however I do remember the sheer force of the explosion.

The detonation of a large explosive device in a confined space is in itself a potent physical force. Normal objects like rocks and sand become superheated shrapnel driven by an invisible, unstoppable shock wave. To find yourself in the middle of such a force must be a truly terrifying experience and will I am sure be indelibly marked on the memory.

Martyn and his crew considered themselves 'lucky' although how someone who has faced what they have can be classed as such defies normal logic. To me it highlights yet again the professionalism and bravery of our troops on the front line.

There are many types of bravery for example there is the instant type of bravery which will see someone throw themselves in front of a car to save a child. The bravery shown here daily is different and more the impressive for it. Time after time our soldiers will go to places that will likely be mined or contain a fanatical apposing force. In doing so they show the type of grit and determination for which the British soldier is known and feared for. They do so knowing the potential cost as no sane person who has attended a repatriation ceremony cannot fail to be reminded of cost of operations in this theatre.

Martyn has returned to Operations and will continue to soldier on regardless of his brush with fate, his crew were also injured but all will hopefully fully recover soon. We are thankful that no permanent damage was done as many times before such attacks have had a different and much worse outcome.

As I end this week’s offering I would like to wish Lucy and the rest of the news crew a safe journey home. I hope they remember that aside from the obvious confrontations with a determined insurgency we are achieving great things here at considerable cost. They return with our best wishes and the hopes of us all for a safe conclusion of this tour

“STAND FIRM STRIKE HARD”

Lt Col Simon Banton, 2 MERCIAN, reports from Helmand (Part 4)

2009-06-05T03:00:00.002+04:30

The last 3 weeks have been a busy time indeed for the 2 MERCIAN BG. We took part in an Operation that helped push the Taliban out of one of their last strongholds and
worked with the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) in doing so.

The Operation started just over two weeks ago with joint planning between the ANA, ANP, local leaders, 19 Brigade and under the watchful eye of 2nd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment. It was a prime example of how the Afghan National Security Forces are taking responsibility for their security and taking the battle to the insurgent forces operating in Afghanistan.

Starting on Monday, 27th April, more than 150 warriors of the Afghan National Army and 60 Afghan National Policeman deployed on Operation ZAFAR, which means 'Journey' in the local Pashtu language.

Two teams of 10 men from 2 MERCIAN Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams (OMLT), accompanied the Afghan warriors while Gurkhas supported the Policemen. The operation was coordinated on the ground by the 2 MERCIAN Battlegroup headquarters. In total, 35 of your soldiers were involved in the operation at all levels including myself.
The Operation began with a move into villages around BASHARAN to clear the Taliban out and allow Afghan security forces to establish themselves.

Within ten minutes of the operation beginning fighting broke out with the insurgents and then lasted for 2 days. The Afghan Army cleared the enemy held areas and Policemen secured villages and reassured the local population. The Afghan Warriors fighting alongside your soldiers proved to be seasoned fighters and fought hard to provide security in this part of their own country.

Under the careful guidance of the Gurkhas, the Policemen reassured the local people. During this week-long operation many Taliban insurgents are known to have been killed, while the ANA and 2 MERCIAN sustained only a handful of casualties, none serious. The action pushed the Taliban out of several villages near to the provincial capital of Helmand, Lashkar Gah.

By the end of the week, UK stabilisation teams were conducting meetings with the local elders, religious teachers and leaders who have been under the shadow of the Taliban for some time, offering a range of ways to help the villagers, from refurbishing schools to improving healthcare provision and security.

My Battle Group headquarters was involved in the initial phase of the operation, where the enemy provided a determined resistance and were not willing to give up the area without a fight. During one 3 hour stage, all elements of the force were involved and we called in air strikes and artillery bombardments to support the troops. With the enemy being outmatched they soon withdrew and by Wednesday we were in a position to start building up permanent bases for the ANA and ANP in this newly captured area.

Within 30 hours and with protection from our forces, the ANA and the ANP the Royal Engineers had secured and fortified an area the size of 2 football pitches.
This operation was another example of the progress being made by the Afghanistan National Army.

They proved to be flexible, committed and brave. On more than one occasion it was touch and go as the enemy fought hard, but the Afghan Warriors did not retreat.

You can be assured that the MERCIAN soldiers fought hard and were absolutely indomitable. They are fine successors to many thousands of infantrymen who have
joined and fought with the Regiments raised in Nottingham, Derbyshire and Worcestershire for the last 300 years.

This was the largest operation that 2 MERCIAN has been involved in since we took over and I am very proud of my soldiers. With just over a quarter of the tour passed I am confident we are up to the task in hand and will continue to work with out Afghan friends to further the security situation in Helmand. As always we pass on our regards to those in the UK and hope you are well.

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 12

2009-06-01T19:29:00.003+04:30

If you are reading this letter today know that we are in great sadness. On Thursday morning those who oppose all that we strive to make, took from us the life of one of our brothers.

Truly if there is to be a road to peace in this land of much trouble, the foundations will have been cast by those who have fallen in the pursuit of a higher ideal.

For those of us left behind we are duty bound to bear witness to all they have done. In that telling there is no place to recall how they died, yet speak only of how they have lived, as to do so is to gift them a future in place of that which was stolen.

Too soon, we will send our friend home and as we stand as one he will pass us one last time. With heads held high and with heavy hearts we must give him back to those who have loved him most.

Treat this soldier's memory with kindness, remember not those things that made him less than he was and rather in the quiet times recall all that was good in him.

For his family there are no kind words, or the wishes of the great and the good that can lessen the torment of this most final grief, hold them in your thoughts for who has given more yet asked for less.

He was someone's son, he was a soldier, he was a friend, guard his memory well. And as we stand as a body of men to repatriate the body with the highest of respect, we will stand alongside all the races and creeds which comprise the British Army and all the different tribes which comprise the Afghan National Army.

Regardless of background, we will be united in our respect for a fallen brother. The purpose of our deployment to this country is to achieve a united Afghanistan; it is a parody that this is achieved though violent action and the loss of our brethren.

The enemies of freedom and peace have sought to weaken us this day, but their actions have strengthened our resolve and we will not be moved from our mission. For this week I will say no more, but rather give respectful silence in the memory of the fallen. Next week I will write again when I will tell you of more actions of your Mercian Regiment.

"STAND FIRM STRIKE HARD"

Corporal Steve Childs, 10 Platoon, 2 RIFLES, FOB Gibraltar, Helmand

2009-06-01T14:01:00.003+04:30

10 Platoon arrived in FOB Gibraltar around the 15th of April, taking over from a group of very large, tanned Royal Marines. There was an element of ground rush almost immediately as the enormity of the task ahead presented itself. However the lads soon got ready and we were on patrol almost immediately.

The Green Zone, where we operate is a strip of irrigated land either side of the Helmand River. It is made up of poppy and wheat fields, tree lines and deep irrigation ditches. Interspersed among all of this are mud walled compounds that could have been there for hundreds of years. The fields are divided up in a similar way to England with tree lines and irrigation ditches taking the place of hedges. The heat can be intense. When you take a knee in the wheat field the heat is trapped among the stalks and it can get oppressive.

The first few days we were here the Poppies were in full bloom and you could be mistaken for calling the local area beautiful. Since we have been here, we have watched the poppy harvested and the fields cleared for maize and the wheat ripen and turn yellow. The Afghans trying as much as possible to carry on with their everyday lives despite being caught in the middle of an intense conflict between ourselves and the Taliban.

The local Afghans are an interesting lot. 30 years of near perpetual conflict has left them philosophical about their future and their present. Most of the elders are illiterate although they are no fools; they are resigned to their fate of being middlemen in our current deployment.

The Afghan National Army, which we work with on a daily basis down in their own Patrol Base are very different. Most of them are from the North of Afghanistan, so they look different. The locals here are ethnic Pashtuns where as the ANA are Tajiks and Uzbeks. They can be very funny not least in their partiality to some of the younger, better looking members of the platoon. Strangely Cpl Waldron has been invited to the ANA Commander’s summer house on leave, sorry Steph but you have some competition.

As far as welfare in the FOB is concerned we need to correct the expectation that there is internet and text link in the FOB. There was the former but all the terminals are broken and are now back in Bastion so the only means of communication is by Satellite Phone.

The lads are writing letters but you must realise that helicopters come so rarely to the FOB that there can be at least a month disconnect from the letter being written to it arriving to you so please be patient.

I cannot emphasise how important Parcels are for morale and every fortnight when the Helicopter comes in it is like Christmas morning for the guys so keep sending them!
My job as platoon commander is made so easy by the hard work, dedication and diligence of the men under my command. They are an inspiration to me and you should all be very proud.

Corporal Steve Childs
1 Section Commander
10 Platoon

Lt Andy Huxter, 11 Platoon, 2 RIFLES, FOB Gibraltar, Helmand

2009-05-29T03:07:00.002+04:30

Greetings from Forward Operating Base Gibraltar (FOB GIB)! It has been a busy period for C Coy. The handover/ takeover was in full swing by the advance party when the first main body flight arrived by Chinook on the 10th April.

After a quick set of QBO’s, Cpl Davenport’s section headed down to the Afghan National Army (ANA) Patrol Base located about 500m South of the main FOB, where they met the ANA Platoon with whom they would be living and patrolling for the next few days. In no time Rfn Querino had learned how to bake bread – in an oven made out of an 81mm Mortar ammunition tin. Cpl Warrillow was focussing on feeding us, and his flair in the kitchen was soon displayed through a classic Pasta Bolognaise, only bettered by Cpl Edwards’ Pizzas (based on prior Pizzeria experience, no less!).

10 Pl had a less rushed start, but certainly no less tricky, taking over the mantle of Patrols Platoon from Zulu Coy 45 Commando, who were both experienced and battle hardened. They had several patrols that proved their ability and allowed them to gain good ground experience and confidence in both their kit and their training. Rfn Malou engaged well on joint patrols with the ANA and is doing well learning the local pattern of life. Carrying weight has come as a shock to some, not so LCpl Wilson who is more than happy to carry his fair share and some!

Meanwhile, back in the insular little world of our FOB there has been a lot of work taking place getting to grips with improving security, making life more comfortable and considering how long it will take us to turn ourselves into ripped, tanned, and for some, moustachioed men, as well as wondering if there is a short cut! Some, mentioning no names (CSM!) could do this, if only he didn’t drive from the Ops room to the cook house on his quad bike, a massive 15m walk as the crow flies!

The changeover with the patrol base went smoothly, if not happily for the 10 Pl partner section who discovered none among their number could cook! 11 Pl went on their first couple of Platoon level patrols and, although not striking out very far are quickly getting to grips with patrolling in this environment.

The poppies are beginning to shed their petals and the harvest is in full swing so the fields are busy with local farmers and the insurgents’ priorities are currently on capitalist matters in our area. The temperature is increasing day by day, and the unseasonable rainstorms of late are fading into memory – the feeling of ‘cold’ isn’t a factor any more and there is a lot more warming up to go yet! Our flip flop and watch strap tan lines are coming on nicely.

Lt Andy Huxter
OC 11 Platoon

LCpl Neil Strachan, 10 Platoon, 2 RIFLES, FOB Gibraltar, Helmand

2009-05-29T02:01:00.000+04:30

This is my first tour as an NCO and naturally that comes with pressure. While ensuring my section is administrated on and off the ground I am constantly aware at some stage this tour I will need to step up as Section Commander. This is something that I don’t think any NCO Cadre can prepare you for.

On the ground I am at the back of the Section watching the blokes all the time making sure they are alert and concentrating all the time knowing full well how difficult it is with all their kit across unforgiving ground in the intense heat.

Since arriving in Afghanistan last month we have all found ourselves constantly on the go and the tempo of life within and outside FOB Gibraltar is ever increasing.

From a slow five days or so of RSOI in Camp Bastion we have really hit the ground running so to speak here in the FOB. With each patrol longer and more arduous than the last, the operations we conduct are always planned to outthink the Taliban and avoid the Afghan Sun. However sometimes we wonder whether the latter is worth it with temperatures reaching highs of 40+° and it will only get hotter.

Helicopters here are few and far between and the food is far from ideal with spam and plain noodles being the norm. Small treats out of parcels from loved ones and protein shakes are important to keep weight and maintain health.

Our living arrangements are tight and privacy is considered a luxury. 10 Platoon is a close one and everyone’s is working for each other day in, day out. This will be paramount in getting through this tour and everyone is anxious to see what the next five months have in store for 10 Platoon, C Coy.

LCpl Neil Strachan “Big Strachs”
2 Section 2ic
10 Platoon

Colour Sergeant Mike Saunders, 2 MERCIAN, blogs from Helmand - Part 11

2009-05-28T14:15:00.001+04:30

Greetings friends and readers at the Marwood, Worcester!

By the time you read this I hope you are nursing a hang over that justifies a good day at the "support the troops" fund raiser. I can assure you that any funds raised will make a real difference to those serving at the front line. As they can't speak for themselves at the moment I would like to pass on their sincere thanks to you all.

As we are now past a third of the tour, men are now returning from the forward operating bases (Fob's) some of whom are going on rest and recuperation leave. The men that are returning are changed somewhat from those we flew forward two months ago. Back then most were pink faced and earnest, burdened by heavily loads with the slightly pained expression of men who are about to face the fiercest test of their careers and in some cases lives so far.

Now these same men seem to have a hardened edge and a look of lean hungry fighting men that indeed they are. Most have stories to tell and I for one am glad to give them the chance to tell them. For these individuals flying out of these danger zones is like stepping back into an alien world and I know from experience this can be very disorientating. Within days many will be put on flights that will take them back to home and in to the arms of loved ones. Try to imagine if you will the extremes of high and lows these men have experienced thus far in the tour and while enjoying their leave it will be forever in there mind that Afghanistan and the Fob's are but time and a flight away.

From the feedback so far on the blog, many have asked what it is like living and operating in a base at the front line. To answer this while not compromising any security, this week's blog will be a fictional diary entry made up from my personal experiences on the previous tour here and from the experiences of the troops here to date.

Life next to the edge

As I come awake via the insistence of the soldier responsible for doing the rounds ready for "Stand To", I am struck that the first things that remind me of where I am are the smells and the already increasing heat. It is early summer now and first light is before 0430 in the morning when the sun rises as a great ball of fire, searing all that it touches including my Platoon in our improvised shelters. We have to be up and ready before this time, as tradition and tactical necessity dictate that we mark the change between night and day routine. This means we are all dressed, body armour on and with personal weapons in our hands ready in case of a dawn attack.

It is somewhat comforting to know that soldiers for hundreds of years have observed this routine and in doing so a link to the past is maintained.

As many of the Platoon have pulled "stag" or night duty, defending and monitoring those others lucky enough to grab some fitful sleep in the still heat of the Helmand night, few words are said as men shuffle to their pre-appointed positions and prepare to mark another day in the insurgents back garden.

One of the few constants here, the sun climbs quickly into a sky only partially obscured by the fine sand of a local wind induced sand storm. This is a near daily occurrence and will ensure man and machines are given a fresh coating of dust ready for cleaning. In fact a good part of my life is now spent removing dust from the thousand and one pieces of equipment that we rely on to keep us alive, this ranges from weapons through to medical equipment and vehicles.

Post "stand to" we who are not on stag observe one of the more social parts of the day as we put the kettle on for breakfast. The day we occupied this compound we arranged a rental fee with the owner for what was his house. In addition we purchased for the princely sum of ten dollars a large kettle, which we now use as the platoon cooker in conjunction with our boil in the bag rations. It is safe to say that the kettle is rarely off, as the Platoon Sergeant is a "brew monster" and seems to run on tea!

While the kettle is boiling we set about our weapon systems, as logic dictates only half the Platoon clean weapons at a time, leaving the other half able to react should the insurgents pay a visit (which is often). This week alone the insurgents have fired a number of mortars at our base, some of which have landed inside the compound. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt and the only lasting damage is some interesting modifications to the Platoon latrine which suffered a near direct hit.

After we finish breakfast and the sentries are swapped (to allow them to administrate themselves) we send out a section of eight men to conduct a sweep of the area around our base. Once this is complete we start to plan the plan and receive a brief for the patrol operation to take place. We have a small village about 400 meters from our compound, and we are charged with its security and working with the local people to establish a fragile peace.

At times the locals will talk freely to us about their expectations and their fears of further conflict; it would seem that they regard us with a certain amount of suspicion until they are shown that we are only here to guarantee their freedom and safety. At other times they will not talk to us at all and will avoid us entirely.
These are nervous times for us as it probably means that insurgents are in the area and the locals fear reprisals when we are gone. Just last week a local man was beaten badly after being set upon by insurgents. They did this publicly in the village market and also issued a threat that "any Afghans seen passing information to the foreign forces will be killed and their families banished from the area".

Today we deployed on a patrol to re-assure the locals that we are here to protect them and in addition to show our strength to the insurgents. It seems to have worked as we gathered some good information from the local villagers and we now have a good idea where the enemy are hiding and mounting their attacks from. In a few days time we will deploy forward to investigate the compounds indicated to us, I hope we find them as they are beginning to destabilise the whole area.

Occasionally the locals will sell or barter with us for some fresh rations that we use to supplement our boil in the bag rations which while being very good are even better when mixed with some fresh spices or eaten with the local flat bread. In addition the pears and other fruit grown here are a good source of vitamins and are very refreshing.

As I sit here in the late afternoon underneath the dancing shadows of a desert camouflage net, I am drawn to memories of home, of grass and water and the thousand other things that we take fore granted until they are taken away. Perhaps that is what makes the British soldier what he is and provides him strength when it is needed. We do not hunger after those things outside our grasp but find contentment in the little things.

It is strange to me that while I am here your "world" continues much as it does when I am there, yet the world in which we survive is like a place from another time. Often I have seen photo's of the troops here and if they were compared to pictures from other times they would be almost indistinguishable.

Soon it will be stand to again and we will go into the long night, often the insurgents will carry out probing attacks on our perimeter which will mean hours staring in to the darkness for any signs of movement.

For now though I sit and watch my small world from beneath the shade and observe the many comings and goings of my Platoon. The smell of cooking, tobacco and stale sweat is in the air as we take a moment of down time after the patrol, each man in his own way winding down and passing out the hours until the light draws in.

The fact that we miss home is a subject that few discuss as it is easier to avoid than confront, in its place is routine and the actions of the insurgents that are outside our control. We also rarely talk of the danger that we face and if we do it is quickly dismissed with bravado and black humour.

Soon I must go and do my part in administrating the camp ready for night routine and part of this is packing all of the kit I have away that I am not using. I find it a little sad but also strangely liberating when the things that make your life can be counted in a couple of bags and a set of Army webbing.

Well readers that was a small snapshot of routine life in a Forward operating base, a life that is both simple but very often punctuated by moments of extreme danger. This is reality for many of your soldiers who live a life not unlike those who have been here before. But in doing so are laying the foundations for peace in this country.

Until next week stay safe and be careful.