Spoken from the Front Read online

  22 December 2006 [email home]

  Robert Mead, Ministry of Defence press officer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  24 December 2006

  Captain Nick Barton, DFC, Army Air Corps

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

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

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

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

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

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

  December 2006

  Corporal Tara Rankin, 16 Medical Regiment

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

  30 December 2006 [email home]

  Captain Dave Rigg, MC, The Royal Engineers

  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Lashkar Gah.

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

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

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

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

  3 January 2007 [email home]

  Robert Mead, Ministry of Defence press officer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  TiC – Troops in Contact

  IRT – Incident Response Team

  IX – Information Exploitation

  (and my personal favourite)

  FOB Rob (pronounced Fob not F-O-B) – Forward Operating

  Base Robinson

  Woe betide anyone who isn't down with this lingo, and death was only a whisker away for my colleague, who is RAF, whe
n he made the mistake of calling 29 Commando 'twenty-nine' instead of 'two-nine'. And we just about managed to save him from the gallows when he almost called I Company Ivory Company instead of India Company. Oh, how we laughed.

  Bearing in mind that we are 4 and half hours ahead of you there isn't much to do in the media department from then until the UK wakes up around lunchtime other than look at my emails and suchlike and read through all the early editions from the UK papers for the afternoon repeat of the morning's brief.