Only the warrant met my eyes, when he said, “Well, it looks like we're in the shit now, but it's nothing we can't handle.”
I didn't hesitate, “Absolutely right! This changes nothing,” I said, with steel in my voice. “It's what I've told all of you from the beginning. It's just us—the four of us. You watch my back, I watch yours, and we will live or die by each other. I promise you this—look at me!”
I paused and waited until all three were looking me straight in the eyes. “No matter what happens, I won't leave you. If that means you're so badly hurt that I can't push, pull, or drag you to safety, then I will die next to you. They will only get to you over me, because I won't leave you. I've told you this so many times I feel like a damn broken record. What we're about to do, this job, the OMLT gig, that's a special forces' job. Our spec ops [special operations forces] guys are so overtasked they don't have time to do it, but every other coalition force here has their spec ops guys doing the job we're about to do.”
I elbowed Hetsa in the ribs again and reached over and squeezed Fourneau's nose. “But the job's now landed on our plate, and the only thing really special about us is the fact that we're too stupid to know when to quit. That's our secret weapon! We're too damn dumb to know when to throw in the towel! We're going to find Timothy [a nickname I had given the Taliban] where he lives and breathes. We're going to kick down the front door to his hovel, scream, ‘Booyah!’ as we rip him from his piss-soaked bed, and give him the stompin' of his life!”
The boys were smiling. Mission accomplished.
“Now, finish your borscht and let's go win this frackin' war so we can be home in time for Christmas!”
We wandered around until we found the Batcave, the OMLT HQ at Masum Ghar. I led the boys down the stairs and smashed my head on the low ceiling. Nothing like a good first impression. . . .
“Welcome to the Batcave,” a voice said from one of the underground offices. A young man walked out wearing an untucked brown shirt, faded Canadian-issued desert pants, and a brown baseball cap with a khaki Canadian flag patch on it, and extended his hand toward us.
“I'm Captain Stephens, the outgoing OMLT commander from Sperwhan; you newbies must be 72 Alpha.” The casual air about him, with his shirt, ball cap, unbloused combat pants, and the big smile across his face, all worked to make a guy feel a lot more relaxed, especially after everything we'd just heard from the major. I knew from my first impression that I was going to like this guy.
Nobody needs some ramrod-stiff officer type shouting at his soldiers because they have a speck of dust on their beret in the middle of the desert. On Parliament Hill in Ottawa, with the ceremonial guards, certainly, but never in a war zone. I always thought you should try and maintain the fine line between being chilled out and still getting the job done properly. If anything, when you're getting shot at, you need to be fairly calm, not wound up so tight you're going to pop. As a leader, I always felt the men needed to look at you and see a very calm example. Easier said than done when you work on a two-way firing range for a living, and like Warrant Longview would've jokingly said about me, especially difficult when you suffer from increasingly debilitating panic attacks.
“Rob Semrau,” I said, shaking his hand, “and this is Warrant Longview, my 2 I/C and the brains behind the operation; Corporal Hetsa, our automated gunner/killer; and Private Fourneau, our wheelman.”
Stephens shook everyone's hand and then passed out some bottled water and cans of iced tea. Fourneau and Hetsa went off to the movie room while the outgoing OMLT captain took the warrant and me up to the top of Masum Ghar, where we had an incredible view of the Panjway valley. Warrant Longview and I bombarded him with questions about the enemy and his SOPs, how to be proactive in a hostile environment, the weather . . . At times our little Q&A session seemed to cover the entire spectrum of counter-insurgency ops.
I joked with Stephens and the Wizard and said, “Our use of TLAs in our TTPs will lead to SOPs IOT keep us from becoming VSA or KIA in a TIC.” Oh, how the army loves its TLAs.
We went on and on, but thankfully the outgoing OMLT captain was a very patient man who always seemed to have a well-thought-out answer to our questions. He had clearly gained a lot of experience in this war, and undoubtedly he had a good, long career ahead of him in the CF. Finally, after we'd exhausted our long list of questions, I thanked him for the excellent briefing, and we walked back down the hill toward the Batcave.
“Grab your guys and your gear and let's get out of here,” he said while looking at his watch. “We want to get the hell out of Dodge before ‘coward hour.’” That was the designated time for everyone to strap on their body armour and don their helmet; the time of day Timothy was most likely to commence rocketing and mortaring Masum Ghar. “Kit up and I'll meet you and my guys at the RGs in fifteen mikes [minutes],” he said over his shoulder.
“Okay, thanks,” I said and made my way to the Batcave, careful this time not to stove my head in again on the low ceiling.
“Mind your head, new guy!” the warrant said behind me.
“Yeah, got it, thanks.” We walked into the Batcave, grabbed some water, and found the movie room. Up on a high shelf was a big flat-screen TV showing Mel Gibson's Braveheart, always a favourite amongst soldiers. My good friend Marc, a fellow Canadian whom I'd left in the Paras and who subsequently went on to join the Brit special forces, could quote every single line from the movie. It was actually sort of disturbing to hear him do it.
“Pack up your shiz-nit, boys,” I said. “We're off to Sper in ten mikes.” Fourneau and Hetsa groaned, grudgingly got up, and walked past me, clearly upset to be taken from their movie. “Calling all men of Union!” I said, slapping them on the backs. “Enlist now, and together we'll whip the Secesh!”
We gathered our kit and our two green army boxes, and clambered down to the car park. We found a bunch of soldiers quickly moving around the RGs and making sure their kit was strapped down tightly to the sides of the vehicles.
The RG-31 first entered service in the CF back in 2006. The vehicle was originally thought up and designed by the South Africans, after they'd armoured up a bunch of buses to get their kids to school without getting blown up by IEDs. Someone took the original idea and applied it to the current war and, voila, the RG-31 was born. It was twelve feet high, nineteen feet long, and seven-and-a-half feet wide; and to counter the IED threat, it had almost three feet of ground clearance. The bottom of the vehicle was shaped like a boat, with a V-design meant to funnel an IED blast up and around the vehicle instead of into the passenger seats. So far, by most accounts, it had been doing very well. I went up to a sergeant and asked if these RGs were part of the convoy heading to Sperwhan.
“They are the convoy,” he said incredulously, looking me over. “We don't have tanks or LAVs [light armoured vehicles] to spare for escort duty! Hurry up and get your boxes strapped to the outside of them; use the bungees and rope already there, and then split yourselves up and get inside. Save the front seats for the outgoing OMLT guys.” He quickly turned his attention to a young private, whom he started jacking up because his .50-cal (calibre) gun wasn't made ready yet.
I took his comments on the chin and didn't let his tone get to me. He couldn't see my rank, with my flak vest and tac (tactical) vest covering my chest insignia, and besides, I knew everyone there was getting short, meaning their tour was almost up. Everyone just wants to finish their tour and get home.
I passed on his instructions to my team, then we each picked an RG we felt would be the lucky one—the one that didn't get blown up on the way to our new base. We paired up and passed each other the green army boxes that held all of our earthly belongings and got them strapped to the truck, no easy feat considering its sides were twelve feet high. I reminded Fourneau to be extra careful with my box since it held all of my fine officer's china and silverware.
At the same time, I silently cursed Don and Jean, my beloved parents, for not letting me go to ninja camp in Japan every summer du
ring grade school. “If you can pay for it, you can go,” was their favourite comeback to my ceaseless requests. Because of their penny-pinching, I was forced to start my ninja training in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and that was only once I reached university. Far too late! I had needed to start my ninja mind tricks and phasing-between-walls training when I was a young child, before my medulla oblongata had fully formed. Damn it, I can't even levitate yet!
We “cleared customs” and slowly made our way through the concrete barriers that formed a serpentine path at the main gate, then quickly passed into the town.
I got my first good look at the Masum Ghar bazaar, the centre point for all of the villagers. As with most villages in Afghanistan, the beef and lamb shanks hung out in the air on hooks, directly in the hot sun, flies buzzing all around them. Children ran through the streets; shop vendors sold their wares under tattered awnings, trying to avoid the worst of the sun and heat but to no avail. Men haggled over prices, shouting at each other as though whoever was the loudest would automatically win the argument. It was business as usual at the busy market.
The male civilians were mostly wearing “man-jammies” by the looks of it; a long, loose-fitting tunic that flowed down to their knees, with sandals covering their feet. The men had on a variety of hats; some wore tight turbans, others wore knitted skullcaps. We could easily identify the women in the market, wearing their long burkas or ghost gowns, most in some shade of blue. They were covered from the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes.
We travelled west down Route Kelowna, passed an Afghan outpost called OP Mosque, then continued toward Sperwhan. I saw a small Afghan base—I guessed it was OP Brown—nestled on top of Route Brown. It looked like it had managed to survive only by the good graces of Timothy looking the other way.
Canadians had nicknamed the Taliban “ Timmy” long before we ever arrived, and the name had stuck. “Timmy shot at us yesterday,” or “Timmy tried to blow up our tank,” and so on. I found the name a little too cutesy for an enemy who could be incredibly cunning and devious. To me, Timmy sounded too much like a freckle-faced, red-headed kid from down the block who drove your dad nuts because he liked to ride his bike over your lawn. No, for me, Timmy wouldn't do. So I went with “Timothy.” Like the Vietnam vets had their “Charlie,” I would have Timothy to contend with. And after I had spread the name around, I found out later it had really caught on and made its way up to some pretty high-up circles.
We swung south onto the start of Route Brown. This was the road that Major Speers had told me about, the single lane road connecting Sperwhan Ghar with Route Kelowna, coincidentally travelling over three culverts that regularly had some nice IED Kinder Surprises buried in them.
I looked out the window to the front and caught my first glimpse of Strong Point Sperwhan Ghar. It was a base situated around a very high man-made hill, and it clearly had excellent over-watch for kilometres in every direction. I was told later it had originally been built by the British some years back (many villagers and farmers, years later, were still trying to get money over land disputes because the base had been built on their farmland) and it was now occupied solely by Canadians.
We had a full company of mechanized infantry stationed there: a section of engineers and snipers, some intelligence (int) types, loggies (logistics), sigs (signals), at least four 155mm howitzer cannons with some mortars thrown in for fun, and a full-time doctor and medical team. Also, there was an American civilian from Florida and his bomb-sniffing dog. They went out on patrols and were on call twenty-four/seven. All in all, not a bad little outpost stuck in the middle of bandit country. It was currently owned and operated by the PPCLI battle group, but the battle group I would be working with, Task Force 3-08, would be taking over in the next couple of weeks. So far, the base had never been overrun, but the barbarians had definitely turned up at the gates from time to time.
“Sperwhan Ghar,” the vehicle commander said. “Welcome to the Suck!”
Chapter 3
We passed through the concrete serpentine barriers and went by a wooden two-storey watchtower next to the barbed-wire emplacements by the gate. I could see two very disinterested Afghan National Army soldiers pulling back the wire to let us through and an equally bored Canadian watching us from the tower.
We slowly climbed up a twenty-metre slope until we were on a long plateau, now facing to the east. I could see several long, low concrete buildings, which I assumed were barracks for the Afghans, and a few sandbag emplacements dug into the hill along the sides of the road, facing back toward the west. That was the general direction most of the attacks had come from. Immediately off to the left, I could see two large Russian howitzer cannons, D-30s, nestled up close to a couple of the concrete buildings.
Our RG convoy again came to a dust-shrouded halt and our vehicles began quickly disgorging passengers. I clicked my voice pressel, or button, on the radio and thanked the RG crew for the lift.
“You can thank us by getting the fuck out! We gotta get goin'!” the commander snapped. Fair enough.
I got out and climbed up the side of the vehicle and grabbed my boxes, then carefully handed them down to Fourneau. I found his and passed them down to him; there was no point in both of us risking our necks. Everyone quickly stripped their boxes off the sides of the RGs. Clearly the RG convoy was manned by reverse vampires who had to get back to Masum before dusk. As it said in the American Ranger handbook, that's when the French and Indians liked to attack during colonial times; apparently Timothy had read the manual, took it to heart, and put the fear of God back into these soldiers.
I found the Wizard and Hetsa “the dirty Hungo” lugging their boxes in our general direction as several Afghan soldiers came out of their barracks to check out the newbies. Stephens walked up to us and said, “Welcome to your new home. We've left it in good shape for you, besides a few rocket holes, mortar holes, RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] holes—well, you know.”
“Thanks for having us,” I said with a smug grin. “It's a real pleasure to be here.” I looked around and soaked up my new environs. Immediately to my front there were four more of those barracks-looking buildings, and another five or six farther down the road. The a/c in the RGs had done a good job; I'd forgotten for a few minutes how hot it was outside. My shirt started to get slick with sweat. Lugging two forty-pound boxes didn't help. Thankfully, I'd been on Op Massive, my PT (physical training) regimen for the last twenty years, to get ready for this moment.
“Ah salaam ah'laikum.” I said the traditional Muslim greeting to some Afghans who were watching us.
“Wa ah'laikum salaam,” several replied, in perfect unison.
Stephens led us past some ANA barracks and over to our building, right across from the OMLT HQ, where he and his boys hung their cowboy hats. We would be in a makeshift storage room until his crew moved out of their much nicer accommodation in a couple of days. Until then, we had a single large silver fan to keep us cool. No windows, no a/c. I had stayed in worse places, and so had the warrant, but judging by the looks on Fourneau's and Hetsa's faces, they were disappointed by our new digs. It'll be good for 'em. Put some hair on their chests!
We dumped our kit and then walked over to meet the outgoing OMLT team. I knocked loudly on their door and heard a “C'mon in,” so we walked inside and immediately felt the nice cool air from their air conditioners on the walls going full blast.
“Hey guys,” Stephens said, “let me introduce you to my band of killers.” One guy was shirtless, cleaning his C9 (Minimi light machine gun) over at a table, and another guy who seemed quite a bit older was working on a computer. Stephens's youngest team member was playing an Xbox game in a comfy chair over by the TV. “This is Mike, Chris, and Joe,” he said. They came over and we all shook hands.
“RCR in the Stan!” Chris said, “You guys'll have a hard time killing the Taliban, what with your daily show parades and fancy drill sessions on the main square three times a day!” Ah yes . . . our reputation for
immaculate parades precedes us.
“Five times a day,” I quickly replied. “But the Regimental Sergeant Major said we can cut them back to two, if we work extra hard to clean up your guys' mess and finally win the damn war!” I finished shaking hands and said, “We've heard that the PPCLI has cocked this little sweep-and-clear operation right up, so we're here to put things straight with our boot bands, spit, polish, and sharp drill! By the way, I like the OMLT fish hook on your door—I take it you guys have been used as bait a few times for Timmy?”
“Hmm,” Stephens mused, “you could say that. I'll show you later, but I've got a set of orders from a battle group operation that states, ‘OMLT will patrol forward with the ANA until they come under contact, then manoeuvre until the battle group can take over.’ Nice, eh? ” His team wasn't laughing. Clearly this had been the battle group's SOP a couple of times too many for the OMLT's liking.
Seven Two Alpha broke off to mingle with their opposite numbers as my counterpart showed me around the building. They had a pretty good set-up. Encrypted work computers in the corner; an entertainment centre; a bunch of bunk beds in the back, with Hessian sack hanging over them for privacy.
Stephens then took me outside for the full tour of Sperwhan. We walked past several rows of ANA buildings, including their kitchens and ablutions building. Whenever we passed any Afghan soldiers and said ah salaam ah'laikum, they would stop whatever they were doing to say hi back.
I looked at Stephens's travelling hobo look and asked, “Hey, what's with you guys with your shirts untucked and not wearing your trouser pants tucked into boot bands? We'd catch major flack if we tried that!”
The Taliban Don't Wave Page 5