“Screw that,” he said, “We're OMLT. We dress to kill! Do you really think we have to follow the stupid battle group's dress code? To hell with that! Keeping your pants tucked into boot bands isn't going to win this war!”
“Brother,” I said solemnly, “right now, you're facing the choir and preaching your sermon to the converted and the perverted. You need to do a one-eighty, and face the heathen in the pews! I'm already a believer, baby!” Finally, someone understood that boot bands weren't Canada's secret weapon that would win the war in eight weeks. I was always so hot anyway, the last thing I needed was to trap heat in my pants. I needed to vent, damn it!
I saw the Canadian artillery howitzers, or “boom-sticks” as I liked to call them, in the southeast corner and hoped I wouldn't need to use them. Then we walked by the showers and ablutions tent, where I was told we could shower once a day, for exactly one minute. The water for the showers was in huge bladders outside the tent, being heated by the sun. Stephens told me the gym was on the far north side, and as far as gyms in war zones went, it supposedly wasn't half bad. Some engineers had a shack attached to the main building, which contained the battle group soldiers' and officers' living quarters, as well as the HQ.
I tried to forget about my sticky armpits and the sweat dripping off my forehead and pointed out another building with a hand-washing station next to it. “I take it that must be the kitchen.”
“Yep. Breakfast is zero-six hundred to zero-eight hundred hours, hot food and cereal. Lunch is cold food, sandwiches and subs, stuff like that. Supper is hot again, from sixteen-thirty to eighteen-thirty hours. Hand washing is obligatory.”
“Do we have a hand-washing Nazi stationed here?” I asked.
“Yeah, sometimes, when the officers catch the men not using the stations, some numpty gets posted on Nazi duty. Over there you see an old-school hand pump for water. The ANA are allowed to take purified water from here, but they steal it at all times of the day and night, and they use up everyone's share, so every now and then we have to cut them off and force them to use the hand pump. They play the game until we give them our water, and then they do it all over again. It's never-ending.”
He then led us into the HQ building and went over to a fridge by the door to grab us some Freezies. I looked inside a room to see how the battle group lived. They had large rooms with double bunk beds, and it seemed comfortable enough. Their weapons were left outside their rooms, along with their body armour and tac vests, which were placed on rows of wooden “t”s that looked like small crucifixes to dry out their gear after patrols.
Stephens continued to the end of the hall and knocked on the briefing-room door. We walked inside, and he looked over at one of the guys and said, “Sir, this is Captain Semrau, the RCR OMLT captain who'll be replacing me. He and his three guys just got in this afternoon.” Stephens stepped aside so I could shake hands with the OC, the “officer commanding” Sperwhan Ghar.
“Hello,” he said, not bothering to extend his hand, and barely looking up from the papers on the large map table in front of him. He was about my height, around five ten, but of slight frame, with a sort of distracted look about him. Clearly he was too busy to worry about being polite, but I supposed not everybody made it to the lofty height of major in the Canadian Forces because he won the Good Joe of the month award back in basic training.
“Hello sir,” I said, extending my hand. He looked at me and then slowly walked over so we could shake hands. Holy crap, I'm not going to rob you!
“Hello,” was all he could muster, again. An awkward silence filled the briefing room. Was I supposed to say something? Wasn't it his job to say, “Welcome aboard, blah, blah, blah?”
I walked over and introduced myself to his company sergeant major (CSM), who kindly asked if we needed anything from a PX back in KAF. He was going on a convoy run and offered to bring us back some gear. I knew that Hetsa, Fourneau, and I all wanted an American-style day sack with a CamelBak water carrier inside of it, so I gave him some money that I'd already collected from the boys and told the CSM thanks a lot.
“No problem, sir. My room's just across the hall; come and get me—day or night—if you need anything or got any questions.”
“Great, thanks.” I looked at the OC and said, “Goodbye, sir,” as I walked past him toward the exit. He didn't respond. As the door closed behind us, Stephens clapped me on the back. “Well, that went well!” he said, smiling away.
“Oh, didn't you know? I'm the guy who wrote that Pulitzer Prize–winning novel entitled I'm OK, You're an Idiot. Everywhere I go, Stephens, I make friends and influence people to my way of thinking through the often-neglected consensus approach.”
“Apparently,” he laughed. “But I wouldn't worry about your all-important first meeting with the new OC too much.”
“Well, I was a private once upon a time with the Brits, and I was like every other enlisted guy in the army: I developed a pretty good BS detector, and sussed out pretty quick who's going to come and help me when I'm wounded in open ground, and who's going to sit there and watch me bleed out!”
He then explained in detail how the snipers on top of the hill had repeatedly requested the authorization to fire on insurgents who were planting IEDs on Route Brown, but they were apparently denied permission by the major. It was a serious, ongoing issue, with no clear end in sight.
We walked back to our shacks where the warrants were already working on their handover. As the newbs, we had a lot of kit to sign for: the vehicle, all the heavy weapons, the shoulder-fired LAW (light anti-armour weapon) rockets, the ammunition, maps, computers, television . . . the list was nearly endless.
Stephens invited us to go outside the wire with them the next morning for our first handover patrol, and after establishing the times and particulars, I went back to my shack. Although it wasn't much, it was still a lot more comfortable than I was expecting. My first time in Afghanistan, we lived in a bombed-out school with no running water or kitchen, so my new accommodation was a major step up. Even if it didn't have a/c, we still had two hot meals a day and a shower, and a soldier couldn't put a price tag on that kind of luxury.
I opened the door and walked over to Fourneau and Hetsa, who were leaning over something in the open area of our new barracks.
“Look what I scrounged from the snipers, sir,” Hetsa said, his face beaming in a toothy grin. He held up a large can of spray paint.
“What've you got there, sailor?” I asked as I came up to the kit they'd put on top of some milk crates. They had their personal weapons spread out next to all of their magazines. It looked like all of their mags had been debombed (the rounds taken out of them). Clearly I had interrupted them before they could spray-paint their kit. All of it. I could see a certain someone in our four-man team, the oldest and by far the saltiest member of our little band of brothers, losing his mother-lovin' mind over this!
“Boys . . . um . . . it looks like you've got some good old-fashioned Christian fun planned here, but . . .”
“What do you mean, sir, by Christian fun?” Hetsa interrupted.
“You know, Christian fun . . . the kind of fun where nobody gets hurt or pregnant. But I gotta ask ya—does the good warrant know we're about to spray-paint our kit? I mean, all of it? Because I can see him losing his nut over this! And I take it you've at least found some shade of khaki brown?” I didn't want to ruin their fun, but this was exactly the sort of thing a warrant would lose his mind over. It really did look like fun though. I wonder. . . .
“Yeah, it's khaki brown, sir. The snipers gave it to me; they said it won't last too long, it's not permanent or anything. And the warrant was there when we got it. He said it's fine, just don't overdo it.”
“You said, ‘we're about to spray-paint’ and ‘our kit,’ sir. Does that mean you're going to join us?” Fourneau asked with a hopeful gleam in his eye.
“That's some good active listening, Fourneau. Well done, good catch. Why the hell not? I mean, it would be rude not t
o, right? Coming all this way and everything, and then walking around as though we were in Algonquin Park, dressed in forest green? Sure, I told you before, we live or die by each other, and that means we get in trouble together—as a team! Remember that time in Germany when you got busted for trying to solicit that male prostitute, and I had to speak Sauerkraut and explain to the Five-O that where you come from that's all well and good, and certainly not a chargeable offence?”
“No,” Fourneau said, without hesitating for a moment. He didn't seem to get that I was joking.
“Well, I remember!” I said, “But that's neither here nor there. It'll look cool as hell! We'll call it ‘combat paint,’ and we'll spray-paint everything we've got! Besides, nothing makes a better shit shield than an officer! If someone gives you stick, you just say, ‘Our officer told us to do it!’ Now hand me the can!” This looked like a lot of fun. Hetsa handed me the can, and yep, there it was—“khaki brown.” Although I couldn't see anything written on the can about how long it was supposed to last. I took my issued ballistic sunglasses off their spot on my shirt collar and quickly snapped out the protective lenses.
“Sir, I don't know about that . . .” Fourneau started to protest.
“Everything means just that, Fourneau. Ev-er-y-thing! Call sign Seven Two Alpha doesn't do anything by halves. We half-ass nothing! Like Homer Simpson once said, ‘We use our whole ass!’ Now go get your sunglasses and take the lenses out so we can spray-paint the frames! We'll be super cool, like the first kids on the block with an Atari 2600!” They both looked at me, either unsure of what an Atari 2600 was, or trying to decide whether I'd just given them an illegal order. They stood their ground, hesitating.
I looked at both of them and said, “Go on, git!”
I laid out my frames on the milk crate and gave them a good spraying down, making sure to get them from every angle. By the time Fourneau and Hetsa came back with theirs, I was already done. Fourneau looked them over and said, “Cool, that really worked!”
I looked at them with pride; my shades had gone from a dark forest green to a combat cool light brown. “I know. It looks awesome, eh? You guys crack on, and I'll go and get my kit.”
We spent the next twenty minutes spraying down everything we had with combat paint splotches: our weapons and magazines, our sunglasses; I even covered the sight picture on my scope so I wouldn't get any paint on it, and then sprayed down its green rubber protective cover. Much better. I took off my black belt and gave it a couple of swipes of combat paint. By the time the warrant walked into our ad hoc spray-painting and chop shop, we'd gotten everything we owned combat-painted up. Dy-nooo-mite!
“Oh . . . my . . . fuck!” the warrant growled in disbelief. “What have you guys done?!”
“You said you were okay with it, Warrant!” Hetsa quickly protested.
“Yeah, but I also said, ‘Don't rip the ass out of it,’ and you guys have sprayed down everything you've got!” The warrant had nudged Fourneau and Hetsa aside so he could see the extent of our handiwork, and more importantly to him, assess the damage.
“Well, not quite everything,” I interjected. “We haven't done the radios—I didn't think that'd be a good idea, and we haven't done our pistols yet.” My smile slowly began to fade. Crap, maybe we did overdo it. A bit.
“For the love of God,” the warrant shouted. “Don't spray down your pistols! You've done plenty enough!”
“I know, but check it out, Warrant. Seriously, how cool does that look? Check out the shades!” I said as I held them up, trying to impress him with my artistic spray-painting.
“Okay,” he started to smile a bit. “I'll admit, that looks pretty cool . . . but seriously, guys . . .”
“Look, Warrant, we can sit here all day and debate semantics, or you can go grab your kit, and we'll help you give it a good ol' dose of combat paint!” I said, hoping he'd be game.
“Aw . . . fine!” The Wizard slowly walked off to his bunk, shaking his head, probably thinking to himself, I can't leave the kids alone for a minute!
Someone once said that the army was just like the Boy Scouts . . . except without the necessary adult supervision. Sometimes, like that day, the saying rang true. And although it may have seemed childish, moments that could lift up our morale were few and far between, so you had to take them or make them wherever you could. Morale in a war zone wasn't something illusory: it was a tangible, living entity, and you had to take precious care of it.
We finished off with our kit and did a combat re-org, getting everything laid out the way we wanted it. Under our beds, in our tac vests, in our day sacks, everything had to be organized just so. If we got “stood to” at 0100 hours, we had to know where everything was and how it was laid out. When we had finished helping the warrant, we walked over and had supper and relaxed for the rest of the evening, trying to come to grips with the brutal heat and choking dust.
That night, we said good night in the Waltons fashion, taking the piss as everyone wished each other a good night, pleasant dreams, and “don't let the bed bugs bite.” I told the guys that if I started screaming in my sleep, they should just ignore me. If I continued screaming for more than a few minutes, they should throw a bucket of water on me. “But whatever you do, don't ever touch me to try and wake me up! For your own safety . . .”
I then suggested we start a new tradition. After we'd said our good nights, I would say, “This is who we are,” and in unison they would say back, “So say we all.” We tried it out and had a laugh, so we decided to make it a 72A tradition from then on. I always said make war fun, because I knew how scary this place could be, and how our morale was about to take a massive kicking from the constant grind of patrolling and facing one's own mortality. Because I had three previous tours under my belt, I knew how hard things were going to become, so I made it my personal mission to always try and keep our team's spirits high.
The next morning, before the patrol, I was sorting out my kit on the picnic table outside of our shack when the boys came out to join me. I looked at the guys' trouser pants tucked into their boot bands and feigned shock.
“What the hell, boys?” I asked, pointing at the warrant's trouser bottoms.
“What?” he asked, not sure where I was going with this.
“Don't you know? Boot bands are Canada's secret weapon. You can't patrol outside the wire with boot bands on! What if you're killed, or worse, captured, while still wearing your boot bands? Haven't you guys ever heard of OPSEC?”
Hetsa, always quick to stick it to the Man, said “Are you saying we don't have to wear our boot bands, sir?”
“That's exactly what I'm saying! We don't wear boot bands anymore, not outside the wire, not in Sperwhan proper. We're OMLT,” I said, quoting Stephens. “We dress to kill! Now get 'em off, get 'em off! And if anyone gives you crap, you just tell 'em Captain Samrow said you don't have to play their game anymore!” I didn't have to tell them twice; even the warrant quickly shed his tight boot bands. We had a laugh, and sat back down on the picnic tables, waiting for our cowboy brethren from the PPCLI.
Well, do something productive, I thought to myself. “Let's do a PRR [personal role radio] check. I'll start,” I said, all excited. It didn't matter what I said: only the four of us could hear me on the PRR. The warrant and I were the only guys on our team with radios that could communicate with the battle group.
“In today's news,” I opened with, “the Human Torch was denied a bank loan.” Whenever possible, we liked to quote from one of our favourite movies, Anchorman.
Hetsa joined in the fun. “I love Scotch,” he said over his PRR. “Scotchy, Scotch, Scotch!”
Fourneau picked up the ball and ran with it, saying, “I have many leather-bound books, and my apartment smells of rich mahogany!”
Warrant Longview finished off with, “I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal.” We smiled at our cleverness and went back to being bored.
I got up and pointed my rifle toward the hill, the safe
st direction I could find, and made it ready, then made sure both of my weapons were on safe. As we were supposed to be mentoring the ANA, it wouldn't do for my weapons to accidentally go off. I had put some oil on them, but not too much; you didn't want too much oil that would soak up all the dirt and grime in a desert country. Tended to jam one's weapon quite nicely.
I then gave them the time off my watch, so we could synchronize our watches. My watch was based off of Stephens's time. We'd done the same thing the night before in the CP (command post), at my request.
The captain and his crew came out, seemingly very disinterested. I suppose it was all the same old bollocks to them, having done this a hundred times during their tour. We all greeted each other, then Stephens called me into his building and closed the door behind us as the others walked off to find the ANA.
“Look Rob, I'm not trying to jinx us and say the shit's about to go down or anything, but if bullets start whanging down range, I'll be in command of us. All of us. I know you're a captain too, but I'm the guy who's been here and . . .”
“Stephens, I read ya loud and clear. If the shit goes down, then I suggest you give all the reports and returns to higher HQ, and you can treat me and my boys like a crack team of Imperial stormtroopers just waiting to get sent off to the flank to start sniping folk! We'll be ‘rifle section number three’ and you can order us around. I'm not going to get into a pissing contest over who's in charge during a two-way range. You don't have to worry about me or my team . . . you just tell us what to do, and it's as good as done.”
“Sounds good, thanks. I just wanted to make sure we're singing from the same song sheet. I'll call the CP and let them know we're heading out.” I listened as he called it in, giving our estimated departure time, saying he expected there to be forty ANA and eight Canadians on the patrol, and giving our estimated return-to-base timing. The CP acknowledged and told him good luck.
We quickly found our guys in the open area behind the ANA buildings. Unfortunately, our little patrol was missing one important, mission critical asset—the Afghan National Army.
The Taliban Don't Wave Page 6