But some days the fear was suffocating. This was usually after someone had been hit and suffered an injury, or worse. The agility of fear was such that it could creep up and fill your veins with what feels like aerated blood, tingling into your fingertips, with no apparent change in your physical situation. All of a sudden, with the thoughts completely uninvited, you can vividly recall seeing that lad get shot and the bullet tearing into his arm, breaking the bone in an instant and releasing a jet of sticky warm blood. You remember the taste of it hitting your face and a drop resting on your bottom lip as you shouted at him that he would be OK. It tasted like iron, and if you didn’t lick it off quickly it became congealed and sticky. You remember how your hands felt as you tried to stem the flow of blood, often inflicting more pain on the casualty. You remembered what the inside of someone’s arm felt like; what the inside of someone’s head felt like. And you worried how much it was going to fucking hurt when it came to your turn, which seemed a matter of when, not if. About how it was going to feel fighting the fog clouding your vision as you looked down at some bloody stumps where your legs used to be, knowing that you only had a few more minutes of breath, of feeling the air on your face. And ‘the test’ – would you pass the test? Would you die like a man, or crying into the dust, beating the ground in pain. Would you fight hard enough to get your own tourniquet on to stem the blood before you passed out, or lie back and accept the inevitable theft of your life.
But then I would grit my teeth. Because the truth was if you could park those thoughts – put them in that part of your brain that doesn’t get opened except in extreme moments – you could control fear, or at least keep a lid on it. How others did it I do not know, but for me it was all about compartmentalizing. And keeping busy.
Our morning and evening patrols followed a regular routine. We often got a bit of sleep in the afternoons – the heat of the day was a challenge for locals and ISAF forces alike – but this was almost always short, and always interrupted by the searing heat and waking up in a pool of sweat.
I was responsible for joint fires throughout the ‘31West’ area of operations, regardless of who was the terminal controller on the ground. This meant that whenever there was a TiC situation, I was summoned to the patrol base’s operations room to oversee the employment of joint fires, and if necessary conduct the engagement myself.
I wanted to empower the blokes both in my close team (Baz and Bing) and in the satellite patrol bases. I liked to let them get on with it themselves rather than leaning on me, while keeping a guiding hand on the tiller so they did not make any mistakes that would make life difficult for them further down the line. Ultimately, every engagement was my responsibility, and any joint fires accident would always be followed with the question: ‘Who was the FST Commander?’
There was no doubt that 31 West was a particularly dangerous part of Helmand that summer. Patrols from other units who were passing through the AO were regularly caught out in complex ambushes, where IEDs would strike vehicles and be followed up with small-arms fire from the Taliban. Were it not for the resilience of the new vehicle fleet – Huskies and Mastiffs – there would have been even more casualties.
The Mastiff in particular saved countless lives. A vehicle being struck by an improvised explosive device in my AO was probably a weekly occurrence, and although casualties were taken, the injuries were limited to severe shock and compressed spines rather than fatalities. However, a vehicle that had been hit was often unable to move and could not be left behind, meaning that the patrol was alive but fixed in a place of the enemy’s choosing, and would often be exposed to one of these complex ambushes.
One afternoon, I was slumbering in my sweat pit in the heat of the day when I heard gunfire from outside the compound, but at least a couple of kilometres away. It would be an exaggeration to say that I woke to gunfire every day that summer, but it wasn’t far off. I ran to the Ops room in my shorts and T-shirt to hear a familiar voice on the radio attempting to employ joint fires right on the boundary of my AO. De-confliction of forces around boundary lines was always difficult, because neighbouring units use different code words and frequencies to talk to each other. All that is generally needed is someone with a clear battlespace view (i.e. back in camp) to take over, de-conflict forces, battlespace and airspace in the coolness of an Ops room, cue up the assets to strike and then allow the ground controller to control the engagement through you. Emma was one of the few female Joint Fires Controllers in the Army, and the only one in Afghanistan at the time. I liked her; she was a good soldier and very capable. On this occasion, she was simply unlucky to get hit, and had become bogged down in thick mud, having been ambushed on Route Nike, somewhere 1 LANCS patrols did not go, because it was riddled with Talibs. The lead vehicle had been disabled with an IED strike, and the enemy were employing a 12.7mm Dushka against her. A Dushka is usually a vehicle-mounted, but always fixed, rapid-fire weapons system. It can be extremely dangerous.
I knew people would be queuing up to knock Emma down. Some of the officers I was with in PB Khaamar and across the task force considered themselves far superior to her simply because she was a woman. Coming from a specialist background myself, I had more perspective on the situation – there was a huge gap that existed between these guys and the Commando units in which I had previously served. They weren’t bad soldiers, but were not of the standard I expected in my own men, and certainly not in a position to cast aspersions on others’ abilities in this environment.
I listened in to see if I could help, as I would have done for anyone. On the main net, I asked Emma some obvious questions that would give me an insight into how concerned she was, conscious that probably a hundred commanders around theatre were listening in, willing her to fail. They did not want her to fail to the extent that casualties would be taken; they wanted her to struggle enough to validate their ongoing arguments in the Army at the time against women in frontline service. I told her to switch to another net that I had set up in the area, so I could chat to her in private.
She agreed that, being bogged down in a complex ambush on a tactical boundary with no visibility, she could do with some help. I established an operational box around her and proceeded to sort her out with a combination of artillery smoke and a couple of runs from an Apache. She completed the strikes and her troops were able to limp their vehicles back to their PB. She had proved what I had always known; that, like any bloke, a woman will remember her training and perform in combat. Whether they should train specifically as infanteers is another matter, but there was nothing mentally weak or inferior about females in combat.
Sexism in the British Army in 2010 was rife, and this was a good day for it.
18
Bing always stuck to me like glue. Despite our rather awkward start with that HE round, he obviously knew and completely understood the brainwork required to employ joint fires quickly, accurately and safely in close-quarter combat. He was a brilliant sounding board, very meticulous and gave me confidence when I needed it.
But the fighting was so close and so intense that summer that by early June we had worked out it was quicker if I just did the radio work myself and Bing kept us alive, providing my protection and making sure I didn’t wander out into a field of fire as I struggled with the myriad of mental challenges involved in delivering joint fires in close proximity to a determined enemy. Bing would keep me safe if I was exposing myself unnecessarily or losing ground awareness while controlling multiple weapons platforms over two radios – one to the gun line and one on the air net should I need it for controlling attack helicopters. I always checked everything with Bing though – a two-man check is vital. The cock-up, when it happened, was entirely my fault.
By now I had become increasingly skilled in the use of 105mm high explosive artillery, having been forced to use it frequently in the extremely demanding environment of the Jungle. In the very specific role my unit was tasked with – effectively walking into enemy territory and fighting it out ever
y day – speed and effect were crucial to win back initiative. As mentioned before, the effect of 105mm dropping, if only in an open field, dominated any firefight, and more often than not stopped that engagement without reverting to a more precise weapon put straight into someone’s house. My red line was that we would not take a UK casualty because I was reluctant to use the firepower at my disposal for fear of pissing off the chain of command. If it was safe, proportionate and ‘good practice’, I did it. I had the inevitable successes against the enemy that confidence and a good team bring you.
One day, we were in a slower-time firefight as part of a more deliberate operation rather than a regular patrol. I don’t know how it happened, but while I was on the radio I transposed two digits and relayed the wrong grid to the guns – a potentially fatal error, and one from which it is hard to recover confidence. A completely unacceptable mistake.
The guns fired on the reference I’d given them and the round landed about 30m away from me, Baz and Bing; not 300m. I was fuming at the guns, convinced they had cocked it up, and was badly shaken. We were only still alive because the round landed in a ditch and the blast and shrapnel went skywards, not towards us.
We got back to the PB and I spoke to the officer in charge at the gun line on the phone.
‘What the fuck happened there?’ I said, exasperated.
‘I’m sorry, Johnny, but I’ve gone over this three times now with the lads and I fired on the grid that was written down in the signaller’s note book, direct from your radio call.’
‘Impossible!’ I retorted. ‘It was a slow-time engagement – we were in cover and I wasn’t under pressure, I wouldn’t have done that.’
At that point Bing came running in. ‘Boss, I’ve got something you need to see.’
Bing had taken his headcam that day. These were banned in theatre by now, but I actually found them a good way to recall events that would otherwise be confused by the noise and smoke of the battle. Their footage enabled me to conduct good after-action reviews amongst our small team so I chose not to enforce this ban – it was not in my gift, and not right, but that’s what I did.
Bing played me the footage from before the near miss, and I had given the wrong grid to the gun line. A very small mistake that can sometimes have catastrophic consequences. Baz looked at me with sympathy on his face. He knew how I felt: transposing digits was every terminal controller’s nightmare. I started out for the Ops room to telephone the officer in charge and own up to my mistake.
‘Boss, boss, you can’t do that,’ Baz said, while Bing ran past me.
‘I can’t cover it up, mate, it’s a matter of integrity. I’d take responsibility for you guys and take the hit. Just because it’s me doesn’t matter – I’ve got to own up.’
‘There’s other factors at play here. We’re at fucking war. It’s not just about you.’
I didn’t listen and kept going, trailed by an exasperated Baz. We got to the operations room in time to hear the back end of a bollocking being delivered by Bing to the brand-new signaller in the command post on the gun line – for writing down the grid wrong.
I turned on my heel and left the Ops room to head back to our tent, where I sat down and had a cigarette by myself. I was pretty cross, and felt my authority over the situation waning. But, truth be told, I learnt a lot from this little incident.
Firstly, my team’s loyalty to me was obviously absolute. I had made a serious mistake, and yet Bing was prepared to bollock one of his mates and lie to everyone up and down the chain of command so that my mistake did not get out.
Bing and Baz joined me. Bing felt that we simply couldn’t afford for the gun line, or more importantly our commanders, to think that we had made a mistake as a team. We were by far the busiest – and the most effective – of the twenty-two joint fires teams in Helmand at the time, and he felt that to acknowledge an error would destroy confidence in our abilities. The blokes on the gun line were getting up early every time we were going out on patrol because they knew they would probably be used. There was a bit of buzz going around about us.
A patrol from the Brigade Reconnaissance Force (a composite group of soldiers who could be assigned to single tasks) had come to our PB the night before and their commander had sought me out, wanting to meet me. As we stood around in a circle, he said that at HQ I had become known as the ‘105mm Sniper’. Everyone laughed, but I was embarrassed. His blokes destroyed him, taking the mickey out of him, and rightfully so.
The truth is, I was overwhelmingly uncomfortable with any kudos, because deep down I knew that so much out here was luck. You see, it was physically impossible to control the exact landing point of a 105mm shell. You can get it very close, but it is not a precision weapon relying on GPS or the like. So every time I hit the target, I was very lucky. I couldn’t have been a ‘105mm sniper’ even if I’d tried.
But I am human, and to be known for your capability in killing the enemy during war was something I suppose I liked in a way. Perhaps a bit of arrogance did creep in, and I made a mistake as a result.
I told Bing and Baz about a very good Royal Marines company commander on my 2006 tour, called Oliver Lee. His company became renowned across 3 Commando Brigade for their standards, fitness, capability on operations and morale. But he had a clear message throughout: ‘The precise moment you start to believe your own hype, is the precise moment it all starts to go badly wrong.’
I never did quite believe my own hype, but I was obviously leaning that way before this incident, which my team covered up. It’s embarrassing to recall it now. I resolved to never even think like leaning that way again, whatever I did in life.
Bing saw no value in destroying confidence in our ability to protect patrols and kill the enemy, and eventually neither did I. In this game, lives were saved by our ability to deliver joint fires onto targets in close proximity to the enemy, daily. We could not afford to give either the troops we were supporting or the platforms we were using reason to question their confidence in us.
I found it a major challenge to my integrity, but Baz’s words rang in my ears: ‘It’s not all about you, you know.’ I was poor at many things, but when I made a mistake I was the first to own up. Yet I was not going to sink the team with a vanity gesture. I went along with it, resolving to correct the situation and ease my conscience at the end of the tour, if I was still alive. Life is not black and white. And it certainly wasn’t out here.
After we returned home I sought out the soldier who had been blamed for my error and confessed. He said everyone in the command post had heard Bing’s bollocking. They all knew the mistake was mine and that he was just protecting me. They had played the game too, and kept their wounded pride to themselves.
This incident taught me a very good lesson in humility – one that I was extremely grateful for. War can be the ultimate challenge for mankind, the ultimate arena, where you live or die. It was going to my head a bit. I should have had an accident; I got away with it. I would learn and move on. I would never again have much time for people who ‘dined out’ on their medals or battlefield escapades, but I would always respect them – it takes courage to operate under fire, no doubt about it.
I believe that if you hone your skills and use your drills correctly, as you have been taught, you significantly increase your chances of survival on the battlefield. But I remain convinced that those fickle bastards – fate and luck – always play the deciding hand. Always.
That lesson was about to be brutally reinforced to me.
19
8 June 2010 dawned like any other day for Bing, Baz and myself. We sat silently outside our tent in the cool pre-dawn darkness watching the yellow flames lick around the bottom of my metal mug which was full to the brim with water – precisely the amount we needed to serve three of us coffee in the smaller mugs we had commandeered from the mess hall in FOB Shawqat. I drew hard at the foul cigarette that fired up my lungs after a few hours of rest.
This morning we were going to patrol
west, directly into the Jungle to a compound about three and a half kilometres away that looked very interesting. It seemed to have three storeys – a rarity in these parts – and we heard that the man who lived there regularly left the country. The smaller satellite PB that we would be leaving from, PB Shawaal, was coming under persistent and prolonged attack; as ever, if we were to keep the enemy from the gates we would need to go out and dominate some of the ground that lay to the west. No one wants to wake up with a Talib at the end of their camp cot! (This did happen to some.)
A few days earlier the Brigade Reconnaissance Force had attempted to land in the area we were going to patrol into, to conduct a three-day operation with the same aims as us, but on a much larger scale. However, upon ‘flaring’ in their CH-47 Chinooks before landing, the ground below them had seemed to open, peel back if you like, in three places. The Taliban trained their 12.7mm Dushka heavy machine guns against the three CH-47s, firing with such ferocity that the landing and operation were aborted. This was unusual for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Taliban knew that operating heavy weapons made them a clear priority target, and so they were rarely seen or used. Secondly, it was also unusual because these weapons were placed in almost-professional gun emplacements that were concealed below ground, and only revealed when the enemy knew an operation was striking into the heart of their territory. It was game changing for my company in terms of the threat we were up against. It also indicated the enemy were serious about protecting something in that area.
We had an idea of this threat before this incident, but not the extent of it. Earlier that summer, in the same area just south of PB Shawaal, we were returning from a vehicle move when we patrolled straight into a complex ambush– a combination of an IED and fire from a Dushka poured onto the immobilized patrol. We were lucky to escape with no serious casualties. It was only the quality of the new vehicle fleet and the skill of Baz in controlling two Apache helicopters that enabled us to return the vehicle to camp.
We Were Warriors Page 14