by Shane Bryant
Not long after the suicide bombing at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters, I got a call and a follow-up email from my eldest son, who’s now fifteen. He told me that, as far as he was concerned, we didn’t have a relationship as father and son anymore.
At first, it felt like a kick in the guts to hear him say that, and then to read it in his email, but on reflection, I realised he was just saying what I already knew. He told me that I hadn’t been there for him as he was growing up, and that I was missing out on the younger kids’ best years. He was right.
My kids have never asked me much about what I do, or what I’ve done, in Afghanistan. When I’m away, the kids and I talk on the phone, on Skype, but I’m sure they’d rather be talking to their friends, so the conversations are short.
My children range in age from five to fifteen, and they all have different priorities, as kids do. My only daughter, Demi, is nine, and I like to think she’s Daddy’s little girl, but I’ve missed so many important moments in her life. She and Kyron both go to dancing lessons, but even when I’m home and get to drop Demi off at her class, I’m not allowed in, as the teachers don’t like parents hanging around. The only time I would be able to see Demi dance is the two recitals she does each year, but I’ve never been in Australia for those, so I’ve never seen my daughter dance on a stage.
I know I’m missing large chunks of my kids’ lives that I’ll never regain. As well as not being there for them when they’re having problems, I miss seeing them play sport and being there to read their school reports. I’m sure the kids would talk to me more if I were home more often but, as it is, I can feel the relationships between us have been strained by my absences.
I’ve lost something in the four years I’ve been away. Perhaps, as my son said, the gap between my kids and me has widened too much, but I hope I can make it up to them. Some of my vacations home have coincided with the school holidays, in Australia and it’s been great to have the kids around me all day and night, even if it is crazy, but my last couple of trips back home they’ve been at school, which makes it hard for me.
There’s not a day goes by when I don’t think about my kids or look at their pictures, and feel guilt about not being there for them. I’m lucky, though, as are they, that they have good mothers and they’re very well looked after. There’s no point in having a father who’s always around but has no money to support you. That wouldn’t be fair on my kids or their mothers. I’m scared to go back to an uncertain future in Australia when I can still earn good money in Afghanistan.
Things are improving, though. With the money I’ve saved and been able to put into the house Nat and I are renovating, my kids are seeing that their dad is getting his life back together. There was a time when they came to stay with me that they would have to sleep on the floor at my mum’s, or at my sister’s place, whereas now they at least know they have a home to come to when their dad’s in Australia. They sometimes visit Nat while I’m away too, which is great.
It’s been four years since I landed in Kyrgyzstan, lost, broke and unsure of how I would fare in a war zone. I’ve proved myself to myself and very nearly put all my debts behind me. But I’m tired. I’d like to come home for good, but I can’t see myself doing anything but what I’m doing for the next couple of years, at least.
I’m certainly aware that it’s been tough on people back home aside from my kids. I understood my ex-partners’ frustrations, and Nat had to contend not only with moving from one side of the country to the other, but with the stress of starting a new job in a very different environment and coming home each evening to a house that was more like a building zone than a home.
These things happen in war – the trauma of being apart from family and friends, and the disruption it causes to lives on both sides of the world. The unusual thing about military contracting, as opposed to military service, is that it would theoretically be feasible for me to go on like this for as long as the war lasts, which the Americans are already saying could be 20 years or more. I certainly don’t want to be working in Afghanistan when I’m 60, but the fact is that my family and children have had to put up with the situation for far longer than they would have if I’d been sent overseas as an Australian soldier.
I don’t do what I do for a medal or for public recognition. I do it because it’s a job that I can do, and I am still young enough to do it. I do it so that my children will get the futures they deserve, and so that Nat and I will have a decent house to live in and a secure future.
I’m still in Afghanistan now, and I’m writing this book so that my children will know what I did, and why I missed so many years of their lives.
The dogs are barking now, here in the kennels in Kabul. As Nat says when she hears it on Skype, it’s like the doggy opera. I think I’ll go and spend time with them, and take one for a walk.
Like the soldiers who used to like patting and talking to Ricky and Benny, I feel better when I’m in the company of a dog. They won’t ask me when I’m coming home, or why I do what I do. They will be happy to see me and, if I asked them to, they would follow me out to the airport, get on a helicopter with me and go back out to the war. They’d regard it as fun and, while they might whimper when the mortars started falling or the brass rained down on their heads or a bullet pinged off the chicken plate armour around the .50 cal, they would have no qualms about getting up again the day after and going out on another mission with me.
While they’re well fed and well treated, it’s no fun for a dog to be stuck in a kennel for too long. I imagine they feel something similar to what I used to feel when I was stuck at Kandahar, or how I feel now, spending more time in the office or the training area than I do out at the FOBs. It might be safer behind the wire in a big base, or in my office in Kabul, but, while I’m very busy in my current job, the time drags and I have more time to think about my kids and about Nat, and about the home that waits for me, on the edge of the blue Pacific Ocean.
A working dog needs a handler who will care for and respect him, and ensure he’s well fed and watered, and that he has somewhere undercover to sleep at night; be that the foot of a bed in a FOB, or under the gun truck, or curled around his handler’s head and shoulders at the opening of a sleeping bag in the bitter cold of the Afghanistan mountains. Despite the danger, a working dog is at his happiest when he’s doing what he was trained for, and wants nothing more than a friend by his side who he can follow or lead into the unknown. In return, he will protect his partner against all enemies, seen and unseen, and will work to earn his keep, because he loves his partner and his job.
I know how the dogs feel.
EPILOGUE
Ricky and Benny
After Nero was retired for bad behaviour, my mate Jason Bergeron, who had accompanied me to Cobra on my first trip, was looking for a new dog. Fortunately, Benny was between handlers and available, and was teamed with Jason in March 2008.
Jason and Benny were deployed to Cobra, where it had all begun for me, and while working there, Benny was credited with finding an IED made up of two 105-millimetre artillery shells rigged to a pressure plate. If a vehicle had driven over that device, it would have been obliterated.
In October 2008, Jason and Benny were redeployed to a new forward operating base, Tombstone, in Helmand Province. While there, they took part in the largest Special Forces operation of the war to that time, around Marjeh. Benny and Jason uncovered numerous caches of explosives.
Ricky has been lucky enough to end up with another friend of mine, a South African named Werner. Werner’s an ex-police dog handler who has had extensive experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. In my opinion, Ricky couldn’t have gone to a better handler.
Werner and Ricky were attached to the Canadian military. One day, they were searching a choke point when Ricky exhibited a change in behaviour, stopping and looking.
When Werner called some engineers forward, they realised that Ricky had found – and very nearly stood on – a pressure plate
connected to a buried bomb. For their good work that day, the Canadians gave Ricky and Werner a commendation, and Ricky was made an honorary lance corporal in the Canadian Army.
Benny and Lance Corporal Ricky are still soldiering in Afghanistan today, doing what they love most.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Shane would like to thank:
Many people have stood by me and helped me during my time in Afghanistan and beforehand. I would like to thank my family: Mum and Dad, and my siblings Aaron, Nicole, Kristin, Reece and Naomi for always being there for me during the happy and tough times. I couldn’t ask for a more loving family.
My beautiful partner Nat has always understood why I do the job I do and she supports me unconditionally. Nat read through the book in its early stages and provided valuable feedback. I hope she will always be by my side.
I’d also like to thank my children’s mothers and their partners; they have brought up beautiful, respectful children in my absence.
Dave and Chris Piper always had a bed for me whenever I needed one, and were more like family than friends. Without Mark Wilczynski, who first trained me as a dog handler, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to work in Afghanistan, so I thank him for that and for the guidance he always gave me when I needed it. Thanks, too, to another great mate Daryl Crane for his help whenever I stayed at Kandahar.
Tony Park is not just a great author, but a genuine Aussie bloke with a lot of patience and I like to think I have made a mate for life.
Tony would like to thank:
Thanks to Shane, for telling his story so honestly, and to Nat for giving him up for long periods of his precious vacations from Afghanistan while we worked on the book.
I’d also like to thank John ‘Robbo’ Roberts, currently resident in Mogadishu, Somalia, who introduced Shane to me. It’s not the first time John has helped me with one of my books. Your lunch is in the mail, mate.
At Pan Macmillan Australia, I’d like to thank Tom Gilliatt, Director, Non-Fiction Publishing, for believing in this book right from the start, and Senior Editor Emma Rafferty and Copy Editor Sarina Rowell for all their hard work on War Dogs.
And thanks to Nicola, who stayed strong for me when I was in Afghanistan.