BATTLEWORN
THE MEMOIR OF
A COMBAT MEDIC
IN AFGHANISTAN
CHANTELLE TAYLOR
iUniverse LLC
Bloomington
BATTLEWORN
THE MEMOIR OFA COMBAT MEDICIN AFGHANISTAN
Copyright © 2014 Chantelle Taylor.
Cover artwork: Medics in Afghanistan by Edward Waite –www.edwardwaite.com
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ISBN: 978-1-4917-2528-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4917-2529-0 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4917-2530-6 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014902837
iUniverse rev. date: 4/14/2014
Brought to you by KeVkRaY
CONTENTS
Preface
List Of Abbreviations And Acronyms
Prologue
1 Game On
2 Establish Routine
3 The Shooting Season
4 Flashheart Arrives
5 Face-To-Face With The Taliban
6 Patrol Base Test
7 Mass Casualties
8 Ali Cat
9 Homeward Bound
10 Saying Goodbye
About The Author
For my brother David
(1970–2002)
PREFACE
The following account is based on my experience as the lead trauma medic within an infantry fighting company. I have endeavoured to report events accurately and truthfully; insult or injury to any of the parties described or quoted herein, or to their families, is unintentional.
After putting my thoughts on paper over a period of six weeks in the late summer of 2009, I decided to send the raw text to my mum, trying to explain what I had experienced in Afghanistan as a serving soldier. It wasn’t polished, and it only touched the surface of my time with B Company 5 Scots (5th Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Scotland) during their mission to hold Nad-e Ali. She wrote back, commenting that my writing was developing into a good story and that she enjoyed reading about the characters, particularly young Duffy.
I would never have contemplated writing this book if it hadn’t been for Mum’s encouragement. I have enjoyed a lifetime of her wisdom: ‘You can stoop down and pick up anything, Channy; try reaching for it instead.’
In Battleworn, I tell the story of B Company, a beleaguered group of individuals who fought relentlessly and against all odds to hold Nad-e Ali, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, in 2008.
It is difficult for soldiers to express feelings whilst engaged in combat, as training rightly teaches suppression of emotion in order to survive the battlefield. I wrote the following poem for Cpl Stu Pearson QGM (3 PARA) and Cpl Mark Wright GC (3 PARA). I share it here in honour of all our fallen.
KEEP ME AWAKE – KAJAKI
Lying still, like the Tommy did before me,
My trench is in a land far from her heart;
A purple horizon has become my solace, my peace.
Don’t fall asleep, soldier, for you may not wake again.
Body broken, I still breathe.
Who is that, who lies beside me?
I am your brother; you are my keeper.
Don’t fall asleep, soldier, for you may not wake again.
What is your name?
I am a fallen soldier; keep me awake, let me see her face once more.
I will, I will …
Don’t fall asleep, soldier, for you will not wake again.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
2IC: second in command
2Lt: second lieutenant
2 PARA/3 PARA: 2nd/3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment
ABTF: Airborne Task Force
ANA: Afghan National ANP: Afghan National Police
AO: area of operations
ASM: air to surface missile
ATV: all-terrain vehicle
Brig.: brigadier
CAP: company aid post
Capt.: captain
CAS: close air support
casevac: casualty evacuation
cat-A: category A (wound classification)
cat-B: category B (wound classification)
cat-C: category C (wound classification)
CCP: casualty collection point
CLP: combat logistic patrol
CMT: combat medical technician
CP: command post
Cpl: corporal
CSAR: combat search and rescue
CSgt: colour sergeant
DEFAC: dining facility
DOS: Department of State
evac: evacuation
FCO: Foreign and Commonwealth Office
FOB: forward operating base
FSG: fire support group
Fus: fusilier
GC: George Cross
GM: George Medal
GPMG: general purpose machine gun
HE: high explosive
HLZ: helicopter landing zone
HQ: headquarters
ICOM: interim communications operations method
ID: intradermal
IDF: indirect fire
IED: improvised explosive device
IM: intramuscular
intel: intelligence
ITC: infantry training centre
IV: intravenous
JTAC: joint tactical air controller
KAF: Kandahar Air Force Base
KAIA: Kabul International Airport
KIA: killed in action
LCpl: lance corporal
LKG: Lashkar Gah
LOCSTAT: location with grid reference
Lt: lieutenant
Lt Col: lieutenant colonel
Maj.: major
MARCH-P: acronym for emergency medical assessment (see text for details)
MERT: medical emergency response team
MOB: main operating base
MOD: Ministry of Defence
MREs: meals ready to eat
NHS: National Health Service
NVG: night vision goggles
OC: officer commanding
OMLT: operational mentor and liaison team
ops: operations
PB: patrol base
PEF: poppy eradication force
PF: Pathfinder
PK/PKM: Polemyot Kalashnikov machine gun
PMT: police mentoring team
POW: prisoner of war
PRT: provincial reconstruction team
PSD: personal security detail
Pte: private
PTSD: post-traumatic stress disorder
PX: post exchange
QGM: Queen’s Gallantry Medal
QRF: quick reaction force
RAF: Royal Air Force
RAP: regimental aid post
recce: reconnaissance
reorg: reorganisation
resupp: resupply
RI: Royal Irish
RIP: relief in place
RLC: Royal Logistics Corp
RPG: rocket propelled grenade
RRF: Royal Regiment of Fusiliers
SAM: surface to air missile
SC: subcutaneous
Sgt: sergeant
Sgt Maj.: sergeant major
sitrep: situation report
SME: subject matter expert
SNCO: senior non-commissioned officer
SUSAT: sight unit small arms trilux
TA: territorial army
TAB: tactical advance to battle
UAV: unmanned aerial vehicle
VP: vulnerable point
WMIK: weapons mounted installation kit
THE MAN IN THE ARENA
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
—Theodore Roosevelt
[AUTHOR’S NOTE: ‘The Man in the Arena’ is an excerpt from Theodore Roosevelt’s Citizenship in a Republic speech given at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on 23 April 1910. These are the words carried by my grandfather whilst serving in Korea in 1951 as a 41 Commando Royal Marine.]
PROLOGUE
The first explosion rocked the vehicle, smashing my head against the front of the wagon. I could hear rounds zipping through the antennas above me. ‘What the fuck?’ I shouted as an array of munitions continued to rain down on us.
I was in the same vehicle as LCpl Kevin Coyle, the signaller of the officer commanding (OC). The lightly armoured patrol in which I was travelling had turned into a Taliban shooting gallery; the noise from left and rear incoming fire was deafening. Our heavy machine guns roared into action as broken bricks and clouds of dust enveloped us.
Our Land Rover, the second vehicle in the packet, was taking sustained and heavy fire. Looking up through the hatch, I could see rounds pinging from left to right. I guessed they were from enemy fighters on my side of the vehicle. I heard someone shout, ‘Get some fucking rounds down!’
Popping back up through the hatch for a split second, I got eyes on an insurgent who was engaging us, thirty metres away and to the half right of me. Suddenly overwhelmed by the fear that I was about to be shot in the face, I experienced a rush of blood to the head and took in a mouthful of dust. Reminding myself to breathe, I engaged him instinctively and purposefully. I didn’t stop firing until he dropped.
The excitement that I felt before moving into Marjah had faded fast. Kev, covering our right side, engaged another fighter close by. The machine gunner in the vehicle behind us took on two insurgents who had positioned themselves on the roof of a compound.
Shouting out half of a fire control order, I alerted my team to other targets around us. A lull in the firefight commenced just then, soon followed by the dreaded cry ‘man down, man down!’ blasting across the radio net.
As I scanned for further threats, Maj. Harry Clark, our OC, shouted through to the back of our Land Rover, ‘Man down in the rear vehicle!’
He calmly jumped out of the front seat as I climbed through the back door to meet him. We started to run to the back of the patrol, stopping to take cover along the way, both of us vulnerable to enemy fire all the while. Fighting the unforgiving Afghan sun, we made light work of the distance we covered on foot. My medical pack felt like a lead weight on my back.
Midway there, the OC stopped and turned back towards our vehicle. Unconcerned, I followed him. It wasn’t through lack of interest that I said nothing; my lungs simply needed oxygen far more than I needed conversation. I jumped back into the wagon and struggled to breathe.
Kev laughed. ‘You okay, Channy?’
I wanted to share the joke that I was in and out of our vehicle like a yo-yo, but I was ‘hanging out’ – physically exhausted.
Shunting forward, the wagon hastily moved off. Back on top cover, covering my arcs again, I was desperate to cool down. I gulped water quickly, trying to avoid becoming nauseated. The heat radiating around my cumbersome and oversized helmet finally started to ease off. Slowly I regained my composure. Kev continued to laugh at my struggling to run in the midday heat.
Our minor break in contact allowed us time to get out of the initial kill zone, and we managed to limp to an area of open space: it was large enough to land a Chinook, making it the perfect choice for a casualty extraction.
The OC sent two of our company snipers up onto a compound roof. They gave us over watch as we prepared an all-round defence. As the men of B Company covered the outer cordon, our snipers’ body count began to rise. The Apache gunship was now on station; visually scanning the ground from the sky, the crew hunted the Taliban of Marjah.
Chuckie had taken a round to the abdomen; he was manning the .50-calibre machine gun in the rear vehicle. His Land Rover had screeched past our own when the OC shouted for our call sign to go firm in the open space. Chuckie was lying in the back of his vehicle with Commander Cpl Greg Gorman; Greg had administered the initial treatment which had earlier saved me from running a further half kilometre to the back of our patrol. Our OC’s decision to stop midway and turn back had prevented us both from becoming casualties. There’s a fine line between bravery and stupidity.
‘Channy, he’s been hit in the gut, I cannae see where it’s come out.’ Greg’s familiar Scottish accent carried a worried tone, and sweat dripped from his anxious-looking face.
When I eventually got hands on Chuckie, we were still in contact with enemy fire, so I had to assess his wounds quickly: I had about thirty seconds to surmise what was happening inside of him. His wound was fairly high up so I was inclined to think that he might have sustained a chest injury, which meant that his evacuation needed to be swift. Wounds to the abdomen are problematic at best of times, add to that a chest injury, and Chuckie’s day would end badly. His chances of survival were slim if we could not get him back to more-definitive care. Bleeding in the abdominal cavity is almost impossible to control, so we positioned him as best we could with the equipment that we had. We sat him up with his knees pulled against his chest, which would at least form some type of compression without restricting his breathing too much. Leaving further treatment to company medic Tom Rooke (‘Rookey’), I made my way back to brief the OC on our casualty’s condition.
Casualty extraction under fire wasn’t without risk either; the inbound Chinook was escorted by two Apache gunships, which circled our position like birds of prey before the lone bird swept in. Airborne within thirty minutes of being hit, our team had gotten lucky. Reassured, I sorted my kit out before mounting up with Kev, Greg, and the rest of B Company. This was my first taste of close-quarter combat; little did I know that B Company would be under fire almost every day for the next two months.
CHAPTER 1
GAME ON
WELL ON OUR WAY INTO OUR TOUR OF HELMAND PROVINCE, B COMPANY receives orders to patrol into Nad-e Ali, just north of the main British operating base of Lashkar Gah.
Our convoy moves cautiously across the desert. We hear the thud of several explosions ahead, the noise carried on the dry air. As vehicles chunter along, every soldier nurses the uneasy thought as to what may lie ahead.
After leaving our base, we head north-west. In total we are a force of just sixty-two troops drawn from two platoons, travelling in ten heavily armed vehicles. Many of our soldiers are very young. We range in age from eighteen to late thirties, with the average age at around twenty-two. This is the first tour of Afghanistan for some. At thirty-two, it’s my second tour and would become my last as a serving British soldier. In this unbearable heat we are laden in heavy uncomfortable body armour and helmets, scanning the desert for anything that could pose a threat. Our company will carry out what is known as a ‘look see’ patrol to Nad-e Ali, just fifteen kilometres north-west of Lashkar Gah (capital of Helmand Province).
Our mission has come about as a direct result of a sharp increase in enemy activity. There has been speculation that a company from one of the parachute battalions would be committed to this area, but many are now assigned to a major operation which the brigade has been planning for some time, consuming much of its manpower.
It involves the delivery of a three-hundred-ton turbine by convoy from Kandahar across open desert to the hydroelectric dam at Kajaki. The dam was built in 1975 with funding from US Aid, an American development charity, but only two turbines were supplied before the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Work then stalled, and the dam was unable to fully function. In 2006, when British troops arrived, one of the first projects identified to help the local populace was to complete the work at the dam.
In 2008, 16 Brigade took on this responsibility as a ‘main effort’, a huge undertaking requiring the majority of our assets. The mission was to complete the move of a third turbine and additional mechanical items to the dam. It was hoped that the task would allow contractors to commission the system and generate electricity for the entirety of Helmand Province.
Insurgents gathering in Nad-e Ali presented an unwelcome distraction: if they disrupted the convoy and forced the brigade commander to detach manpower from the Kajaki task, there was a risk that the operation as a whole would be compromised. Any commander wishing to progress recognises early that he must win the propaganda war, and getting the turbine in place would be a major coup. Success would mean ‘lighting up’ Helmand and therefore, a sizable boost for the hearts-and-minds campaign.
Battleworn: The Memoir of a Combat Medic in Afghanistan Page 1