I had the privilege in my Army career of serving with men and women from all across the Armed Forces. Great strength of character, innate human decency and selfless commitment were ubiquitous. I would, though, like to single out for special mention the Household Cavalry, the small part of the Army that I was fortunate enough to call home. I was welcomed into it by soldiers who have become lifelong friends. Every day I think about the time I spent with Household Cavalrymen, the lessons that I learned alongside them and those I learned from them. It was an extraordinary education.
I want to pay tribute to the men and women of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces who served in Afghanistan.
I heard a country calling. Many others did too. So we went.
Glossary
10-liner. Document filled out upon the discovery of an IED or suspected device, consisting of ten serials such as location, time found, what kind of device it may be, to give the REST and the ATO the best possible information for when they come to investigate.
105. 105-millimetre calibre artillery piece with a range of up to eleven miles.
2ic. Second in command.
30 mil. 30-millimetre calibre ammunition for the Rarden cannon, the main armament of a Scimitar.
.50 cal. 0.5-inch calibre heavy machine gun. Fires bullets capable of tearing limbs off.
7.62 mm. The calibre of the bullets fired by the GPMG.
9-liner. Nine-serial document to be filled out to conduct a casualty evacuation by helicopter. Accompanied by a MIST.
A-10. US Air Force close air support plane, often called by troops to assist in a firefight. The rasp of its 30 mm cannon is very distinctive.
AH. Attack helicopter. Any helicopter, in Afghanistan typically an Apache, that provides fire support for ground troops. See also Ugly.
Ally. British army slang meaning ‘cool’.
ANA. Afghan National Army.
Angel flight. Flight sent to pick up a fatality and take him or her back to Camp Bastion. Less urgent than a Casevac, it usually took place about six hours after a death.
ANP. Afghan National Police. The civil counterpart of the ANA and usually less well disciplined.
ANR. Active noise reduction headphones used in CVR(T)s which block out engine noise, allowing the wearer to listen to the radio better.
AO. Area of operations. The name given to the territory a group of soldiers is responsible for.
ATO. Ammunition technical officer. Bomb disposal expert whose task it is, once an IED is discovered by a REST, to collect DNA evidence from it and then either remove or destroy it. Probably the most dangerous job in the Afghan conflict; this was reflected in their shockingly high casualty rates.
Bar armour. A cage-like metal skirt fixed around a vehicle, intended to stop RPGs exploding on its skin and so prevent penetration.
Barma. The name given to the process of sweeping a vulnerable area, comprising four soldiers moving in concert with Vallons. Became a blanket term for any activity with a Vallon.
Bastion. Camp Bastion, the main UK base in Helmand and adjacent to the American Camp Leatherneck. Troops would arrive into Bastion by plane and typically spend a week there doing RSOI before deploying out to the bases in the rest of the province.
Battle group. A unit formed around an infantry battalion or armoured regiment (as in the case of the King’s Dragoons) and commanded by a lieutenant colonel. The battalion/regiment also provides the HQ element of a battle group, which is typically furnished with three or four infantry companies or armoured squadrons, a battery of artillery, a troop of engineers and assorted other logistics, signals and medical personnel. In Afghanistan there were roughly eight hundred people in each battle group. The King’s Dragoons battle group is called BG(NE) – Battle Group North East – and is based in the fictional town of Loy Kabir.
Bergen. Army rucksack.
BFBS. British Forces Broadcasting Service. In Afghanistan in the FOBs and PBs there were televisions with a handful of channels provided by BFBS, usually screening BBC shows and high-profile sports matches.
BFPO. British Forces Post Office. The address for personnel on Op Herrick was BFPO 792.
BG Tac and BG Main. Battle group tactical is the commanding officer’s team deployed with him when he is on the ground, comprising operations officer and others. Battle group main runs the operation from the rear in a FOB, making sure logistics and casualty evacuation are in order.
BGHQ. Battle group headquarters.
BGTI. Battle group thermal imaging. Thermal sight in the turret of the Scimitar that can detect body heat up to five kilometres away. It provides great night surveillance capability and accuracy for the Rarden.
Bleed out. For a casualty, normally a double or triple amputee, to die by catastrophic blood loss.
Bluey. Light-blue letter that can be sent to and from troops. Divided into three segments, it folds up and can be licked closed by gum strips around its edges. See also E-bluey.
Bod. Army slang for ‘soldier’, usually a private.
Brimstone. Callsign of the RESTs.
BV. Boiling vessel. Electric kettle inside every CVR(T), holding about two litres of water.
Casevac. Casualty evacuation. Used as both a noun and a verb.
Cat A/B/C. Casualty categories. Cat A is the most serious, meaning life-threatening injuries, through to Cat C, which means walking wounded.
CBA. Combat body armour. Flak jacket-style body armour, with a ceramic plate in front of the heart and a second one over the centre of the back. Replaced by the much better although much heavier Osprey. By 2009 the only personnel wearing CBA were Scimitar crews, as they could not manoeuvre in their cramped turrets with the more cumbersome Osprey.
CGS. Chief of the general staff. The commander of the British Army.
Chalk. A group of soldiers lined up and about to get on or off a helicopter or other transport.
Charlie Charlie One. A radio message directed not to one specific callsign but to every callsign operating on that Net.
Chinook. Twin-rotor helicopter, the workhorse of the UK helicopter fleet. Much loved by soldiers, it can carry supplies and/or up to thirty soldiers. Also used to carry a MERT. With the GPMG arguably the soldiers’ favourite piece of equipment.
Chippy. Derogatory term for someone from a regiment which a soldier thinks is less professional than his own.
Civcas. Civilian casualties.
Civvie/civi/civvy. Different spellings of the abbreviation for civilian. ‘Civvies’ is also the nickname for civilian clothing.
Claymore. An anti-personnel mine placed to defend a position, comprising a box filled with ball bearings. When detonated it scatters the ball bearings out with lethal and staggeringly violent force.
Clip. To be ‘in clip’ means to be in a dreadful state. Used to describe someone particularly hungover, absolutely exhausted or very badly wounded.
Command wire. The means by which a command-wire IED (CWIED) is triggered, usually a couple of hundred metres long and buried in the ground, connecting the device to the site where it is detonated. A large part of any Barma was directed to finding command wires, which were often very shallow or covered by just a sprinkling of sand.
Comms. Communications.
Compound. The generic building found in rural Afghanistan. Built of mud and pebbles, and very often with no electricity or running water, a typical compound is about the size of a tennis court, with a high perimeter wall enclosing a cluster of small buildings used to house a family and its livestock.
Contact. A firefight, although troops could also have a ‘contact explosion’. Used both as a verb and a noun.
Crow/crowbag. Novice, rookie. Typically applied to young officers and new recruits.
CSS. Combat service support. Another name for logistics. In an Orders Group the CSS section would be delivered not by an officer but by a sergeant, and would detail the Casevac and resupply plans.
CVR(T). Combat vehicle reconnaissance (tracked). A family of vehicles including the Scimitar,
Sultan, Spartan, Samaritan and Samson which share the same chassis but have different top halves depending on what role they are designed for. Designed in the 1960s, many thought them obsolete, but they proved their worth time and again in Afghanistan, particularly the Scimitar with its intimidating and accurate Rarden cannon.
Cyalume. A ‘glowstick’ that when snapped provides a degree of fluorescent light, normally enough to read by. Lasting for about four hours, they performed a plethora of functions, from route marking at night to makeshift room lighting.
D & V. Diarrhoea and vomiting. A bout of mild dysentery that usually keeps a sufferer out of action and quarantined for a period of four to five days.
Daisy chain. A collection of IEDs joined together to detonate at the same time when triggered. Normally placed along a compound wall. Not as nice as it sounds.
DC. District centre. The middle of a larger Afghan town, with its shops and bazaars.
Dicker. A name, first coined in Northern Ireland, for an enemy scout who reports on friendly forces’ movements. Usually unarmed, they are very hard to spot and impossible to engage as to do so is a breach of rules of engagement.
Dish-dash. Colloquial name given interchangeably to the scarf used as a shawl-like headdress and the robe-like garment worn by Afghan males. When worn by British troops, the scarf was known as a shemagh.
DSO. Distinguished Service Order. A decoration awarded for outstanding command performance as opposed to an act of gallantry.
E-bluey. A subscription email service for British personnel. Emails were printed out in Afghanistan and then sent on to addressees.
ECM. Electronic control measures. Devices used to jam electronic signals that set off radio-controlled IEDs (RCIEDs).
FAC. Forward air controller. A soldier trained to talk to aircrew in order to direct their weaponry on enemy positions. Either junior officers or especially talented NCOs, they typically accompany the senior officer of a unit or sub-unit.
FFD. First field dressing. Standard issue bandage. Capable of absorbing a lot of blood, every soldier in Afghanistan carried at least three or four.
Fire mission. Task given to an artillery piece or mortar to provide support for troops in contact.
FLET. Forward line of enemy troops. The line which if crossed by friendly forces would almost certainly generate a contact with the enemy.
FLOT. Forward line of own troops. Friendly forces’ front line, denoting the limit of their sphere of influence.
FOB. Forward operating base. Usually home to a BGHQ, there was one in every major town. Around it were several smaller satellites, known as PBs.
FOO. Forward observation officer. Just like a FAC, but instead directing ground-based artillery and mortars. Usually sourced from the Royal Artillery, whereas FACs were from a variety of regiments.
Full screw. A corporal.
Gimpy. See GPMG. Pronounced with a soft ‘g’.
Gleaming. Army slang for ‘excellent’.
GMG. Grenade machine gun. Mounted on the top of a Mastiff, and capable of firing bursts of grenades at targets with devastating effect. An excellent weapon.
GMLRS. Guided multiple launch rocket system. Unit on a tracked chassis loaded with twelve rockets with a range of seventy kilometres. Based in Camp Bastion they provided cover for most of the British bases in Helmand Province.
GPMG. General purpose machine gun. Belt-fed 7.62 mm calibre machine gun carried by infantry or mounted on vehicles. Easy to assemble and clean, accurate, with a good and intimidating rate of fire, it gained iconic status among troops.
GPS. Global positioning system. Devices used to pinpoint to the nearest metre the location of either oneself or a contact or an IED. Every officer in Afghanistan wore one on his wrist and would have a spare, if not two, in his kit.
Green zone. The fertile area of dense vegetation and crops that hugs any river or canal in Helmand Province. Elaborate irrigation systems enable water to reach fields sometimes several miles from a waterway. Beyond this zone is desert. Most of the Helmandi population live and work in the green zone, and therefore most of the fighting took place there.
Ground sign. Clue giving away the presence of an IED, such as disturbed or sunken earth, or soil of a different shade to that around it. Some soldiers became astonishingly good at finding devices through a sixth-sense-like awareness of ground signs.
GSW. Gunshot wound.
H-Hour. In military operations the time that troops are to cross the line of departure. Expanded now to refer to the start of any significant action.
Harbour. The night-time location of a group of soldiers, not permanent but organized with sentries, a central administrative point and intended to provide a degree of comfort and rest.
HE. High explosive.
Headley Court. Hospital in Surrey where British casualties from Afghanistan went to rehabilitate and receive advanced physiotherapy after having had their wounds initially treated and operated on at Selly Oak.
Heli. Helicopter.
Hemcon. Haemorrhage control bandage. Applied to stop severely bleeding arterial wounds. Very effective.
Hesco. Hesco bastions are used to create defensive walls in a very short time and at low expense. Every single ISAF base in Helmand was either built purely from them (why Camp Bastion is so called) or was in a pre-existing Compound heavily augmented by them. Made of sackcloth surrounded by a wire lattice cage, with the right digging equipment they are easy to erect and fill with sand or stone, and provide a thick bulletproof wall in hours.
Highway One. Name of the road that circles Afghanistan, one of the only metalled roads in Helmand Province.
HLS. Helicopter landing site.
IC. Intercom. The internal radio of an individual vehicle which can not be listened to by others. Conversation on the IC is accordingly less structured and pays no attention to VP.
ICOM scanning. The practice of listening into the Taliban’s insecure walkie-talkie communications to get intelligence about their plans and tactics. The Taliban however soon discovered that ISAF could do this, and so would send false messages. On some occasions they would hurl abuse, which the interpreter would then pass on.
IED. Improvised explosive device.
Illum. Pronounced ‘illume’. Illumination shells fired from a mortar or a 105 to light up a battlefield at night.
ISAF. International Security Assistance Force. The collective name for the NATO mission countries in Afghanistan, ISAF troops could be British, American, Canadian, Danish or any of the other nationalities that made up the coalition.
Jack. Selfish, letting others down when they need your help. So to ‘jack on your mates’ could be to withhold food from them if you had spare and they didn’t, or to not tell other troops about dangers in an area. ‘Having a jack brew’ was to have a cup of coffee but not make one for anybody else.
Javelin. Man-portable anti-tank missile that also proved effective at destroying Taliban fire positions and bunkers.
KAF. Kandahar Air Field. A huge, mostly American camp in southern Afghanistan, around the airfield on the outskirts of the country’s second city.
KIA. Killed in action.
Kinetic. Used to describe a period of heavy fighting.
Lasing. The practice of using the laser range finder on the Rarden cannon to get the distance to a target.
LASM. Light anti-structures missile. Lighter and less accurate than the Javelin and requiring no special training to use, this shoulder-launched missile also proved effective at destroying bunkers.
Leatherneck. American base adjacent to Camp Bastion.
Legacy mines. Name given to the tens of thousands of Russian landmines left behind from the 1970s and 80s. They were particularly feared as to be killed by one would be the legacy of someone else’s war. As a rule high ground was avoided due to the Russians having liberally scattered these weapons around in such spots. Often dug up by the Taliban and re-used.
Link. Belt of bullets, usually 7.62 mm for a Gimpy.
; Loadie. The RAF crewman on a helicopter who mans the machine gun and helps troops and supplies on and off.
LOD. Line of departure.
Loggy. Affectionate term for a soldier of the Royal Logistic Corps.
Lynx. Helicopter used by the RAF for reconnaissance and for carrying small groups of soldiers.
Mastiff. Vehicle ushered into service with a degree of urgency during the Iraq War to combat the IED threat in Basra. It also proved brilliant in Afghanistan, and was for a few years about the only vehicle in which troops were likely to be safe in an IED strike due to its V-shaped hull and thick armour. It was often driveable even after one of its six wheels had been blown off. Armed with either a .50 cal or a GMG, it became the workhorse of the army’s operations as a fire-support platform, protected mobility, or as a logistics vehicle.
MC. Military Cross. Awarded for individual acts of especial bravery in the face of the enemy.
MERT. Medical emergency response team. Team of doctors and paramedics, usually carried in a Chinook, which treated casualties during the journey from the HLS to the hospital at Camp Bastion. Feats of astonishing surgery were conducted by such teams, often under fire.
MiD. Mention in Dispatches. Award for bravery in the field signified not by a medal but by a little oak leaf worn on a campaign ribbon.
MIST. Four-line card filled out and sent with the 9-liner to arrange a casualty’s evacuation. M stands for mechanism of injury – IED, GSW, fall, etc. I denotes injury type – double amputation, bullet wound to the arm, broken collarbone, etc. S is for signs – heart rate, breathing, whether the casualty is in shock, etc. T stands for treatment given – tourniquets, morphine, FFD, etc.
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