A month in Helmand: the soldiers’ stories

An excellent article by a proper war correspondent, Anthony Lloyd.

A sample:

Back in Jackson, A Company went through a ritual that was by then all too familiar to 2 Rifles. They packed up their dead comrades’ personal effects. They wrote their eulogies. Some of these were long, sorrowful odes, later published on Army websites, cyberspace war memorials for our era. Others were read out by the dead soldiers’ friends at the small memorial services that were held on the HLS a day or so after each death, where steel-eyed, grim-jawed men choked as they tried to describe all that their lost mates had meant to them. Like any ritual of death, these were designed to give safe passage for the spirits of the fallen. They never quite succeeded: there was never a patrol went out without an attachment of ghosts. All the soldiers seemed to know that however hard they concentrated on the days ahead, a renewed sense of grief was waiting to ambush them when the tour finally ended – if they made it that far.

Three days later, August 16, A Company went out on another operation. They ran straight into another multiple bomb incident in the green zone. Three more soldiers were blown up and killed: two more were wounded. In this way the summer passed.

A month in Helmand: the soldiers’ stories – Times Online.

The Enemy is close to Home

Corporal Paul Mather

In this article the MOD shows how  bravely our  forces are fighting, despite injuries and setbacks they still finish the attack on the Taliban.

But what is revealed early on in this story of bravery, is that the enemy, despite all the bigging-up  about Operation Panthers Claw and it’s follow-ons, are still in place and operating with disdain close to our bases. In the article the MOD reports:

Corporal Paul Mather from the Army Air Corps was on patrol with 2nd Battalion The Rifles alongside elements of the Afghan National Army when they found an old Russian-style anti-tank mine on the north-western side of a group of compounds, no more than 500m from the Forward Operating Base that they were returning to.

Following the discovery the platoon took up defensive positions as experts dealt with the device. Cpl Mather’s role as a Forward Air Controller was crucial in co-ordinating air support to protect the troops on the ground.

Speaking later, Cpl Mather explained what happened:

“I was speaking to a pair of A-10 jets [United States Air Force operated aircraft] at this time and I had them scanning the area around us looking for any threats to the patrol.

“It was then that an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] came over the wall and hit a soldier on the back of his rucksack. It bounced off and landed on the floor in the middle of the patrol. I heard a massive shout of ‘RPG’ from the Platoon Sergeant and everybody dived into available cover.”

Lance Corporal Sally Clarke
Lance Corporal Sally Clarke

This incident is also covered as another good news story in the Telegraph as they report on the work of Medic Lance Corporal Sally Clarke in treating the wounded despite being injured herself . the Telegraph has this:

She and her colleagues from the 2nd Battalion the Rifles were on patrol south of Sangin, Helmand province, when one discovered an anti-tank mine. While they waited for experts to deal with the mine, they came under fire from insurgents, who shot a rocket-propelled grenade over a wall. It struck one of the soldiers on the back of his rucksack before landing in the middle of the patrol. The soldiers dived for cover as the device exploded three times. When L/Cpl Clarke got up, she realised that shrapnel from the grenade had become lodged in her back and shoulder. However, she saw that seven other soldiers had been injured and immediately began working. She later said: “I couldn’t leave them when they didn’t have any spare medics, and my injuries weren’t that bad.” Corporal Paul Mather, 28, was most seriously hit and had large wounds to his legs and buttocks. L/Cpl Clarke said: “He had taken wounds to his left bicep and had very bad shrapnel wounds across the lower part of his body. “One of the pieces of shrapnel had torn a fist-sized hole through his skin. I applied field dressings and a tourniquet to one of his wounds, while we waited for the Medical Emergency Response Team to arrive.”

So here are our forces in Sangin,  perhaps somewhere near to FOB Jackson being under attack, probably as close or closer as your local papershop. What does this say about the effectiveness of our strategies.

This area is basically a hell-hole at the moment and it appears that August’ s operations have had little or no effect on the Taliban.

And yet out of this single incident, in which our forces sustained seven casualties we have had manufactured by the MOD two good news stories.

What does this say about how the war is going in Afghanistan? It is not true censorship but it is propaganda and when we have to start fighting a propaganda war then we are losing the real war.

So now we may have two enemies and both of them are close to our or our armed forces  homes, one is the straightforward enemy force and the other is the insidious enemy of propaganda. We need to ensure that we defeat both of these and bring back reality to the situation in Afghanistan.

Ministry of Defence | Defence News | Military Operations | Badly injured soldier directs American air strike.