They got us in through the gates at 1800 hours, just in time for dinner. After dumping our kit, we joined the queue outside the dining tent, making small talk with the other soldiers as we waited for our scoff.
It was a warm and pleasant evening, the calm only disturbed by the shouting and laughter of kids playing football outside the back gates. Hundreds of feet above the base, the Persistent Ground Surveillance System was watching all, keeping us safe. A blimp with cameras, its coverage of the surrounding area was beamed directly into the old factory’s Ops Room, televised on a bank of flatscreens. Any suspect behaviour within a certain radius would be picked up immediately.
“You should’ve been here in September,” said the lieutenant standing next to me. “It was pretty crunchy back then.”
Between the hoots and grunts of the young footballers, I could just make out the birdsong in the leafless trees that surrounded the base. “It’s amazing,” I said. “You’ve really turned things around.”
The lieutenant frowned. He must’ve been in his early twenties, but the wrinkles that deepened around his eyes took him closer to forty.
“When the summer kicks in, it’ll start over,” he said. “As soon as the vegetation grows back.”
“The vegetation?”
“The leaves on the trees.” He glanced up at the blimp. “The cameras will be less effective.”
“You think it’s going to get bad again?”
He nodded. “I give it another month before it kicks off.”
*
Daily Telegraph (online), 13th March 2011: ‘Paras Play Deadly Game to Draw out Taliban Sniper’.
*
Containers fashioned out of wire mesh, lined with heavy-duty fabric and filled with rubble and hard core. They are found on ISAF bases throughout Afghanistan.
*
If you weren’t good enough to wear the Parachute Regiment’s maroon beret, you were naturally a craphat.
*
The size of a laptop, the BGAN allowed us to access the internet via satellite from anywhere in the world. Each minute of footage took just over five minutes to send back to the UK through Livewire, at a cost of sixteen US dollars per minute.
†
I cleared our material for any operational security issues, as well as any glaring messaging fails.
Making Things Look Better
Two days after Nad-e Ali we drove to a small base on the outskirts of Gereshk, home to D Squadron of the Household Cavalry. One of their former troop commanders – Prince William, no less – was getting married in a month. He’d served with D Squadron after passing out from Sandhurst at the end of 2006. To feed the growing demand for wedding-related items in the news, we were going to show the world what his old muckers were getting up to in Afghanistan.
D Squadron shared the base with a company of soldiers from the ANA. The day before our arrival, an insurgent had thrown two grenades at the rickety front gate, injuring three ANA sentries. We drove straight past their replacements on the way in, one of them already with his helmet off, trying to stay a little bit cooler in the midday sun.
The base was like a smaller, grubbier version of Patrol Base Shahzad. It was nice, though, despite the not uncommon grenade attacks. A crumbling stone building housed D Squadron’s sleeping area, its half-lit rooms filled with long rows of camp cots. They led through to a bright, airy courtyard that boasted a ping-pong table and two armchairs, giving the base an under-the-radar charm that felt more in keeping with a backpacker community than a military camp.
We stayed on the base that night, then deployed with a troop from the squadron the following morning, going out in a patrolof four Jackals. The open-top wheeled vehicles, which carry up to five soldiers, were great for speed and mobility, but offered little in terms of protection. Russ took a seat in the commander’s Jackal, second in the patrol, while Ali and I were given the choice of either the first Jackal or the third.
“But you don’t
It was a warm and pleasant evening, the calm only disturbed by the shouting and laughter of kids playing football outside the back gates. Hundreds of feet above the base, the Persistent Ground Surveillance System was watching all, keeping us safe. A blimp with cameras, its coverage of the surrounding area was beamed directly into the old factory’s Ops Room, televised on a bank of flatscreens. Any suspect behaviour within a certain radius would be picked up immediately.
“You should’ve been here in September,” said the lieutenant standing next to me. “It was pretty crunchy back then.”
Between the hoots and grunts of the young footballers, I could just make out the birdsong in the leafless trees that surrounded the base. “It’s amazing,” I said. “You’ve really turned things around.”
The lieutenant frowned. He must’ve been in his early twenties, but the wrinkles that deepened around his eyes took him closer to forty.
“When the summer kicks in, it’ll start over,” he said. “As soon as the vegetation grows back.”
“The vegetation?”
“The leaves on the trees.” He glanced up at the blimp. “The cameras will be less effective.”
“You think it’s going to get bad again?”
He nodded. “I give it another month before it kicks off.”
*
Daily Telegraph (online), 13th March 2011: ‘Paras Play Deadly Game to Draw out Taliban Sniper’.
*
Containers fashioned out of wire mesh, lined with heavy-duty fabric and filled with rubble and hard core. They are found on ISAF bases throughout Afghanistan.
*
If you weren’t good enough to wear the Parachute Regiment’s maroon beret, you were naturally a craphat.
*
The size of a laptop, the BGAN allowed us to access the internet via satellite from anywhere in the world. Each minute of footage took just over five minutes to send back to the UK through Livewire, at a cost of sixteen US dollars per minute.
†
I cleared our material for any operational security issues, as well as any glaring messaging fails.
Making Things Look Better
Two days after Nad-e Ali we drove to a small base on the outskirts of Gereshk, home to D Squadron of the Household Cavalry. One of their former troop commanders – Prince William, no less – was getting married in a month. He’d served with D Squadron after passing out from Sandhurst at the end of 2006. To feed the growing demand for wedding-related items in the news, we were going to show the world what his old muckers were getting up to in Afghanistan.
D Squadron shared the base with a company of soldiers from the ANA. The day before our arrival, an insurgent had thrown two grenades at the rickety front gate, injuring three ANA sentries. We drove straight past their replacements on the way in, one of them already with his helmet off, trying to stay a little bit cooler in the midday sun.
The base was like a smaller, grubbier version of Patrol Base Shahzad. It was nice, though, despite the not uncommon grenade attacks. A crumbling stone building housed D Squadron’s sleeping area, its half-lit rooms filled with long rows of camp cots. They led through to a bright, airy courtyard that boasted a ping-pong table and two armchairs, giving the base an under-the-radar charm that felt more in keeping with a backpacker community than a military camp.
We stayed on the base that night, then deployed with a troop from the squadron the following morning, going out in a patrolof four Jackals. The open-top wheeled vehicles, which carry up to five soldiers, were great for speed and mobility, but offered little in terms of protection. Russ took a seat in the commander’s Jackal, second in the patrol, while Ali and I were given the choice of either the first Jackal or the third.
“But you don’t
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