Waiting and waiting
Hi all,
The last few days have been pretty quiet, so there’s not much to report. After the remembrance service on the 11th I spent the rest of the day waiting for a convoy back to KAF. It started raining again, and this time it was heavier. Looks like winter has decided to make itself known at last. I feel really sorry for the guys at the Strongpoint I was at, as they will no doubt be swimming in mud by now.
By late afternoon I was told it was arriving at 11:30pm so I decided to get some sleep. Then I was woken at 10, told the convoy had arrived, so I jumped up and grabbed my stuff, hauled it all the way down to the convoy pick-up point, only to discover that these were some heavy vehicles to be unloaded. This takes forever, so I sat down and started to wait. In the end we left at 1:30am. We now had a casualty in our vehicle, a guy who had been hit on the head with something during the unloading, and the medic travelled with us in the back of the vehicle as well. The medic was concerned that the guy had concussion, which meant he wasn’t allowed sleep before he got to hospital. So tired as we all were, we tried to keep the conversation going, with the medic throwing in unexpected questions and turning the talk in new directions, to make sure the injured soldier was coherent enough to follow it.
We dropped these two off at the hospital as soon as we arrived back at KAF, and I got out at the same spot to walk back to the media tent, as the other unloading area was even further away. Now it’s a real pain in the ass trying to haul all my stuff around, as I have my big back pack with all my living kit, plus a hand bag with both sat-phones, lap-top, and cables, etc, plus I am wearing heavy body armour and helmet, and a belt / shoulder harness combo with several pouches holding first-aid kit, video-camera, spare lenses, and other bits and pieces I need out on patrol. I also wear a Camel-Back, which holds 3 litres of water and has a few stripped down ration-packs in there, because you never know when you’re going to get stuck somewhere without food or water. I don’t know how much all of this weighs, but it is too much, that’s for sure. By the time I got to the media tent I just wanted to lay down and sleep right there. And when I walked in I discovered that while I was away a new TV team had arrived and taken over my desk, shoving my stuff off to a small pile in the corner. Boy, was I grumpy at this stage. So, I then drop half my kit there, and start out for my sleeping quarters with my Bergen slung on my back. Arriving at the canvas media accommodation tent, I opened the door to find the whole place flooded. There was about a cm of water on the floor, but by the looks of things there had been a lot more. I got into my cubicle to discover that the spare clothes and extra kit I had left behind was soaking wet. Apparently these tents, which have a concrete slab as a foundation, weren’t correctly erected by the engineers, and loads of them had flooded in the sudden downpour earlier in the day. The tents are supposed to be pulled taut at the sides to ensure the rain flows off, but some brightspark had decided a few sandbags thrown around the outside would do. WRONG!!! In the end I was so tired I just hooked my bag over a support bar to keep it off the floor, and climbed in my sleeping bag on my cot. By now it was after 4am. I would sort the rest out in the morning.
Waking in the morning I felt a lot better, having had at least 5 straight hours sleep, the most continuous sleep I had had in well over a week. Today was going to be an easy day, as all I had to do was organise my UNHAS ticket to fly back to Kabul, and wrap up some loose ends. I needed to do some handwashing of socks and jocks, and burn some CDs for the RAF Regiment, and confirm my next embed with the Americans. I also had to have a shower, which should have been priority, but as I had woken at 9am I only had 30 minutes of breakfast time left at the DFAC (Dining Facility) so I had to haul ass. Walking in to the wash area, where you have to wash, disinfect, rinse, and dry your hands before entering the eating area, I was confronted with a table laid out with a helmet, boots, and knife fork and spoon. I was the DFAC’s tribute to Remembrance Day, and reminded me that the service I had witnessed was only one of many that had been carried out on the 11th, as different groups marked the day in different ways.
Later in the day, I was dropping of the CDs to the RAF Regt. at their ops room, and on the way I ran into a Canadian I had met on the trip down to Masum Gar. We stopped to chat, and he told me him and the boys had been discussing me, and had come to the conclusion that I was fucking insane. They were shocked when they found out I don’t get any extra money for being out here, whether danger money or hardship allowance. The Canadians are making a lot of extra money on their tours, and they just couldn’t believe that I wasn’t. Coupled with that their disbelief when I told then that I not only volunteer, but actually have to push AFP very hard indeed to get approval to organise these trips, seemed to have confirmed to them that I was crazy.
The thing is, if I had my way, I would be out here for 6 or 7 months, as I find this whole story so interesting. The way the Canadians attitude is changing to the war has really struck me, and as I was here right at the start I would love to follow this story, and see where it finally ends up. Will they stay the course, and defeat the Taliban and see Afghanistan emerge as a fully functioning democracy? Or will it become a slow war of attrition, with young men caught in the grind of battle for years to come? Will history repeat itself here, and the coalition go the same way as the Soviets? It is hard to see what will happen, but one thing is sure, the fighting will be as intense if not more so next year, and come hell or high water I am going to be her to cover it.
15th Nov
I am now at Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. Having failed to get anywhere close to the Brits in Helmand this time, I have organised to embed with an American unit. I haven’t been embedded with the Americans before, so I am looking forward to seeing how they do things. I have heard lots of criticism of the way they operate, but I will now get a chance to witness their operations firsthand and decide for myself. I arrived yesterday to go through all the tedious but mandatory paperwork, and now I am waiting to be flown to my location, which of course I can’t disclose until I get there.
It’s also the first time I’ve been on this base, which is impressive. The Americans do a year tour, as opposed to the 6 months of the Canadians or the Brits, so I guess they put a little more effort into making the place comfortable. My living space is a room in a wooden shack, again with a cot, and I’m sharing with this crazy American freelance reporter / photographer, who writes for amongst others, Soldier of Fortune. He’s been out here for 11 months, and seems to know every little base and FOB in this country. He is a real character, and regaled me for hours last night with stories of his adventures. He travels with a bad bearing the logo of an NGO to ease his passage in airports (its his cover) and approaches the whole experience as a military mission. But he has been to some of the more interesting spots in this country, and is happy to share any and all information with me, which is rare in journalism. Usually people want to quiz you for all the info they can and give away none of theirs.
Last night we walked up to the PX area (shopping area) and I had a look at all the kit available to the soldiers on this base. As you would expect at an American base, there is a huge range of goods on offer, both in the main PX and from outlets selling local goods like Afghan rugs, jewellery, etc. We hung out there and drank coffee and smoked and watched all the troops interact, listen to rap and rock music, flirt with any available civilian contractors, and generally hang out like young people do all over the world. While we sat there we talked about Afghanistan, and the whole situation. My new friend is pretty despondent about the whole situation here, and his biggest gripe was that Afghanistan is still “The Forgotten War.” He was telling me that one of the things that really annoys the US soldiers here is that so many people said, on hearing of their deployment, “Thank God you’re not going to Iraq.” Like this is better??? He says that so many of these soldiers fell no-one is really interested in this war, and that makes then feel like they are fighting for a cause that nobody cares about.
So now I am just waiting for the weather to clear. At the moment it is raining again, and looks like it could for some time. As I will be travelling on a helicopter to my next location I am entirely at the mercy of the weather, as however bad it is here, it will be a lot worse flying through the mountain passes.