Afghan Rumblings 4
From near the Front, 11 July ‘10
Hello from Patrol Base Shahzad, Nad e Ali, again, and more inane rumblings from me, in the Green Zone.
A change of type script, as some people had trouble reading the last one, but you can change it if you want anyway. This rumbling is well overdue, due to me not having internet access since returning from R&R, please read on.
The 2 weeks R&R went very fast, but I managed to work my way through a load of takeaways, the odd beer or two and put on a few pounds for the flight back to Afghan. I had left Bastion in a C17 for the flight to Minhad military airbase in Dubai; good grief it was so humid there, it was like being in a very hot laundry, instantly damp all over, almost hot fog! Then after a 4 hour wait we fly to Brize on an “Air Italy” airbus complete with Italian air stewardesses! They kept waking me up with food, (“ah, sold-dier boy, you wanna da pasta, huh or I breaka der legs”), but you can’t complain. (Well I don’t want to wake up with a horse’s head in my lap).
So after 13 days of civvie life, nice beds (I was in a total of 3, home, hotel, Mum’s), decent food and plenty of fuss from Ann the wife, Lucy the dog and a beer with Alex, its back to Brize for the return flight at silly o’clock (0500). I had dumped a load of unneeded kit at home and replaced it with food and stuff to take back, air bed, fan and a few bottles of alcohol free lager! Mind you my Bergen will be a bit lighter for the return trip to Shahzad as I have removed the half breeze block that had been packed into it for me! A delayed take off time meant leaving Brize at 0545 on the chartered Boeing 767 of “Air Madagascar” for the 7&½ hour flight to Dubai; we were given a fairly decent breakfast on board and later on, lunch with a small box of treats for “the journey on”. No in flight films though, but having not been to bed previously that night, I managed to sleep through most of the trip. Then after the usual couple of hours stop at Minhad, it was back on to the C17 for 2&½ hours flight to Bastion. Arrival was the same as last time, lights off, helmet & body armour on and then thump, we are down and back in theatre!
A few days were spent In Bastion, with the quickest ever rifle zeroing range shoot ever, 5 rounds, job done. Yes there are 5 holes; just 2 are very close to each other!
The trip back to Shahzad was a bit different, as we were squeezed into a Mastiff convoy that was heading back via FOB Shawqat at 1130, then delayed to 1300 then 1330.So after about 15 minutes we made it to the American PX in camp Leatherneck, which is the US Marines base at Bastion and all piled in to buy drinks and stuff and they do have loads of stuff to buy! Then it was back into the Mastiffs for 3 hours of bouncing across the desert. 2 of the lads “scoffed” at me when I had strapped myself in, but when we hit some pot holes/ruts, they changed their mind and strapped themselves in. I was bashing my head on the ceiling at that point and these 2 were all over the place, it was like being in a blender.
As there wasn’t any accommodation available at Shawqat, so we took over the TV tent and slept through a dust storm on the seating benches. Next day, back into the Mastiffs and on to PB Shahzad, so in all it took longer to travel from Bastion to Shahzad, about 11 miles and 22 hours, than it took to fly in from Brize, 3,500 miles and 15 hours!
I didn’t really get any time to settle back in to Shahzad life, because of an upcoming Operation, we were all shifted around to cover various outlying checkpoints. We patrolled (walked) to our nearest northern CP, “5 Tanks”, then with a 2 x Jackal vehicle escort, we patrolled up to CP “Washiran”, which is just over a mile north of Shahzad, but out of WIFI range and no TV either! This is the front line of our area of operations (AO), frendlies to the South, not so to the North. Life here normally consists of guard duties and patrolling, but whilst I’m here there’s no patrolling, just stagging on and getting sun burnt, in-between reading Nuts & Zoo mags, replenishing the water jerry cans from the local well (whilst being the centre of attraction to the local kids, who keep trying to nick pens and stuff of our body armour) and cooking dinners for the troops. The day time temperature can get up to nearly 50 C and then it drops down to anywhere between, 20-30 C at night, which can then actually feel cold! Accommodation is an ISO container, so there’s not a lot of sleeping in after 0800 as it gets a bit warm in there. The one luxury we do have is a small fridge/freezer, which we use mainly to store our water in; otherwise it can get so hot you could shower with it. So petition the Government, it’s not just helicopters we need, but more freezers!
That means I have now been in all 4 levels of bases here, Bastion at the top with a proper cook house, NAAFI, proper wash rooms/toilets, TV & internet and air con accommodation, next, Shawqat with cookhouse, proper wash rooms/toilets, TV & internet, then Shahzad with TV & internet, lastly Washiran, we have a radio and lots of flies! We use those sticky strips that hang down to catch a few (fly’s not radios), but being 6’1” tall, I keep walking in to them and ending up with sticky hair. Luckily I have managed to free myself, unlike a million or so of the flies. With the radio we can pick up BFBS which has 2 channels, one seems to be a bit like radio 2 and the other is similar and can put you to sleep, but changes over to radio 5 for sports coverage, except when the England v Germany football was on. We could only just pick up the commentary very weakly, whilst holding the aerial to the metal frame work of the front sanger here. Now we are out, it works fine. And yet that was another waste of time world cup, I heard that the players were bored and unhappy at not having sex and beer whilst away, one squaddie on the radio suggested they try 6 months out here!
I am just over half way through the tour now; I have been told that we should be out by the end of September, as the tour will be about 6 months and 2 weeks in total. We also get to stopover in Cyprus for “decompression” on the way back, a day on the beach and an evening in the bar! That’s one of the things that is missing here, being in hot weather, but not being at the beach, it doesn’t seem right. Operation “Bronze” is well in force at the moment, I thought I’d better join in and got sunburnt straight away, so I have transferred to operation “Lobster”.
As the Washiran cook, I’ve managed to knock up something each day from the 10 man ration boxes, for some reason there is a large stock of baked beans here, but all the mushrooms have gone now, so I am being more challenged each day to come up with something a bit different. There are only so many things you can do with baked beans, have you seen “Blazing Saddles”?
I have developed an urge for drinking Tea, even in the heat here. I suppose that it’s the taste of something different as we get through a lot of water, about 5 – 10 litres each a day, boy, I could murder a cold beer. I was juggling some figures the other night as I was “caught short” whilst on stag, I had to pee in an empty bottle and there was only about ¼ litre of wee in it. As I only go 2 or 3 times a day, I must be sweating out at least 3 or more litres a day! That’s a lot of sweat. Just as well its dry heat here, everything dries out in 10 minutes.
I believe our BFPO has changed; (now 796) it’s to speed up the delivery, as the mail can be pre sorted before getting here. I must admit that the delivery time seems very quick at the moment. On my last day at home on R&R (Thursday) we posted 3 boxes and they arrived at Shahzad on Tuesday afternoon. I myself had only been back there 5 hours.
Here’s something I haven’t done since school, I wrote a poem, don’t laugh, as I told you, we don’t have internet or TV here.
My Afghan World:
I’m living in a world of hot, thinking of the things I haven’t got.
I’m waiting for the day to end, when cold water will be my friend.
I’m living in a world of dust; it’s so dry they don’t have rust.
I’m waiting for the scoff time; a roast dinner would be just fine.
I’m living in a world of sun, not wanting to go for a run.
I’m waiting for the resupply, wishing my mouth wasn’t so dry.
I’m living in a world of pain; not really, it’s just that I’ve been bitten again.
I’m waiting for the tea to brew; I know I should be making one for you.
I’m living in a world of sweat, but each month I am paying off some debt.
I’m waiting for the tour to end,
So I can go home to Ann, my wife and best friend.
Laters,
Tomsk
