gunner had one more burst and by then he’d obliterated the rocks. Target practice now over, we reloaded and then ate a few more snacks.
After about an hour and four cups of coffee, we heard over the sat phone that the other teams’ mission had been cancelled, so they were now on their way back. Good news all around. This would mean we would maybe make a late lunch back on camp, which made the guys cheer up enormously. The other teams would be passing through our position in approximately thirty minutes, so we prepared to move. The plan was to let the other teams pass, then, fifteen minutes or so later, we would follow on. This would split us up and make sure that there wouldn’t be twelve vehicles all travelling in a line – which would obviously make one mother of a target for an insurgent with his hand on a trigger to detonate an IED or for someone keen on ambush.
Twenty to twenty-five minutes later we could see the other teams approaching in the distance and, as they came past us, one of our lads mooned at them and the rest of us gave the finger – the usual sort of greeting that we gave to each other. We were always trying to have a laugh and a piss-take at every opportunity. It was a good way to destress. We briefly chatted to the other team on the radio and confirmed our plan. As they sped past we sat tight and watched them approach the outskirts of town. I was feeling hungry now and was looking forward to a nice lunch.
As we mounted up in our trucks we heard a loud boom in the distance, then saw a huge cloud of black smoke. My heart sank and I started to chant my mantra in my head, ‘No! Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Then it came over the comms network. It was a broken message: ‘Nine Zero Charlie, contact, wait out.’ It was a contact report from our mates. They’d been hit. The other team were in deep shit: they’d been hit, and hit bad. That was one hell of an explosion they’d gone through and, if we could see it 5 kilometres away, it must have been a big bastard of a bomb – very bad. In a second we were off and trying to maintain radio silence. This was so that if the call sign in trouble needed to pass on information to the American HQ our comms chatter wouldn’t interfere. Then came a message over the radio: ‘Nine Zero Charlie, contact report: we’ve been hit by an IED outside the CIA building and are coming under effective enemy fire.’ It is such a distressing, helpless feeling, to hear one of your call signs (your friends, your mates) in trouble and you’re not there to help. There was thick black smoke billowing up into the sky now, and as we approached we could hear the firing, and lots of it! We had a lot of bother on our hands! We were going in to kick arse or get our arses kicked; we were heading into the unknown but we had to go – it was our friends in there!
We had to make a split-second decision: whether to go firm and wait for a request for assistance or go into the kill zone and assist. What a predicament! There could be nothing and nobody left alive to rescue in there. They could have all been taken out for all we knew. Fuck it! We were going in – it was our mates in there, right in the middle of that shit storm. We were all chomping at the bit and eager to go and help out when Frank, our patrol commander, gave the nod and that was it: safety catches off, and we were away. We could now see bits of the car that had obviously contained the IED. I could see the engine block, wheels, tyres and a big bloody crater where it had been. ‘Watch and shoot lads!’ I shouted. ‘Any fucker with a gun who’s not one of ours, kill ’em!’
We drove past the remains of the car and saw that there were a couple of clearly dead bodies (with limbs missing) nearby; it was pretty grisly. Then I saw a man on his knees, really distressed and with no shirt on, wearing only ripped trousers and covered in blood. When I looked closer I saw that his arm had been taken clean off. He was crying. He looked
After about an hour and four cups of coffee, we heard over the sat phone that the other teams’ mission had been cancelled, so they were now on their way back. Good news all around. This would mean we would maybe make a late lunch back on camp, which made the guys cheer up enormously. The other teams would be passing through our position in approximately thirty minutes, so we prepared to move. The plan was to let the other teams pass, then, fifteen minutes or so later, we would follow on. This would split us up and make sure that there wouldn’t be twelve vehicles all travelling in a line – which would obviously make one mother of a target for an insurgent with his hand on a trigger to detonate an IED or for someone keen on ambush.
Twenty to twenty-five minutes later we could see the other teams approaching in the distance and, as they came past us, one of our lads mooned at them and the rest of us gave the finger – the usual sort of greeting that we gave to each other. We were always trying to have a laugh and a piss-take at every opportunity. It was a good way to destress. We briefly chatted to the other team on the radio and confirmed our plan. As they sped past we sat tight and watched them approach the outskirts of town. I was feeling hungry now and was looking forward to a nice lunch.
As we mounted up in our trucks we heard a loud boom in the distance, then saw a huge cloud of black smoke. My heart sank and I started to chant my mantra in my head, ‘No! Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Then it came over the comms network. It was a broken message: ‘Nine Zero Charlie, contact, wait out.’ It was a contact report from our mates. They’d been hit. The other team were in deep shit: they’d been hit, and hit bad. That was one hell of an explosion they’d gone through and, if we could see it 5 kilometres away, it must have been a big bastard of a bomb – very bad. In a second we were off and trying to maintain radio silence. This was so that if the call sign in trouble needed to pass on information to the American HQ our comms chatter wouldn’t interfere. Then came a message over the radio: ‘Nine Zero Charlie, contact report: we’ve been hit by an IED outside the CIA building and are coming under effective enemy fire.’ It is such a distressing, helpless feeling, to hear one of your call signs (your friends, your mates) in trouble and you’re not there to help. There was thick black smoke billowing up into the sky now, and as we approached we could hear the firing, and lots of it! We had a lot of bother on our hands! We were going in to kick arse or get our arses kicked; we were heading into the unknown but we had to go – it was our friends in there!
We had to make a split-second decision: whether to go firm and wait for a request for assistance or go into the kill zone and assist. What a predicament! There could be nothing and nobody left alive to rescue in there. They could have all been taken out for all we knew. Fuck it! We were going in – it was our mates in there, right in the middle of that shit storm. We were all chomping at the bit and eager to go and help out when Frank, our patrol commander, gave the nod and that was it: safety catches off, and we were away. We could now see bits of the car that had obviously contained the IED. I could see the engine block, wheels, tyres and a big bloody crater where it had been. ‘Watch and shoot lads!’ I shouted. ‘Any fucker with a gun who’s not one of ours, kill ’em!’
We drove past the remains of the car and saw that there were a couple of clearly dead bodies (with limbs missing) nearby; it was pretty grisly. Then I saw a man on his knees, really distressed and with no shirt on, wearing only ripped trousers and covered in blood. When I looked closer I saw that his arm had been taken clean off. He was crying. He looked
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