Battleworn: The Memoir of a Combat Medic in Afghanistan Read online

  I lead a team of three medics, and I feel responsible for the young Jocks that we support. (Jock is the nickname given to the private soldiers of any Scottish infantry battalion.) I am also always mindful that every journey we make over the bomb-infested highways of Helmand might be the last for someone. Our job is to patrol in and around the area and report back on the mood of the town and its people. If you find children playing outside their homes and people in the markets, then ‘atmospherics’ are judged as good. If the streets are deserted and the locals are non-existent, then this paints a picture of uncertainty – an attack of some kind is often imminent.

  The lead vehicles create a sand screen, which cuts our visibility to almost zero. I’m on top cover, along with Kev Coyle, our signaller. Our position gives the driver and commander a 360-degree visual scan of the ground we’re passing over and the road ahead, letting them gauge potential threats. We man the open turret on top of the vehicle; our interpreter sits quietly in the back, asleep if he has any sense. If there’s an insurgent out there looking to take us on, the top cover usually gets hit first. I can taste the grit in my mouth from the dirt and dust kicked up ahead of us.

  Kev, B Company’s signaller, has an Italian look about him – jet-black hair, olive skin, and blue eyes – and his dry sense of humour is an acquired taste. I have finally warmed to it through the hours we spend together on the ground.

  ‘This is fucking shit!’ Kev grunts.

  ‘It doesn’t look like we are stopping any time soon, either,’ I reply.

  ‘Eight more weeks, and that’s us.’

  Our conversation is interrupted by an explosion, closer than the others were. A spiral of smoke rises into the air in the middle distance. My first thought is that it is a drop short mortar round, but it appears that we aren’t the intended target. The explosion is closer to the town centre than it is to us.

  Kev turns to me with a grin. ‘Game on, mucker,’ he shouts, barely audible over the noise of the engine. I read his lips in order to make out what he’s just said as we hit what seems like every pothole on this track. Kev and I have been battle buddies for a fair time, patrolling the district centres of Lash and Nawa, more recently involved in a gnarly ambush in the notorious area of Marjah.

  Our convoy consists of ten lightly armoured Land Rovers, consisting of the snatch version and the open-top weapons mounted installation kit (WMIK). The WMIK is a stripped-down Land Rover that comes with a series of roll bars and special weapons mounts. It was designed primarily as a reconnaissance (recce for short) and fire support vehicle. The rear roll bar cage features a well in which a gunner can stand and swing his weapon in a 360-degree arc of fire from a rail-mounted system.

  The rear station can be fitted with a .50-calibre heavy machine gun, a 40 mm grenade launcher, or a 7.62 mm general purpose machine gun (GPMG). American troops thought that we were crazy to drive about in open-top vehicles, until I explained that our guys survived improvised explosive device (IED) attacks because they were blown out of the vehicle as opposed to getting thrown against the heavy armour inside.

  That much is true; however, the variant that’s housing Kev and me is not so clever. It’s the ‘snatch’ Land Rover. It was designed for tasks in Northern Ireland and deployed disastrously to Basra, in southern Iraq, after the initial invasion. It was later shipped to Helmand, and it became the focus of media controversy after numerous incidents which resulted in fatalities in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

  It was nothing more than a money-saving choice for Helmand, and I was unlucky enough to become very familiar with the machine (and grateful not to be the interpreter sitting in the back). Its box body was not fit for the purpose: anyone sitting in the rear would often boil, even with the later addition of air conditioning. Limited armour also ensured that it would not withstand small arms for prolonged periods, let alone any type of high-energy explosive.

  Spending hours in any vehicle will give you an intimate look at all the good and bad points, and this knowledge is priceless to those buying such equipment. Trialling a military kit could be done far more effectively if the terrain on which it is trialled is similar to the place where it ends up operationally. Testing the snatch Land Rover in Lashkar Gah is a lot like throwing a child into the deep end of a swimming pool and expecting him to immediately start swimming like Michael Phelps.

  Lash is where the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) is based. They are a joint team comprised of Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) staff and civilian advisors from the Ministry of Defence (MOD). With military support, they plan the strategic development and reconstruction of the region. Based on this information, I figured we’d be out of the base for forty-eight hours maximum, and I packed my kit and equipment accordingly.

  Meanwhile, our vehicles continue to progress through the desert, the drivers peering through the thick sandstorm our convoy has whipped up. I breathe in diesel fumes mixed with the dry, musky scent of the desert. The smell of diesel and hot air instantly reminds me of time spent in Iraq in the summer of 2003. In the stifling heat, I am thirsty and my back is soaking wet. My skull bakes like pie crust inside my helmet.

  Afghanistan is landlocked in the bowl of the Hindu Kush, with mountains that go on forever. The landscape is severe but beautiful, and the place has a biblical feel to it. I served in Iraq, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone, but nowhere else is like Afghanistan – it isn’t just another country … it’s another mindset.

  Winters are bleak, and summers are marked by cloudless blue skies, with temperatures topping 140 degrees. The dry climate and harsh environment have the ability to deliver beauty in the springtime as the fields of Helmand blossom with red-pink flowers. The ‘death crop’ of southern Afghanistan is harvested from these fields. While in full flower, the opium poppies present a picture-perfect look, but for many years they have funded war and criminality.

  More than 90 per cent of the world’s heroin supply comes from poppies cultivated here. The country’s illegal drug business generates $4 billion a year – half the nation’s gross domestic product.1 A big slice of this money buys the Taliban the guns that we are driving towards.

  These facts flit through my brain as we drive along. We often hear in briefings that thirty Taliban have been killed here, another forty there. But they just keep coming, in their kameezes and worn-out shoes. The kameez is part of the traditional way of dress for local Afghan men, its light fabric making it the perfect choice for the harsh sun of Afghanistan. It has an adopted layer system; you can add layers or take them away as you wish. In the extreme cold, Afghans use a blanket as a type of shawl; their traditional dress suits the environment perfectly. Observing their attire has caused me to wonder why we haven’t adopted a policy of using examples of the local attire during wartime, and making it work for us. We disadvantage ourselves by not thinking like the indigenous population; to succeed you must know your enemy. We have the firepower, but what they have is time. We drive them out of different districts; they flee to the mountains, and wait. We pacify a town, maybe reopen a school. When we leave, they come back and tear the building down again. They are like the hydra, the Greek mythical creature that had the ability to grow new heads. You kill a Taliban fighter, and his eight brothers all become recruits for jihad. We’re fighting terror; they’re doped up on a holy war.

  My thoughts keep drifting along these lines, and I am aware that none of it is likely to ever change. The vehicle jolts, ending my reverie. Our convoy has come to a halt on the outskirts of Nad-e Ali. The two platoon sergeants, Monty Monteith and Scotty McFadden, get out of their vehicles and walk among the tired and bored troops to ensure that all is as it should be. Monty and Scotty are old friends. Monty’s weathered appearance is a look reserved for the hardened soldiers of the infantry. Scotty seems to have fared far better in avoiding the harsh ‘ten years older’ weather of the Brecon Beacons beating on his face. (Brecon, Wales, houses the military’s Infantry Training Centre [ITC].)

  Right now the boss, Maj. Harry
Clark, relaxes, secure in the knowledge that both Monty and Scotty are squaring things away on his behalf. With some vehicle engines switched off, I can hear a little better, and I listen to the sound of explosions across town. More black smoke rises, and the distinctive rattle of sporadic small-arms fire sounds. It’s no big deal, and everyone on this patrol has seen and heard it all before.

  I climb down from top cover and sit in a pool of my own sweat, feeling tired from the long day.

  Kev looks down at me. ‘We should get some scoff on,’ he says in an agitated voice.

  I hadn’t realised until then that I was starving. When you’re tired, your blood-sugar count gets low, and your stomach starts to rumble. I am carrying biscuits brown and pâté, a light meal from my ration pack, and it smells like cat food. It probably tastes the same too, but I can’t verify that. It’s not something I would normally choose, but right now I don’t care.

  As the young Jocks eat, the banter begins; they are getting restless. Ptes Ferris and Duffy are joking, taking the piss out of each other. Ferris blows kisses to the blokes on other wagons and makes obscene gestures around his groin area, all whilst manning his .50-cal. machine gun. The young Jocks fall about laughing; this is the norm around here, and Ferris’s antics are a welcome break.

  Ferris has managed to take my mind off my itchy wrists, which are starting to bother me. I have a rash caused by the fibreglass on top of the Land Rover; it slowly gets under your skin. Sitting back with my food and a cup of tea, my mind drifts off.

  I start thinking about my time in army basic training, when I was always hungry, always drained. As recruit Taylor, I constantly wondered when the instructors or section commanders would finally stop beasting us – when they would feel they had subjected us to sufficient degradation.

  Every day, I became mentally stronger. The army takes away your dignity, and you’re not exactly sure what it is that they give back in return. That doesn’t become clear until much later.

  I was twenty-two years old when I enlisted. The youngest of five children, I was born in the south of England. I’d had a taste of life outside, having worked in the retail industry since leaving school. I started as part of the old youth training scheme, and at the age of just eighteen years, I managed my own concession. I excelled at the visual merchandising aspect and was often rewarded for my efforts with trips on shop refit tasks up and down the country. I travelled as far north as Manchester. Being away from home and on my own was initially daunting, but I eventually started to enjoy the independent feeling it gave me. My glory was short-lived, and the trips away came to an abrupt end after my hotel bar bill far exceeded what it should have. This pushed me one step closer to my decision to join the army.

  Growing up in the 1990s wasn’t without its problems; there were a lot of distractions for young boys and girls. The country was still angry about hard decisions made to decide how we would move forward economically. Ecstasy and the ‘Mad-Chester’ drug culture were rife, and along with everyone else, I got caught up in the glamour of it all. I would sometimes hide out in my bedroom, listening endlessly to the Stone Roses’ ‘Waterfall’ whilst puffing on a bong. I inhaled as if my life depended on it. Those were some of the darkest days of my life. Smoking marijuana did not suit my personality. I became withdrawn and paranoid, spending three months sponging off the state. I recall times when I was so stoned that I couldn’t even be bothered to make the short walk to sign on for my ‘free’ money.

  Gang violence, along with the football hooligan culture, was also prevalent. A sense of belonging to anything other than further education somehow made an awkward adolescence bearable. I had enrolled at my local college, with dreams of studying business law. Suffice to say that smoking weed all day came in really useful! I couldn’t concentrate, and I struggled to remember what day it was – much less be able to study. It’s fair to say that I dabbled with a life in ‘shitsville’, and I didn’t like it. Escaping it made me mentally tough, and I somehow managed to drag my sorry arse to the army careers office, kicking and screaming all the way.

  Every council estate or housing scheme across the UK is a ‘target rich’ recruiting area for the other ranks of the British military. Most soldiers hail from deprived areas, and that’s no bad thing. I was ambitious, without being sure where I was going, and inquisitive about everything, without being sure what it was that I wanted to know. All the doubt and arrogance was soon drummed out of me during the unknown number of hours I spent on my belt buckle, crawling through mud and cow shit.

  More often than not, I was running up and down the quarry hills. We had the luxury of physical training instructors who also trained the young guys who wanted to be paratroopers. You would never push yourself as hard or as far as the army pushes you. You stop thinking like a civilian and start thinking like a soldier. I had grown up on a council estate, believing like an idiot that skipping off school was clever; it wasn’t. The bravado that I engaged in as a teenager just camouflaged my lack of confidence.

  I was definitely looking for something other than the humdrum of a conventional job. I went through the mind-numbing day-in, day-out drills and instruction in a daze. In the end, I wanted nothing in return. I came to see that becoming a soldier had taken me into a world where I could make my mark. I’d grown an inch taller by straightening my backbone, and I no longer lacked confidence. That lack is the curse of the working class. I was interested in everything. I opted to become a combat medic technician (CMT). The word combat did not appear in the descriptions of any other jobs open to females back then, and that was the reason why I chose to become a CMT. That may sound crazy to people, just as it does to me now. I laugh to myself as I recall it.

  In the next instant, my daydreaming ends, interrupted by the order to ‘mount up’ on the vehicles. Remnants of my tea cast away, I quickly jump up, helmet back on, chinstrap fastened.

  The engines are running, and we are on the move again. It’s late; the orange sunset lasts only seconds as we are cast into twilight. Night vision goggles (NVGs) are fitted, and night discipline begins. Orders have come from higher: we are heading into the smoke and gunfire around the district centre of Nad-e Ali.

  My initial impression of atmospherics here are grim – plastic bags skipping down empty streets, that feeling of the calm before the storm. Everyone in the company feels it. They’ve got the look that Olympic high jumpers have before they sprint for the bar: determined and fully alert. It’s ‘game on’, just as Kev noted earlier. Anticipation is sometimes worse than the actual event. You never know when or where it’s going to happen. One thing that I am sure of is that I don’t want it to be our wagon getting the good news first.

  Flushed with adrenaline, I am no longer tired. I check that my medical kit is good to go. I forget my hunger, feeling relieved that I don’t have to finish my cat food – not yet, anyway. We push on, making our way into what looks like a derelict school. It has been taken over by the headquarters (HQ) of an Afghan National Army (ANA) kandak (kandak means ‘battalion’ in Dari; roughly six hundred soldiers). They’ve taken several hits and are heavily undermanned. They would be lucky to count forty blokes, let alone six hundred.

  Half the vehicles with Monty’s platoon turn into the entrance of the walled yard. A group of Afghan soldiers stand about, their expressions hard to read. Monty’s crew will spend the night here, showing the Afghans that we are willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

  The kandak is commanded by Lt Col Nazim, a tough-looking, battle-hardened veteran who fought with the mujahideen many years ago against the Russians. With Maj. Clark, Scotty McFadden, and the remainder of B Company, I press on to the Afghan National Police (ANP) compound, a sand-bricked building built around a courtyard in the centre of Nad-e Ali.

  Travelling with our platoon is a Ford Ranger pickup packed with Afghan police. They hang on to the sides of the wagon with one hand, as the other holds a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher, with one finger precariously curled round the trigg
er – a weird combination that filled me with dread. This isn’t how we do it; your finger stays off the trigger until you are engaging something. Still, that’s why we’re here: to stimulate democracy, to teach the fledgling Afghan police and military the joys of battle discipline.

  Once inside the compound, our wagons line up close to the wall. As soon as we go firm, LCpl Sean Maloney, unclipping his chinstrap, hurries across from his vehicle.

  ‘Hey, it’s Coaksee… he sick,’ he says.

  ‘What?’ I reply.

  ‘Coaksee, he sick with stomach. He look like shit.’

  Pte Coakse (‘Coaksee’) is your stereotypical young Jock, too proud to admit he needs help. Sick or not, he’s still able to smoke a cigarette.

  ‘No dramas, Sean,’ I say. ‘I’ll be over in a minute.’

  In spite of his Irish name, Sean is from the Caribbean and has developed the look and persona of the rapper Dizzee Rascal. This helps his pursuit of the ladies, he claims. With his gangsta jargon, there are times when I think I need an interpreter in order to understand him, whereas I understand the Jocks’ Scottish pronunciation perfectly because my mum is Irish born and was raised in Glasgow, Scotland.

  However, having trained as an infantry soldier before becoming a combat medic, I know that Sean has a lot to offer in times of trouble. The Jocks are cutting about, checking weapons. Some push up onto the roof for better eyes on the surrounding area. I watch the Afghan police from our convoy jump out of their wagons. They look disinterested and shot to shit. To them, this is just another day in Helmand Province. Meanwhile, Scotty McFadden and the boss are holding an impromptu meeting with the other unit commanders.

  I eventually find Coaksee gritting his teeth and leaning up against his WMIK. As Sean had so eloquently described, he looks like shit. I know straight away that he’s embarrassed about needing attention.