Spoken from the Front (19 page)

Flight Sergeant Paul 'Gunny' Phillips, RAF

We were doing IRTs [incident response team work with a
MERT] up at [Camp] Bastion and at the same time there was
a big op going on in the upper Sangin valley. They put a load
of troops on the ground to try and clear out a few known
Taliban-friendly areas. With the IRTs, you are on thirty
minutes' notice to move to pick up injured guys. Anyway, the
boss [Squadron Leader Ian Diggle] referred to it later as 'the
night of nights' because it was probably one of the busiest
IRTs that we have ever had. We had nine call-outs in one night.
It was that bad. We had been hoping to get to bed just after midnight
but in the end it was just a case of 'Well, I might as well
stay up.' Because the minute you got into bed you got another
nine-liner [emergency call] coming through. So we just gave up
and sat outside the tent drinking Coke and smoking cigarettes
all night.

We had been into various places to pick up guys – smallarms
injuries or they had fallen over and broken a leg – and
then we had the last shout of the night. It was almost dawn
when we got a call to go and pick up four Americans in the
upper Sangin valley. They were all walking wounded, so they
had minor injuries effectively. It took us for ever to find the
HLS, because one compound looks pretty much like any
other. There were that many friendly troops on the ground
you didn't know which [helicopter landing site] was which.
So we were flying around for five or ten minutes and eventually
found it. We landed in this field – it was an old poppy
field. It hadn't been cut back so it still had the old poppies
growing in it. I was in the front door [of the helicopter], sat
behind the mini gun. So the ramp went down and these
Americans start walking towards the back of the cab.

There was a whole load of mincing going on at the back of
the cab. People were saying: 'Who's injured? Who's not?
Who's coming with us? Who's staying here?' It was one of
those times where no one felt particularly threatened. I
actually said to the boss: 'This is a pretty good spot actually.'
Because we had a compound directly to the rear of the aircraft,
a compound either side of us and then quite a dense
tree-line to the front. So I thought the only thing that was
going to get us there was IDF [indirect fire] really. And there
was still all this mincing around at the back of the aircraft and
we got three of the guys on and the boss was saying: 'What's
happening? What's happening?' We'd been there for about
three minutes by now but they were still trying to find this
fourth casualty. I was looking out of the front door and
literally just underneath the rotor disc there were three
American troops that had been put out to give us a bit of force
protection. It sounds cheesy and overused but literally the
ground in front of these guys just erupted. It [the bullets] must
have been about five feet in front of them. You could see the
rounds just splashing right in front of their faces. And of course
they let rip and all their mates started to let rip and we were
like: 'Fucking hell. Contact!' We just got the ramp up and
departed. We could see all their tracer going towards this
[Taliban] compound but I couldn't tell where they were firing
at. So I couldn't use the mini gun, which was incredibly
frustrating.

But we got back to Bastion and said: 'We just had a contact.'
And they said: 'Yeah, we're just listening to the American
comm chat [communications chatter] now.' And what had
happened was, from the compound on our right-hand side,
thirty metres from our aircraft, some little bad lad had stuck
his AK-47 over the top of the compound wall and did the old
'spray and pray' [opening up with fire and hoping for the
best]. I couldn't believe that their guy had been thirty metres
from me and I couldn't shoot him because the mini gun
doesn't elevate very high. If I had been behind an M60
[machine-gun], I could have got some rounds off if I'd known
where he was. But in the end, the guy got a proper shoeing
from the Americans [who killed him].

Robert Mead, Ministry of Defence press officer

My children.

(Brace yourselves, you may need to get a cup of tea for this
one.)

Lawks a Lordy, having just checked the dates, it's been a
month, a whole thirty days, since my last update. No doubt
those days have been barren, desolate, empty wastelands of
sorrow for you all in the absence of words from Mullah
Mead. Possibly some of you have even turned to heavy
narcotic abuse. If you have, save some for me: I'll be home
soon.

Where to begin. Well, let's start with the news that you are
going to have to wait just that little bit longer to welcome
home your hero. This is because I am so irreplaceable that
those blighters at the MoD have extended one's tour for a few
weeks. Return date has slipped not once, not twice, but three
times, from 20 March to the dizzyingly late 10 April. That's a
whole extra three weeks. Cripes, I'm glad I'm getting overtime
for this. But, as you can see, the timings of these things
change so bloody often that I've got more chance of pissing
my name in the sand on a beach and it remaining unchanged.

Now the good news – the beard has gone. The fair to
middling news is it will be back by the time I return. One
shave a tour is enough for any respectable man. Frankly I did
not have enough favourable comments from the ladies to
make it worth my while keeping, so serves you right if you
liked it and didn't reply to my email, which in fairness was
practically all of you.

And speaking of non-replies, while my perfectly decent
and not-in-any-way-questionable-or-lurid request for naked
photos from my lady-friends was well and truly ignored or,
worse, earnest promises were made which have been proven
to be total dogs-droppings, one of my colleagues then
received a collection of gratuitous happy snaps from some
lady doing personal things in personal places. Bloody cheek.
He showed us all, of course, but I won't – honest. They'll be
just for me.

Instead, to add a slap in the knackers with a wet towel to
injury, I have had to make do with naked bloody Marines. Let
there be no doubt, there is nothing more tiresome and disturbing
than, after having been woken at an indecent hour
and having stumbled to the bathroom, to open the door to see
a butch Marine standing stark bollock, proudly towelling
himself down with one leg casually hitched up on the sink.
Every bleedin' morning. This is no way to start the day. What
is it with men who profess to be more butch than a bulldog
with three penises that they display more woofter tendencies
than a team of Kenny Everett impersonators?

Right then, what can I tell you?

What has happened? Pah, what hasn't happened?

Let's be honest, not a lot. Well, not a lot warlike anyway. At
least not here. Plenty going on out and about as you can probably
tell. Having said that, one day seems largely like any
other so it's not easy to keep tabs on events. What hasn't
happened is I still haven't been shot at yet, though I am
repeatedly and reliably informed this is a good thing. This is
largely because I haven't really been anywhere where I could
get shot. Most of my past month's activity has taken place
firmly behind the walls of camp Lashkar Gah. But, goodness,
hasn't it been exciting?

I've visited one of our sentry turrets, for some reason called
sangars, which is quite curious, because they don't in any
way resemble a sausage, and when you look out of the gaps
in the walls you see the town of Lashkar Gah is about 10 feet
away and only succeeds in reminding you how close you are
to potential nasty people.

What else? Well, we've had some visitors, and mildly
famous visitors at that. A few weeks back we were treated to
the delights of Jim Davidson and 'Forces' Favourite' opera
singer Katherine Jenkins. A right incongruous duo those two
were. But this was put in the shade by a follow-up show
two weeks later. Not by the two male laddish comedians,
whose names escape me, but the lovely Claudia, Megan and
Jane, the CSE [Combined Service Entertainment] dancers.
Grrr, woof and bark.

As I was beginning to pine, Media Ops arranged a game of
football and duly beat the hapless plum-duffs of 28 Engineer
Regiment in a rousing game of five-a-side. This was followed
by several sharp pains in the lower-leg region for days after,
due to the large gap between this game and my last, the poor
footwear available, and the utter unsuitability of the playing
surface, i.e., a rock-hard square of concrete more commonly
used for the landing of helicopters. And, indeed, a halt was
called 45 mins into the match for two of the cheeky
overblown Flymos [helicopters] to drop their load. Normal
service was soon resumed and we smashed the sappers.
Huzzah.

This was followed only days later by an unexpected late
entry into a six-a-side tournament on the same surface. This
time it was against a number of sides from the Marines and a
few local Afghan sides. Flushed from our recent victory, and
buoyed with, what turned out to be, hopelessly overblown
overconfidence, we imagined lots of Afghans rolling up in
even more unsuitable clothing for football than ours; namely
those long shirts and pyjama bottoms that everyone seems to
wear, blankets wrapped around the shoulders (despite it
being blazing hot) and either sandals or perfectly normal
shoes, which they all seem to have the strange habit of wearing
as slip-ons, i.e., not bothering to unlace but just flattening
down the heel. (My mother would be livid. She never would
have stood for this. I can hear her now: 'Undo the bloody
laces!')

We stood waiting on the pitch, all quiet save for the
standard friendly banter of 'Give it here, you fat poof', and
the distant twang of hamstrings snapping after months of
unuse. Media Ops already looked hugely out of place. Most
of the Marines, as I have explained before, are, to a man,
massive, or at very least, considerably fitter than most
marathon runners. Still no sign of our local opponents,
though there was a hefty crowd forming. Then, slowly
shimmering over the horizon, came a large number of
athletic-looking youths resplendent in dazzling bright yellow
Barcelona away kits, juggling balls and looking a lot like they
knew exactly what they were doing, which was preparing to
give our arses a sound kicking.

The first game began. Thankfully we weren't in it. India
Company 42 Commando vs the Afghans A side. Seven-minute
matches. Hectic stuff. The whistle blew and they were
off. Quickly a pattern emerged – the bandy-legged Afghans
running absolute onion rings round our hapless Marines.
Within two minutes the Afghans were 2 up. The Afghan half
of the crowd was going wild. The UK side was either shatting
itself among those braced for future games, or falling about in
hysterics for those only spectating. The Afghans won. Much
cheering and indefinite Islamic praises to Allah followed.

We were third up, also playing a team of Afghans – though,
not wishing to be in any way politically incorrect, it could just
as easily have been the same 6 players as the first game as to
a man they all looked the same. (Is this conjuring up images
of the match in Disney's
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
? As well it
might.) In the words of our photographer, every time we got
the ball it was like being surrounded by a swarm of locusts,
so quickly were we smothered by the opposition. How we
only lost 1–0 Basil Brush only knows. I think I touched the
ball in those 7 minutes for approximately 4 seconds and that
was only to retrieve it when it had gone off the pitch. We left
with our tails between our legs.

In amongst these latest acts of dare-wing-do, and following
on from the pasting my lungs received in the above games, I
have arrested the decline of my body shape and taken to the
gym on a daily basis. I shall therefore return a lean, mean
media-ops machine. Grrr. Though currently everything aches
massively.

(This is a long one isn't it? Don't complain: it has been four
weeks, you know, you ungrateful lot.)

That's not to say there hasn't been some warlike activity.
Only the other day we were minding our own business at
about 2 p.m. when a rather loud explosion went off. The
ground wobbled a bit. Cor, that was quite loud, I thought.
Probably a controlled explosion. Then a major (it's OK, it
wasn't me) who knew a bit about these things came
scampering into our HQ tent looking more perturbed than
was healthy for us all, saying to no one in particular: 'Is there
any planned controlled explosion today? Does anyone
know?' He came back seconds later saying, 'Put your helmet
and body armour on, ladies and gentleman,' in a very dignified
fashion, presumably having found the answer to his
question. Now I was quite excited as it gave me my first
opportunity to wear my new blue-cover Osprey body
armour, the stuff troops wear. Until now I had been wearing
the version which anyone who has visited my home in the
past year will have seen and probably tried on. Bit snug, isn't
it? Not to mention the breast plate being somewhat small.
The Osprey is the new super-duper one with larger bullet-repelling
bits, and now I have one of my very own. So, we
toddled back to the tent to pick up my helmet, when another
explosion, this time a 'kin' loud one, feeling altogether closer,
louder and explosiver, went off. Lummy. Make for the hills.
The best we could offer was the safe-haven office of the
combat camera team for a can of 7Up, thumb through this
week's
Zoo
mag and a game of Shithead – which irritatingly I
keep losing and had to get up early the other day to bring
everyone breakfast in bed. Knobs.

As we toddled off, someone came from the other direction,
looking considerably less armoured, who told us it had been
a false alarm and it was a controlled explosion after all.
Excitement over.