Frustratingly, the guys we would bring back and get locked up generally got let out not long after, or had friends in the jails already so they could continue their insurgent business as usual, albeit in a somewhat limited way.
*
That afternoon, having been flown back to our lines, I had my leg checked. It was stinking.
The squadron sergeant major came in and said, ‘Holy fuck, when did that happen?’ It hadn’t been reported correctly that I’d been shot. I’d said it was just a scratch, and that was what had been passed up to the boss.
Eventually the process started where I could call Emma and let her know what had happened. She was picking Kaylee up from school. She sounded happy to hear my voice.
I asked her if she remembered the underpants she had bought me before the trip that I said would be my lucky ones. She was confused but said she did. I said to her, ‘Well they have a hole in them.’ Again she thought this was strange as she didn’t really know what she could do about it especially during school pickup.
‘Yeah, what about it?’ she said.
‘I’ve been shot in the leg but I’m okay.’
Silence for a few seconds . . . ‘Hello . . . Emma?’
‘Yeah I’m here. Are you okay though?’
‘Yeah, I’m okay and everyone else is too. Except for Quakey: he was killed. But everything is okay and I will call you again soon.’
They took me to the Tarin Kowt Role 2 hospital. After an X-ray, the surgeon said to leave the bullet there and treat the possibility of infection with antibiotics. The round is still there now, about two centimetres long, and sits between my sciatic nerve and hamstring, near the femur. A souvenir from Afghanistan.
THIRTY-ONE
As intense as it was, occurring just a few days before we were due to leave, that fight was not the last major episode of the 2012 trip.
Four days before our scheduled departure, my thigh was still sore but I was mobile – and determined – enough to stay with my patrol. We received information about an insurgent group in the Chora Valley that had been attacking US Navy SEALs and Australians. We didn’t go then, but on our last day, following new intelligence, we flew up there.
It was a hot spot. They were shooting at our helicopters as we came into the green belt, and we hit the deck fast, moving into our blocking position as quickly as possible. It’s a dangerous moment straight after you jump off the helos. The thud of the blades cracking the air made it hard to hear, and a cloud of dust, grass and foliage got kicked up around us. In those critical moments, we were deprived of sight and hearing. We had to move at full pace onto a hostile target, where, it being the middle of the day, the enemy could see us clearly. It took great trust in our mates to be there and cover us; we also had to have complete trust in our own ability to do the job for them.
Once we made it into position, I caught a glimpse of some enemy fighters moving hard off the target area. They were heading straight towards another of our teams. I shot at a Talib who was running with a PKM machine gun, but missed. Fortunately he was taken out by another team, led by Paddy, with his three attached Afghan soldiers.
A few rounds from the target building were flying over our heads. We held a position on the corner of the building and tried to neutralise enemy fighters as they squirted. We could hear a close and fairly heavy battle not far from us, in the direction of another team commanded by Blaine Diddams. Didds came on the radio and said, ‘Frag out,’ meaning grenades were going off. A few more bursts of fire went back and forth from both sides. Then he said, ‘Devil’s down.’
I heard it but refused to compute its meaning. I jumped on the radio and said, ‘Say again?’
‘Devil’s down. Dog’s down.’
I was hoping he was just wounded, but the amount of gunfire coming from around their position told me to expect the worst.
There was no time to think about what might have happened. Bruce said, ‘Let’s flank these guys,’ and we started to manoeuvre into position. Bruce coordinated with the two teams in contact, one being Didds’s. There were more bursts of gunfire from both sides. Then someone came on the radio saying, ‘Didds is hit, he’s down.’ We didn’t know any more than what we could hear. A few more frags and some more covering fire went in, and it came over the comms that our boys had got Didds out.
The fight was very much on. We pushed down into the aqueduct where the enemy fighters were shooting from. Bruce said, ‘Do you want to take one of the other guys and split up and give us some covering fire while we clear through this aqueduct?’
Taking another team member with me, I moved up on a flank to the enemy firing position. Two rounds pinged against the wall above our heads. We put in covering fire while Bruce and the rest of the team put some frags in. I could see someone lying behind a tree and shot him. There was a break in the wall and I told my mate, one of the young fellows, ‘Cover down in that direction so someone doesn’t hit us from behind.’ It was a tight little area with concealment from mud walls and thick vegetation, a great spot for these fighters to scurry around unseen so they could counterattack our positions. I got on my guts and crawled towards the aqueduct. Bruce had thrown another frag. I saw Devil down there, slumped onto his side with his tongue hanging out. There was no doubt now. He was dead.
We cleared the immediate area and found two fighters with AKs and PKMs. For such a small force, they’d done some terrible damage. Later, after talking with the guys who’d been in contact with them, we pieced together what had happened. These two insurgents had been in a shootout with Didds and his team, plus Devil and Nick. They were no more than 10 metres away, but the walls and vegetation had given them protection. Devil had identified their position, run at them and taken one by the arm. Devil knew his job, which was to protect our soldiers. The team were trying to shoot the insurgent without hitting Devil, and Nick was trying to recall Devil. Then the insurgent shot Devil through the back of the neck. In the same passage of fighting, Didds had been hit by a round that passed through his clavicle and hit his aorta. Even immediate medical care wouldn’t have saved him, though Barry was working on him, under fire, trying everything possible to keep him alive.
In the aftermath, an AME helicopter came in and took Didds out. More rounds were shot at the bird as it flew away, and we got the culprits, eventually. Once that part of the village was cleared and we could rest, I was sitting beside Nick. We had Devil on a stretcher. Nick went off to clear out an area while I sat there, patting Devil on the head, spending those last couple of minutes with him.
We killed twelve enemy fighters that day. They’d been setting up an ambush for an American–Afghan patrol, and we’d landed right on top of them. But foiling their ambush meant little to us. We all had an empty feeling. That was the last day of what might have been our last trip to Afghanistan. It was a shit way to end what had been a really successful trip.
When we got back to base, we took Devil to the vet and put him on the table. We found out where he’d been hit and got his vest off him. It was tough seeing him lying on the stainless steel table. Nick and I each knew what the other was going through, and just hung around to be there for one another.
Back in Dorrigo, when I was a kid, our dog Angie walked off to die alone in the bush. She was old and blind and deaf by then, and just walked off the acreage, never to be found. Dad spent three days walking around the bush looking for her. Seeing how upset he was, I was quite shocked. It was the first time I was hit with a realisation of how sad life can be for adults. I remembered this now, when I was saying goodbye to Devil. Nick and I had been through so much with him, the sense of loss was extremely deep. Our relationship with the dog was completely unconditional. I felt like I’d lost my best mate, my brother. I think that’s how I would feel if I did lose my brother. I was just gutted. This must have been how Dad was feeling in those days when he was searching for Angie.
I was dirty at fate th
at I hadn’t been with Devil. I had no bitterness towards Nick, who’d done a fantastic job with Devil and was feeling as devastated as I was, but I couldn’t help wondering how I might have been able to protect him. I think about that in every situation – Devil, each of the boys who died in Afghanistan, going all the way back to Mum. What could I have done if I’d been there? Could I have changed it? I couldn’t help feeling that way.
Devil got his own ramp ceremony, as had Quake a week earlier. He was put in a casket with the Australian flag and his collar on top, before he was sent down to Kandahar to be cremated. I’m still devastated about him to this day. In June 2013 we had a ceremony honouring the dogs who’d been killed in Afghanistan – a sculpture of a dog with his work vest on and a roll of honour made of rock from the same quarry as the rock used for the roll of honour of the men who’ve died there. Devil’s name is honoured alongside those of the men.
As a squadron, we were adamant about escorting Didds home. That afternoon, once we returned to base, the guys lined up to say goodbye to him before he was fully wrapped up. We travelled home with him to Perth, to give him to his family. It was the only way to do it right.
There’s a saying that you’re never a good bloke until you’re dead. But Didds really was a great guy: larger than life, very generous, a lover of fun. To unwind, he would rope the boys into a poker game. I’m not a big gambler but I enjoy the social side, so I was often the dealer. We always got a laugh when Didds started losing his money. He was such a hustler. One game, he pulled out a flush first go. He’d never done that before, and was so excited he had photos taken of himself with his hand of cards. It’s a memory we all cherish.
A country boy, he loved his motorbikes, leather jackets, blue jeans and cowboy boots. Not long before he died, I was talking with him about getting a good set of cowboy boots back in Perth. He helped me search the internet for the proper ones that come just below your knees. I said, ‘Mate, out of thanks, whenever I wear denim jeans I’m going to wear these boots.’ He said, ‘I’ll hold you to that.’ It didn’t matter if it was midsummer in Afghanistan, he held me to it.
And he still does. When I wear jeans, I always wear my boots.
EPILOGUE: Rewriting History
As I write this, it’s increasingly likely that that 2012 trip to Afghanistan will have been my last. Losing both Didds and Devil on the last day of fighting left more than a bad taste. There’s a gap in our lives that will never be filled. It makes me angry, but it’s also a permanent reminder of the risks we faced. No matter how well we were achieving our aims, we were at war, and lives could be taken at any moment.
The coalition plans to pull out its major military forces from the country before the end of 2014. That doesn’t mean training and mentoring personnel won’t still be there, and the need for Special Forces operators can arise at any time. I may still be sent back there. But the withdrawal opens the question of what we achieved, what we’ve left behind for that country’s future, and whether our participation and the sacrifices we made were worthwhile.
I’m definitely proud of what we achieved since we first got there. From a Regimental perspective and from the perspective of a soldier, we travelled a massive distance in those six years from 2006. Our combat experience increased by many multiples. We now have better techniques, tactics and procedures, smarter ways of doing things, and, in all the intangibles that strengthen a regiment, we’ve grown. If not for those seven years, we wouldn’t understand fighting as we do now and wouldn’t be as effective a defence force for Australia. We’ve tested our TTPs in the most challenging reality. I’m full of pride in what we’ve done.
The question of what we left behind will take years to be answered. Certainly the Taliban was decimated as a fighting body by 2013, but there are many forces undermining the Afghan Government and security forces. I’m not qualified to talk about the broader political picture, but I did see a lot of the transition towards indigenous control of the people’s security.
Before 2011, we worked mainly with Afghan National Army (ANA) personnel. Since 2009, there had been increasing involvement with the Provincial Response Company – Uruzgan (PRC-U). We’d been reluctant about working with the PRC-U, because we had some easily trained, capable ANA soldiers, and were concerned that these PRC-U personnel might just be thugs off the street with tribal connections and beliefs. Initially, these fears were confirmed. They didn’t want to do the work the way we did. It was hard to train them. They were always claiming someone was being offended. ‘This is my sister-in-law’s father’s cousin. He’s a good bloke,’ they’d say, when we knew full well the suspect wasn’t a good bloke. Or we’d go somewhere and find guns in a house, and instead of arresting the owner, the PRC-U would come out and say, ‘He won’t do it any more. Don’t arrest him. He’s a friend of ours.’
We understood that it would take time for them to trust us. But they needed to understand that real trust has to be earnt, and until their loyalty was to the job, not to their old mates and relatives, trust would be hard to come by. They had to want to make the place better, want to go to villages and make them safer. Some of these guys, if they didn’t live in that particular village, they didn’t see it as their problem. They worked hard in short bursts, but then wanted to sit around under a tree for the rest of the day. Or, we’d be clearing a village in a high-threat situation and they’d put their weapons down, have a wash and prepare to pray. We couldn’t believe they would want to stop and pray in front of a building that might be filled with people wanting to shoot them.
From above, we were constantly getting pressure about making allowances for their culture. But sometimes their culture included smoking drugs or shooting smack before coming to work. We didn’t want to compromise our standards or risk our lives just because they were fucked up on drugs. We wouldn’t allow it in our army. They had to come up to our standards. When the pressure to allow their practices became too insistent, one of my mates said no. ‘I won’t go out the gate with them if they’re stoned, even if it causes the operation to be cancelled.’ The trainers said, ‘You’ve got to understand, it’s their culture. They’re good guys.’ He said, ‘No, you’ve got to understand, I’m the one going outside the wire with them.’
No issue highlights the question of trust as much as the green-on-blue murders. We were worried for a long while before they began. The more PRC-U we had to work with, the fewer screening processes were in place to see where they’d come from, who they hung out with outside work, where their loyalties lay. We tried to bio-enrol them – fingerprint them and see if they had insurgent allegiances – but this process was limited to a few. When we were going on jobs with them, they would ring their mates and say, ‘The green eyes [naming us after the glow cast by our NVGs] are walking up your valley now.’ By the time we got there, the targets had disappeared. We had to start taking their phones off them.
Green-on-blues became a constant anxiety. In 2011, at the height of the insider attack events, we developed an early warning system of code words that we could rapidly transmit among ourselves if an Afghan shot one of us. We couldn’t take the risk that there was a level of coordination among them and that others were preparing to shoot us in the back. It’s a measure of how low the trust was. Once, after we’d finished an assault, the PCs came in to talk to the troop sergeant and the captain about the next step. One of the terps saw a PRC-U guy sweeping his weapon across that little group. He didn’t pull the trigger, but was making that gesture. Only he knew what was going through his head, but we weren’t going to cop it. We said, ‘You’re gone, mate. We’re not taking that risk.’
It’s hard to know how widespread untrustworthy people are, how far they’ve infiltrated the government forces. We found scores of Afghans who were great workers and wanted to fix their country. They were sick of the Taliban. The SAS was in a lucky position, because we could scour the place for the best soldiers and train them up. Within reason. It wasn’t so eas
y for the regular army. What’s more, it could be hard to train them as a collective. They might be willing, but if the man commanding them was a religious zealot or was corrupt, they would follow his influence and act differently when he was watching them.
For the future, if the coalition’s intervention in Afghanistan is going to leave a legacy of stability, I think what they need is the numbers and resources to have a large footprint on the ground. I think the best Afghan personnel are well enough trained to do high-threat prosecutions as a tactical unit – to do the kinds of things we’ve done as Special Forces. What they don’t have is reach into tribal and rural areas, where strongholds develop and the insurgents move in. I think the Afghan authorities have the district centres under control. For the outlying regions, it’s going to come down to numbers and assets.
When I think about whether it was all worth it, however, I don’t think about the future politics and stability of Afghanistan. These are enormous matters way beyond my control – beyond anyone’s control other than the Afghan people themselves.
Was it worth losing all those fantastic soldiers, from Andrew Russell in 2002 through to Didds in 2012? And possibly more? When you go to war, there’s a chance someone’s going to get hurt, whether that’s physically wounded, psychologically wounded, or losing their life and never coming back to their family. That’s who we are. We sign up for that. That’s why we train and work so hard, to minimise that threat. If we weren’t smart and weren’t adapting our TTPs, we would have lost a lot more people. I’m proud of our efforts in pitting good training and smart operations against a ruthless insurgency and the ever-present demon of bad luck.
The Crossroad Page 36
