Bone Two Three came up on the air. ‘I’ve got eyes on the white pickup. Starting attack run now. Tipping in.’
As I waited for the pilot to call for clearance, I was double- and triple-checking the map, making sure I had my figures right, and that no other friendlies were in the vicinity of the blast.
‘Clearance,’ came the pilot’s call.
‘Nearest friendlies, four hundred metres south. Clear hot.’
‘In hot.’
There was a pause for thirty seconds or so, as the monster bomber came in. I could hear the faint roar of jet engines at high altitude echoing through the skies. Had the mortar team also heard it, I wondered, and bugged out? There was no way of knowing.
‘Stores.’ The pilot gave the bombs-away call.
The GBU-38 was on its way. I was stood on top of one of the Viking armoured vehicles, with the commando’s JTAC on my shoulder. We were watching for the flash of the explosion in the darkness. There was the howling scream of the munition cutting through the night skies, then nothing. It just stopped dead.
‘Confirm you’ve released your weapon,’ I radioed the B-1B.
‘Affirm.’
‘Well, nothing’s happened. It’s a dud. I’m requesting immediate re-attack.’
The pilot banked around, on another two-minute mega-turn. What were the chances of this happening? My first live drop, and a rival JTAC forced it to abort. Then the pilot drops a dud. The bastard mortar team would be halfway to China by now. The darkness and the terrain would have given them ample cover to sneak away.
I cleared the B-1B again. We heard the scream of the bomb coming in, then an almighty explosion lit up the night sky as it slammed into the desert just to the north of us. I had no idea if I’d hit that mortar team, but at least I hadn’t smashed any of our own lads. It was my first live drop, and in spite of the fuck-ups it felt good. All the nerves and the fear were gone.
We did a final pre-assault check in the desert darkness, and I went through all the gear that I’d be carrying on my back. We had no idea how long we’d be in there on foot. I had to be fully mobile with all my personal gear, weapons, plus my JTAC kit. I had little doubt that I was carrying more weight than most of the commando lads.
Apart from my SA80 and my Browning, and all my mags, I carried the TACSAT, with the donkey dick aerial stuck of out the top of the pack. Then I had an infrared pointer device — like a maglite, but only detectable by night-vision — plus an LF28 Laser Target Designator (LTD), a bulky laser-firing gizmo. A few spare batteries for all the electronic kit really pushed the weight.
I gave a couple of extra batteries to Throp and Chris, for I knew the FST would remain together as a stick. With all the gear stuffed into my Bergen, I had forty kilos in there. I chucked in a few grenades — smoke, white phosphorus and high-explosive. I managed to squeeze in one ration pack, and three litres of water, plus some photos of the family, and that was it. I was chocker.
On my wrist I strapped a Garmin 101 GPS, a civvy device that I’d purchased in the UK. It’d cost me £109.99, and was probably the most useful bit of kit a JTAC could carry. Wherever I might be, it would give me a ten-digit grid reference of my position. It could display both latitude and longitude, and Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) — MGRS being the standard type of grid you’d pass to the air.
I had my name, blood group and ZAP number scribbled on my helmet in thick marker pen. I double-checked I had my St Christopher on the dog-tag chain around my neck, the one that Nicola had got for me prior to my coming to Afghanistan. St Christopher is the patron saint of travellers, and she’d made me promise to wear it at all times.
I was good to go.
At 0300 we set out under cover of darkness, a massive column of Viking armoured vehicles doing a classic ‘thunder run’ into Sangin in the pitch darkness. As we roared in I was thinking to myself: I’ve been on the ground a week; I’ve just completed my JTAC course and exams; I’ve been taught a trade and how to speak a brand-new language; and now I have 120 commandos relying on me.
As the convoy went in I had a pair of Apaches overhead malleting anything that looked even vaguely like it might be an IED with 30mm cannon fire. We reached Sangin centre and dismounted. We left a skeleton crew with the Vikings, and moved off on foot just before first light. We stuck close to the OC’s HQ element, as the company pushed forwards. The town was eerily quiet. Apart from the dogs barking, there was an ominous silence. The dog howls went back and forth across the dark, deserted streets, and I just knew the threat was all around us. I could feel the enemy presence; sense it; touch it almost.
The lads hit the first compounds, and started going through them, bar-mining the walls, then chucking in frag grenades, followed by a burst of fire. The Apache above the forward line of troops, looking for enemy in the compounds, called in.
‘Widow Seven Nine, Ugly Five Three: two male pax on rooftop position at governor’s compound. They’re in a tiny shed-like building, and they’re watching your movements via binoculars.’
I reported it to Chris who passed it to the OC. He told us: ‘Hit them.’
‘Ugly Five Three, engage the OP position with one times Hellfire. Nearest friendlies three hundred metres west.’
‘Stand by. Planning my run. Visual with two pax and preparing to fire.’
‘Clear hot.’
‘In hot.’ A beat. ‘Stores.’
The Apache came in over the top of us, the Hellfire blasting away from its launch rail. I saw it streaking in, and a second later it went straight through the small door of the shed and exploded inside, shredding it. All that was left was an angry ball of smoke billowing skywards, and a fringe of blown-up walling.
I’d called in my first strike of the mission and we’d killed some enemy. My adrenaline was pumping at eight million miles an hour. I was caught up in the action. I didn’t ask the Apache for a BDA. I didn’t need one. But he did have this for me.
‘Widow Seven Nine, I’m visual with a large number of pax inside the main building below the target just hit. It’s crammed full of them. Through the windows I can see weapons.’
‘Roger. Stand by.’
The building beneath the destroyed shed was a large, concrete structure. Our lads would be advancing right past it, and it was an ideal ambush position. An armour-piercing Hellfire would go through it, not smashing it completely. I needed something bigger. I had a pair of Harriers stacked up above the Apache. I gave the pilot a call.
‘Recoil Four One, Widow Seven Nine; we’ve got a build-up of pax in the compound at the target that Ugly’s just hit.’
‘Widow Seven Nine, Recoil Four One: I’ve been listening in to you and Ugly Five Three. Aware of the situation. Aware of the target.’
‘What munition d’you recommend?’
‘Due to the size of building and wall thickness — a one-thousand JDAM, with a ten-millisecond delay.’
It was a good call. A thousand-pound bomb with that delay would go through two floors before it detonated. I got the Apache to bank around north, so I could bring the Harrier right down on to target.
‘Recoil Four One, friendlies are three metres to the west of target, behind hard cover. I want an east–west attack run, to keep the blast away from our troops.’
‘Roger: an east–west attack run,’ came the pilot’s reply. ‘I’ll need two minutes to set up for my run. Stand by.’
I didn’t have a great view of the target. I wanted to be dead certain if we were unleashing a thousand-pound JDAM. Our lads were danger-close. It was my third live drop, and if it had to be danger-close, I wanted eyes on target. I also wanted to lase the target, so the JDAM could home in on my laser beam.
‘I’m going forwards,’ I told Chris.
He nodded. ‘With you.’
‘Going forwards to get eyes-on!’ I yelled to the OC.
‘Right,’ he yelled back. ‘I’ll hold the company stationary until the jets are done.’
I scuttled ahead, crouching down as much a
s I could under forty kilos of kit. Chris was right behind me, sticking close to my shoulder. There was a shallow alley that sloped away before us, rising up again to the target building. Hugging the walls for cover I pushed onwards, passing our line of forward troops. I was sweating like a pig and breathless. I could feel rivulets running down my back. I was also nervous as hell. I was in the middle of a warren of alleyways and mud-walled buildings. The clock was ticking, and I had to get this drop dead right.
I checked my watch. Fifty seconds to the Harrier starting his attack run. I crouched behind a compound wall that gave a little cover, and struggled out of my pack. I started chucking stuff out, as I scrabbled around for the Laser Target Designator. The LTD was about the size of a shoebox, and took up one hell of a lot of space.
Finally I had it. As I went to line up the target there was a burst of static on my TACSAT.
‘Tipping in. Call for clearance.’
I grabbed the TACSAT. ‘Roger.’
I went to lase the target, lining it up in the LTD’s eight-times magnification sight. At the same time I was trying to double-check the map, making sure I hadn’t missed any friendly positions, and keep an eye out for any enemy. The bloody LTD was getting in the way. It was just too bulky for this kind of fast-moving work.
We were a 150 metres short of the target, I could see the building clearly, and the pilot was only seconds out. I made the call to bring the drop in by visual means only.
‘Clearance,’ the pilot called.
‘No change friendlies. I’m visual the target,’ I confirmed. ‘Clear hot.’
‘In hot.’ A beat. ‘Stores.’
A couple of seconds later there was an ear-piercing scream, as the munition howled in. It came over our heads like a thunderbolt, a dark arrow shape streaking through the air at ninety degrees. It punched a hole clear through the roof of the target building, as if it were paper.
A split-second later came the massive detonation, the entire building erupting in an explosion of shattered concrete, flying bricks and dust. A vortex of smoke and debris blasted out in all directions, pluming a hundred metres into the air, and then a rain of stones and debris and shrapnel started crashing down all around us.
Chris and I locked eyes. ‘Fucking hell.’
I got on the TACSAT. ‘Recoil Four One, Widow Seven Nine. Nice work. Send BDA.’
‘Roger. BDA: anything that was in there alive is now dead.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Correction: I’ve got movement to the north-east of the compound.’
Before I could respond I got a call from the second Harrier. ‘Widow Seven Nine, Recoil Four Two. I can do immediate follow-up attack with CRV7 rockets.’
We checked with the OC that there was no change to the friendly positions. I cleared him in to attack. Recoil Four Two wasn’t messing around. He unleashed eighteen CRV7 rockets, which saturated the entire compound in devastating explosions. Both Harriers did a follow-up BDA: there was nothing left moving now.
The battle for Sangin continued for that entire day, during which I did attacks using Apache, Harriers and A-10s. The enemy fought back with mortars, sniper fire, RPGs and small arms. By nightfall we’d set up position on the roof of an abandoned hotel in downtown Sangin, and most of the town was in our hands.
On the morning of the second day I was down in the hotel basement with Chris and Throp. It was like a bloody heroin refinery down there. There were big cauldrons full of brown gunk, and used needles everywhere. We’d heard stories about the enemy jacking themselves up on heroin, prior to battle; here was the evidence. One of the Marines had told us about an enemy fighter who’d taken a whole mag from an SA80 before he went down. He’d been high as a kite, and not registering the bullets as they tore into him. We were under sniper fire in the basement, and I’d just got into position to return fire with my SA80, when I felt a sharp prick to my leg.
I glanced down, and there was a used syringe sticking out of my thigh.
‘Fuck me!’ I yelled. ‘I’ve got a fucking used needle stuck in me!’
Chris went and fetched the company medic. He took a look and told me there wasn’t a lot he could do. I’d have to be tested for every kind of disease known to man, and — most importantly — for HIV-AIDS.
I was gutted, to put it mildly. I’d known when I deployed to Afghanistan there was a risk of getting shot or blown up. But I’d never even dreamed of catching HIV off a Taliban druggie’s used needle.
That evening we got relieved by the 82nd Airborne. I handed over to their JTAC in the midst of a massive firefight. I had Missip Two Five and Missip Two Six — a pair of F-15s — doing an airstrike on an enemy mortar team with five-hundred-pound airbursts. I had them coming in ‘shooter-shooter, swept right’ — sixty seconds apart, both dropping ordnance, before banking off to their right.
At the same time Chris was calling in the 105mm field guns, which were pounding the enemy positions, plus we had rounds being lobbed in by the Marine’s mortar unit. This was what an FST was designed to do — airstrikes, guns and mortars all at the same time — and the 82nd Airborne’s JTAC had his eyes out on stalks.
I did a swift handover brief, then passed him control of the jets. ‘Missip call-signs, Widow Seven Nine coming off station. Handing over to Jedi One Six.’
‘Missip call signs, Jedi One Six: I’m now the ground controlling station.’
And that was our handover in contact. We did an eighteen-hour night drive back to FOB Robinson. En route Chris, Throp and I talked about what we’d say to Sticky. We felt sure we’d just been involved in the biggest battle of our tour (how wrong we were). The last thing we wanted to do was make anyone in the FST feel like an outcast. We agreed to play it down as much as we could.
I had a lot of time to think during that long drive. I had fifteen confirmed enemy kills, and I’d done a boatload of controls. I didn’t feel like a veteran JTAC just yet, but I’d found my feet. Most importantly, I hadn’t let any of the lads down. But it had all been spoiled by that bloody needle prick. It was preying on my mind. I was worried about that AIDS test. I couldn’t even get checked right away: it would take months to develop in the body. The worst part of it was I’d have to go back to the UK to get tested.
Cuff — Corporal Grant ‘Cuff’ Cuthbertson, the JTAC who’d trained me — was out in the Afghan theatre. He’d listened in on the radio during my controls over Sangin, and he’d been all teared up at hearing me doing my thing.
‘It was like teaching a kid how to ride a bike,’ he told me, once I was back in FOB Price. ‘Then seeing that kid go cycling off all on their own.’
I hadn’t slept for four nights straight, and I couldn’t wait to get my head down. But Sticky woke me around midday. Some American captain needed me to call him on a secure telephone. The guy’s name was Captain Bouff Balm, or at least that what it sounded like. What kind of name was that for a soldier, I asked myself?
I was told the call was all about the Sangin op, and that it was urgent. Captain Balm was the US ‘CJOC’ based at Kandahar Airfield, whatever a CJOC might be. I called him on the secure line from the FOB Rob ops room.
‘Sergeant Grahame, calling for Captain Bouff Balm,’ I announced.
A voice came on the line. ‘Sergeant, I just want to ask you some questions about the Sangin mission. You were the JTAC on that op, right?’
‘Aye, I was.’
‘Why did you start with a thousand-pounder and end up using CRV7? It’s normally the other way round.’
‘I used the thousand-pounder to get through the building’s roof and flatten it,’ I told him. ‘The CRV7s were fired after and into the compound grounds, in response to movement around it. That’s why I started big and went small.’
‘Who was the nearest call sign to the compound when the strike went in?’
‘I was.’
‘Why did you say on the radio that nearest friendlies were three hundred metres away, when you clearly weren’t? You were half that distance.’
‘I was the mos
t forward call sign. I had three walls between me and the target. If I’d made a mistake it would have been me who got flattened.’
‘That answer’s not good enough, Sergeant. If you lie to the jets on how close you are, you’ll get someone killed.’
‘But I was the most forward call sign, and I didn’t really give a shit.’
‘If it happens again I will take your qualification from you, Sergeant. And that comes all the way from a two-star general. Now, I want to talk to you about that thousand-pound drop.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, it’s come down from Intel that this is who you killed: Mullah Abdel Bari, Mullah Qawi, Mullah Hafiz and his bodyguards. That’s three top enemy commanders. So fucking well done. That comes from the general — it was an excellent strike.’
I stared at the receiver for a second in sheer amazement. ‘Hold on a minute, mate: if it was that good a drop why are you going on about taking my qualification away?’
‘You’re new on your tour. We’ve got to bed it into you how to operate. Don’t say you’re a distance away when you’re not. And don’t mess around with gettin’ danger-close to your own drops.’
‘Fair enough,’ I told him.
Captain Bouff Balm seemed to think 150 metres was too close for comfort. By the end of my tour I’d be dropping bombs at a fraction of that distance, on a daily basis. It was the only way to keep myself and the lads alive.
Fourteen
OPERATION MINE STRIKE
The AIDS test in Norwich Hospital was a negative, which was a massive relief. Whilst awaiting the result I’d gone to see Nicola and the kids. I tried telling her as little as I could about what I’d been up to in theatre, but she’s a canny lass and she knew I’d been busy out there.
‘So, have you killed anyone?’ she asked me, eventually.
‘A couple,’ I lied. In truth I’d lost count.
I then proceeded to do exactly what the kids wanted every minute that I was home. But the hours passed in a blur, and it was a total headfuck being back in the UK and trying to act as if everything was normal.
Fire Strike 7/9 Page 15
