by Shane Bryant
It was getting late, so we pushed on from the village, out of range of the mortars, into the mountains. The cloud was low, because of the rain, and the peaks were shrouded in a dirty grey-white fog. The track was narrow and winding, and the humvee, a huge vehicle, barely fitted on it. With no roadside protection to the right of us, we would have been goners if the driver had miscalculated and sent us over the steep drop into the valley below. As the convoy crawled along, we were ambushed again. The Taliban had chosen the perfect site for it.
You can go for hours and days with nothing happening while sitting in the back of a gun truck and it can be hard to concentrate, but you have to. When the mortars start falling and the guns start firing, you get a buzz, at first, but the slump following it is almost as intense as a high. You’re drained after a TIC, and then sometimes, as on this trip, everything arcs up again.
I started firing back, watching the fall of shot of the .50 and the other guns and Mark 19s up ahead. The 40-millimetre grenades left the barrels of the Mark 19s with a ker-thunk, ker-thunk, kerthunk noise as the belt was fed through the launcher. Shortly after, I could see the grenades, exploding, as little clouds of dust, rock and mud in the hills. There were huge boulders above us; I looked up at them, trying not to imagine the damage they could cause if the Taliban dynamited them or even just pushed them down on us. It’s an ancient country populated by people who’ve been fighting for centuries and I wouldn’t put anything past them.
We carried about 4000 rounds for the 240, but I still had to be conscious of not blowing all my ammo in the first half hour of the TIC. Like most of the TICs I’ve been in, all I could see of the enemy was the muzzle flashes of their weapons. The Americans stood and fought, but in the end the Taliban pulled back into the mountains somewhere, so we carried on until we found some good high ground with all-round visibility where we could harbour-up for the night.
We took up all-round protection positions to cover the approach of the Chinook evacuation helicopter. One of the team members popped a green smoke grenade, and pretty soon the bright colour was mixed in with the greys and the browns of sand and loose mud kicked into a dust cloud by the chopper’s giant twin rotors. Everyone kept a lookout while the helicopter was on the ground for those few seconds, as we all knew the bird would be a big fat target for any mortar or heavy machine-gun crews that might have been hiding in the hills, watching us harbour-up.
Later, I heard that the Chinook was carrying some British soldiers who were being taken out to the mountains for the first time. Apparently, they got quite a shock when their helicopter made an unexpected detour to pick up a wild-eyed American who’d just come straight from a firefight – or would have, if he hadn’t busted his ankle.
The months had begun to drag as I approached my next leave and I could feel my fuse getting shorter by the day. To make matters worse, when the SF team at Deh Rawood rotated out, the new team came in with some ideas that really didn’t suit the way Ricky and I were used to working.
The new team included some super-fit guys and they had a team sergeant who liked to walk everywhere, so we started doing lots of foot patrols. Personally, I didn’t mind walking, but Ricky was a nightmare on foot. He still hated Afghanis, and walking gave him too many opportunities to try to chase motorbikes and local people.
I had a shitload of gear to carry on patrol. At Cobra I’d go on missions wearing a T-shirt, a Texas Longhorns baseball cap and camo trousers, but this team worked in full uniform, so I’d be wearing a helmet, long-sleeve shirt and trousers, and I now had armoured plates fitted into the old plate carrier vest I’d bought in Kandahar when I first arrived. By now, I had my Gucci load-bearing vest that I wore over the top of my body armour. It held eight 30-round magazines for my M4. On one leg I had my Glock and three magazines in a holster, and strapped to my other thigh was a first aid kid containing field dressings, QuikClot – a powder that slows bleeding – painkillers and swabs. In my Alice pack, I had enough food for Ricky and me for the five-day patrol, wet weather gear, ten litres of water, night-vision goggles, sleeping bag, bivvy bag, Leatherman, camera and a torch. I also carried spare collars, a lead, tennis balls and explosives for Ricky’s training. Attached to my belt was a short length of rope with a loop on the end, which I’d made up years earlier, in Australia, for working with detection dogs in the bush. If I got into a TIC, I’d pull Ricky close to me and attach his collar to the loop so that he wouldn’t tangle me in his long lead and get in the way. All up, I reckon I was carrying about 30 kilograms on my back.
Patrolling on foot with a dog is not easy. Typically of a dog, Ricky would always want to be leading the way and constantly be trying to pull me further ahead to the front of the team. I had to rein him in continually. As well as looking after myself, I had to make sure I kept Ricky’s fluids up during breaks and that he was handling the walk OK.
We’d leave the FOB on foot at night, which was a totally different experience from the other missions I’d been on. The nights were becoming cool and crisp and, away from the arc lights of the compound, the stars burned bright and white. I had a sense of vulnerability as, instead of sitting behind a 240 in the back of a heavily armed and armoured gun truck, it was just me, my rifle and my dog, out in the middle of a cold, dark moonscape. We knew that somewhere in the night sky was an AC-130 or some fast-movers orbiting endlessly on standby and, sometimes, artillery in range, but that didn’t lessen the reality that a well-sited ambush or IED could do us some serious damage before we had the opportunity to respond in kind.
During the day we’d rest up and leave a splinter detachment to look after our packs, while we, relieved of some of the weight we carried, would move off to check farms and villages. As tiring as it was, I didn’t mind the exercise. The walks would take us across a mix of terrain, from wide open tracts of barren, rocky ground; into steep hills where you had to watch your feet on loose stones; through villages and into thickly cultivated irrigated areas. Once, we entered a massive poppy plantation, which was an eerie place. The plants, with their bright flowers, were taller than the average man and the fields were criss-crossed by narrow tracks the farmers used. Everyone was on high alert, as it seemed a perfect place for any insurgents in the area to hide, or an ideal site for an ambush.
Drugs were everywhere in Afghanistan, representing just one of the many challenges the coalition had to deal with in bringing some sense of order to the country and defeating the Taliban. Personally, I don’t agree with the concept of people living in a country we’re fighting to defend being allowed to grow drugs that will be sold on the streets in America and Australia. The Americans have been trying to encourage Afghani farmers to move into growing different cash crops, such as potatoes and vegetables, but that’s going to take a long time. Warlords have a strong hold on the cultivation and processing of opium in Afghanistan, so that even if a farmer wanted to change to growing potatoes he’d be too scared to do so. The teams I was with didn’t like seeing the poppy fields, knowing the destination of the product, but they were in the business of killing Taliban, not burning farms. It was different if we came across processed opium and had the Afghani police with us.
After passing through the poppy field, we entered a small village. As usual, the locals were stand-offish, watching the team from a distance. There were children present, though, and some women hanging back, so there was little chance we were about to be lit up, which didn’t mean there weren’t Taliban there. Just as the Americans would throw lollies from their vehicles to keep the kids close by, the Taliban would sometimes mingle with women and children as a cover. The ordinary people in the village would be too scared to reveal the presence of a Taliban spy or spotter.
The team captain asked to see the village elders, and a couple of old men with long white beards and turbans came forward. The terp started talking to them and an impromptu shura was called. Some other guys from the team, Ricky and I started checking around the village buildings, just to make sure we weren’t walking into a trap.
When we were satisfied it was all quiet, we were all offered chai, which had been brewed for the meeting. It was the first time I’d had shin chai, which is milky, and it tasted beautiful. The day was stinking hot, and the drink was refreshing and washed the dust from my throat.
Ricky was sitting by me, but instead of soaking up the hospitality, growled at one of our hosts. He really wasn’t cut out for foot patrols, and I was constantly worried he was going to bite some kid and undo any good the Psyops guys were doing with their humanitarian assistance.
In a shura the Americans would ask if the village needed a well or radios, or food or medicines, and slowly the Green Beret officer and the intel sergeant would get around to the real business at hand, of asking if the Taliban had been in the area lately. Generally, the answer was no, as people were more scared of the insurgents than they were of the coalition. We knew that it was quite likely that as soon as we were gone, the non-existent Taliban would appear and ask the elders what they’d been saying to the infidels. Winning hearts and minds was a hard job when the people you were talking to faced the possibility of being hanged or shot just for talking to us.
The Afghanis who worked for us, or those loyal to the government, lived in constant fear for their lives. When I was in Cobra, I heard a story about an ANA outpost that the Taliban had overrun. The Afghani soldiers had been tortured with knives and burned, or had had their eyes cut out before they were beheaded or hanged. People in the outside world know all about Americans accidentally dropping bombs on civilians, but they rarely hear how many Afghanis are killed by their own kind.
Ricky and I were crossing the Helmand River during a foot patrol. The water was up around my waist, which is deep for a dog, and fast flowing.
Ricky started to panic, as he was losing his footing on the slippery stones, and began to dog paddle. The current caught him and suddenly he went under. I hauled up on his leash, but he started thrashing around and rolled over. It was a struggle for me to stay upright. I was carrying my M4, which I couldn’t let go of, and was loaded down with my combat vest full of ammunition, and food for Ricky and me. Ricky was spinning like a crocodile drowning its prey and for a second I thought he might drown. I staggered through the current and managed with my free hand to get hold of his collar. Some Afghani security troops waded out to help me, and I lifted the dog and dragged him, coughing and spluttering, to the surface. By the time I got to the rocky shore, both of us were exhausted. Ricky was quiet after his ordeal, as was I, as I’d had a scare, thinking he might drown.
‘Maybe you should have thought about taking your dog off its lead before crossing that river,’ one of the team members said during a debrief back at Deh Rawood.
I didn’t like this guy, who was always very opinionated. I felt like telling him, ‘Yeah, man, and if I did that, my fucking dog would have ended up floating down the Helmand River to Kandahar’. There was no way Ricky could have swum against that current, but I held my tongue as speaking back would have provoked an argument. I don’t normally shy away from fights but I’d learned that it was better to stay quiet and try to fit in, rather than go head to head with someone who fancied himself the alpha dog in an SF team.
A few weeks later, we were searching a village when the same guy pointed to some writing on a wall. ‘Hey, look, that’s written in American.’
I felt like telling him the language was actually English but again kept my mouth shut. I’ve made many good American friends in Afghanistan but, I swear, some of them think the US of A is the only fucking country in the world.
*
When we were out on missions, I would continue Ricky’s training by letting him find hidden chunks of explosive to keep him interested and to give him the chance to earn a reward. It was important to keep the dog engaged and interested, even on patrols. I’d always take two tennis balls (in case I lost one) and some chunks of different types of explosive whenever we went out on a mission. I took the balls in case Ricky did find some real explosives, or weapons or an IED. As stressful as that situation would be, the dog would still have to be given its reward – the chance to chew on its tennis ball – while us humans worked out what to do about the bomb.
When we were searching a compound, as long as it didn’t seem too dangerous, I’d sometimes get one of the SF guys to hide a piece of explosive somewhere in a house, or under some boxes, in order to give my dog something to find. The training is no use if, as usually happened, we’d search and search and search and find nothing for real. The dog can start to lose interest if it’s searching every day and never finding anything or, most importantly for him, getting his reward of a chance to play with his ball.
One day, Guy and I were both on a patrol with the team and decided to give the dogs something to find. When the team stopped for a break, I moved ahead of Guy and buried some explosives on the side of the road. When Guy came through, his dog, Apis, found them and got his reward. This wasn’t supposed to be too taxing, just an exercise to keep the dogs focused and active.
When it was Guy’s turn to hide the explosive, he headed off up a side track and was gone for a while. ‘It’s up there, not far off the road,’ he said to me when we got back. It was a test of the dogs, after all, not of the handlers.
With the SF guys watching, Ricky and I set off up the road. I let him off his lead and told him to ‘sook’, and he did his thing, diligently sniffing along the side of the road, but came up with nothing.
I was getting further and further from the team, and had been searching for about 25 minutes. It was getting embarrassing that Ricky couldn’t find anything. Up ahead, I saw in a field off to one side some sticks with green flags of old cloth fluttering from them. I’d been in Afghanistan long enough to recognise a cemetery and didn’t want to get too close but, as Ricky still hadn’t found the hidden explosives, we carried on up the road.
‘Come on, Ricky, sook!’
As we neared the cemetery, Ricky’s ears pricked up and he trotted forward. ‘Hey, boy,’ I said to him, but he was edging closer and closer to the mounds of rocks, and the flagpoles that marked each grave. ‘Ricky.’
There was no way, I thought to myself, that Guy would have planted the explosives in a cemetery. To my horror, though, Ricky wandered off the road and in among the graves. ‘Come, boy!’
But Ricky wasn’t going to be deterred from doing his job. For a moment, I thought he might be paying attention to a fresh grave. I figured that if any of the locals saw a dog rooting around in the local cemetery, and if Ricky started to dig up bones, one of us could end up being shot, and we’d have a major firefight on our hands as a dozen pumped-up Green Berets decided to get in on the action as well.
‘Ricky!’
My worst fears were unfolding as Ricky sat down next to a pile of rocks that marked a burial site, giving a passive response to tell me he’d found something. ‘Oh, fuck, no.’ I ran over to Ricky, grabbed him by the collar, gave him his ball and led him out of the cemetery. I strode back down the road to Guy and asked him what was going on. He told me had hidden the C4 at the gravesite where Ricky had given his response.
‘What the fuck were you thinking, Guy?’ I hissed at him when I got back from retrieving the explosive, trying to stay out of earshot of the rest of the team. ‘That’s a fucking cemetery, man. I was keeping Ricky away from the graves deliberately.’ I couldn’t believe that Guy had planted the aid next to a grave. He laughed but I was pissed off – less because Ricky had been digging around in a cemetery than because I’d wasted 25 minutes of break time on what should have been a routine training task.
Karma’s a useful thing, though. Guy got his comeuppance for making me look like a dick in front of the SF guys, when later on he completely screwed up the FOB’s computer system by accidentally downloading a virus.
On the same foot patrol when Ricky nearly drowned in the river, the ANA searched a compound and found a man of fighting age who’d been shot. He was hooked up to a saline drip and hidden in the room with him was an
AK-47. Our terp found the building’s owner and hauled him into an adjoining room. From the sounds of thumps and the occasional yelp, you knew the government soldiers were working this bloke over for information. The ANA took both the men away for more questioning.
Even when they weren’t clearing a village or compound as part of a cordon and search operation, it was often the ANA or Afghan Security Group who came into contact with the Taliban first. This was because they were usually at the front of a convoy, or out in front of us if we were on foot patrol. Drawn mostly from Afghanis of Kazak, Uzbek or Tajik descent who served with the Northern Alliance in its fight against the Taliban, the Afghan Security Group provided security for US bases throughout Afghanistan.
We arrived at a village during a patrol out of Deh Rawood, to pull security while a shura took place, and found a knot of ANA soldiers standing around two bodies lying in the dust. It turned out the dead guys were armed Taliban who had been caught trying to enter the village, perhaps with the intent of disrupting the meeting. Everyone took turns at having a look at the bodies.
The black turban one of the dead men was wearing had started to unravel and I could see the stubble of his shaved head underneath. He had a dark beard; the Taliban were against men shaving their facial hair. Fundamentally, this guy had died because he wanted to impose his beliefs and religion on other people.
I’d seen dead bodies prior to my going to Afghanistan. When I was in the army, I arranged with the local police for some of my soldiers and me to watch an autopsy, so that they could have a look at death. Afterwards, we went to McDonald’s for breakfast, but none of us could face a burger. As a policeman, I’d seen the bodies of suicides, a young guy killed in a car accident, people who’d died of natural causes and been found by their neighbours and of a murder victim, who had been strangled. At first, you’re curious about how the person looks and the condition of the body. The worst part of death when you’re working in law enforcement, though, is not seeing lifeless bodies but, rather, dealing with the living – breaking the news to a parent, or a spouse or a child, that someone close to them has died.
