quickly. Each morning we got up at six and went to the gym. ‘Op Massive’ and ‘Op Bronze’ were important parts of any soldiers’ tour of duty, and I was willing to take them seriously over the next six months, occasionally even combining the two when running around the helicopter landing strip in the midday sun. The heightened ‘insider’ threat meant that we had to carry our weapons at all times, even when going for a shower or to the gym. We often found ourselves in the Ops Room until late into the night, or early hours of the morning, making time spent away invaluable.
COS ISTAR show his creative side; helping Maj David Brooks with a quick trim
After a week with limited activity I was keen to get out of Lash. I’d heard about an RAF officer who was going to Kabul for some meetings in the next week and immediately began to conjure up reasons why I should be on the trip. Combat tourism has been massively stamped down on in recent years. If it isn’t beneficial to the campaign then, rightly so, we shouldn’t be wasting money on it. However, if there was a flight to Kabul and there were empty seats then my bottom wasn’t going to cost the military a penny. Unfortunately, a day before I was due to depart the COS nosily enquired as to who was going to the meetings in Kabul, and Flt Lt Harca unwittingly put her foot in it by giving up my name. I was taken off the roster. No trip to Kabul. Fortunately for me however, the Chief of Staff, for all his gifts of leadership and command, is a mong when it came to Windows. A deal was struck. I would fix his computer if he let me go to Kabul. Suddenly my name was back on the nominal roll. Myself, Flt Lt Harca, a US Air Force Master Sgt and a US Marine Corps Sgt all met at Bastion ready for the 90 minute
flight to Kabul. A few days earlier Capt Tom Whiting had asked me to pull up a sandbag as he told me of how back in 2009 he had been sitting on a C130 Hercules to fly to Kabul, waiting for a VIP passenger to arrive. Eventually the US General Stanley McChristal rocked up and was escorted straight The author in Kabul with Maj Gen Ed Smyth-Osbourne LG to the cockpit where he sat for the duration of the flight. If seen in the number of coup d’etats that General McChristal can sit in the cockpit overthrew monarch after monarch. One then why can’t anyone else? So, seated of the principles of counter insurgency on our C130 Hercules, waiting to fly to is winning the hearts and minds of the Kabul, I ask the RAF LCpl if the pilots local population, and our offer of prowouldn’t mind having one extra with tection is a tough sell when the Taliban them up front. After a short wait I got offer the same service, sometimes in a the thumbs up and headed to the front more attractive guise. By playing their of the plane. I was invited to take my game, on their home ground, we have body armour off and take a seat looking a real challenge to win the support of straight down the runway. The pilots the population. So where can we find were charming and gave me a headset an advantage? I wonder if we had takto listen in to the control tower. We en the same military mentoring model took off as the sun starts to set over the and applied it to schools, building new foothills of the Hindu Kutsch. After a education centres and supporting the short while the pilots put the C130 onto development of teachers and classroom autopilot and invited me to sit in the assistants; or building hospitals and front seat. I felt like I did as a kid, flymentoring doctors, dentists, nurses and ing away on holiday, in the days when physios. Surely the Taliban can only be you were allowed to visit the pilots on a seen as an enemy if they are destroying British Airways flight, except this time I a medical centre that brings so much was in the driving seat and the pilot was benefit to the community? We have a making me a cup of coffee. I was fasfantastic example of a field hospital in cinated by the many dials and lights in Camp Bastion, but this isn’t replicated front of me as well as the tactics to flying anywhere else in Helmand. Whilst the in a conflict zone, and as a result bommilitary campaign has been superbly bard the pilots with questions. Appardelivered, I feel that Britain plc may ently I asked the right questions as one have missed a trick when looking at the of the pilots asked how much I’d flown. wider picture, certainly in Helmand. “Only commercial”, I answer. My only thought was that he must have assumed I had a private pilots license because suddenly they were switching autopilot off and I was in control of a C130 and the sixty soldiers sitting to the rear. Throughout our time in Afghanistan, the enthusiasm and professionalism of the soldiers stood out as an impressive constant, particularly when considering the hostile conditions and nature of daily business. It was a great privelege to work with troops of all nationalities, but most of all to know that our activities did make a difference. We saw the tangible results of our operations, in the successful hauls of exposives and ammunition removed from the ground. Ever the optomist I am hesitant to criticise the campaign in Afghanistan. However, it does strike me that by focussing our efforts on the military we are missing a trick. The Afghans are excellent at fighting and have a long history of warfare - an easy example of this can be
C130 ready to depart from Camp Bastion
Over the six month period HCR has contributed to making Helmand a safer place, removing thousands of rounds of ammunition and explosives from the enemy. Most notably however, we have seen for the first time the Afghan National Security Forces genuinely taking responsibility and delivering security in Helmand. That is not to say the insurgent has gone, but the balance has definitely shifted, and we leave Helmand a better place, where peace has a real opportunity to flourish.
Household Cavalry Regiment ■ 35