Rear Gunner, Helmand

Wow, this all seems such a long time ago...  Flying fast and low level out of LKG over the Green Zone, then popping up to high level at the edge of the desert.  Interesting times.  Fun times.  Worthwhile times, mainly.  Aviation in Helmand

When you go home...

This is from the top of the memorial to the fallen taken in Nad-e-Ali, in 2012, during a visit to G4S staff working there in support of the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team.  It was shot hand held, at night.  I did think of cleaning the memorial before taking the photograph, but it seemed more poignant not to.  When we are done there I wonder if this will remain, or be brought back to the UK, much as some of the memorials in Iraq have been.

The military have been working hand in glove with the civilian administrators in Helmand since 2007.  The mission has civil primacy, and the Head of Mission, always a senior career British diplomat, was usually the equivalent of a 2 star general, and so outranked the British brigadier (a 1 star post) running the military aspect of the civil / military mission as Commander Task Force Helmand.

There are a lot of men on this plate.  Some from my own Regiment and others that I have known.  We paid a brutal price for clearing the Taliban from this area.  The Welsh Guards had a particularly vicious tour here in 2009, losing their Commanding Officer, a Company Commander, a Platoon Commander, and dozens of other men.  I knew these first two.  In fact I lived opposite the Company Commander, and we shared lunch shortly before he was killed.  I came away from lunch thinking that he had seen his future and it was bleak.  I also knew Dan Shepherd, from the JF EOD Group, who had spent some time with us in Musa Qala helping to clear improvised explosive devices from the town and neighboring countryside.  He was a good man.  They were the best of times, they were the worst of times.

Fixer

This man was our fixer in one of the outstations.  Good humored, he could come and go as he pleased in the local town, and so performed a valuable service obtaining the small necessities of life that could not be passed down through the civil or military supply chain.

He was the enabler of weekly BBQ's, at which our staff hosted the military in this particular base, giving them the opportunity to break away from military operations for a few hours, and our guys the opportunity to develop the relationships necessary to enable their work.

The relationship between our staff and the military at this base became so strong that our guys were invited to the USMC welcome home ball in the U.S. an opportunity they took up, attending with their wives.

We had ordinary people doing remarkable things, and they were a pleasure to work with.