Ground Truth: 3 Para Return to Afghanistan. Patrick Bishop
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hangout which stayed open all night, and a NAAFI.
Coffee was the strongest drink available in KAF. The base, like everywhere in-theatre, was dry. Newcomers were surprised to find an establishment advertising itself as a massage parlour, staffed by ladies from former Soviet republics. But the sign over the door described accurately what went on inside. A story was told about a gullible British soldier who had been tipped off by his company sergeant major that extra services were available. He was shown into one of the cubicles by a masseuse. After stripping off and lying down he listed his requirements. The masseuse told him to wait a moment and slipped away. The next person through the cubicle door was a military policeman and the poor dupe was sent home on the next plane.
The enforced abstemiousness did not seem to dampen spirits. In the evenings, when the day’s work was done, the cafés filled up with men and women, soldiers and civilians who chatted, laughed, flirted and smoked. They were there because of a war, but for much of the time there was no charge of anxiety in the air. Occasionally the Taliban fired a rocket into the base, which usually exploded harmlessly in the wide open spaces between the buildings.
The Paras had mixed feelings about KAF. The normality of the place was unsettling. It should have been a relief to go back there after a spell ‘on the ground’. Instead, it could seem artificial and irritating, an affront to the sensitivities of those doing the fighting. Most of the inhabitants, soldier and civilian, never left the camp and had little idea of what life was like in the FOBs, the forward operating bases on the front line. The cushy existence of the KAF-dwellers could easily provoke feelings of contempt. ‘Have you noticed there are an awful lot of fat people around here?’ remarked a Para company commander as, returning from the helicopter landing site after a spell in the field, our Land Rover passed two stout Canadian female soldiers trundling along, each holding a supersized milkshake. Kandahar airfield did at times seem to exemplify flabbiness and waste. Modern armies inevitably trail long logistical tails behind them, but the ratio of ‘enablers’ to fighting soldiers in Afghanistan seemed absurdly high.
Now and again, however, the realities of the conflict intruded. During the summer came regular announcements that ‘Operation Minimise’ was now in force. This was the communications blackout imposed whenever a soldier was killed, shutting down Internet and phone cabins to prevent news of the death reaching the outside world until the victim’s next of kin had been informed. Some evenings, a ‘ramp ceremony’ was held on the runway before the body of a soldier was flown home. Hundreds of soldiers from dozens of nationalities would troop through the dusk to the aircraft carrying the dead man or woman home, and for a while everyone was touched by the gravity of the mission.
The Paras were quartered in Camp Roberts, named after Alexis Roberts, a major in the Gurkhas and mentor of Prince William during his Sandhurst days who had been blown up by an IED in October 2007. Officers and men lived in rows of air-conditioned tents. It was noisy, right next to the runway, and a twenty-minute walk away from the boardwalk and canteens. The location had one major advantage. It seemed to be blessedly sheltered from the stench of shit that drifted from the inefficient sewage farm in the south-west corner, polluting much of the base.
The battalion is the basic social block in the army edifice. It numbers about six hundred men, which is big enough for it to have a real identity in the wider organisation but small enough for everyone inside it to know everyone else. A battalion’s mood is to some extent set by its commanding officer. A change in leadership can alter the unit atmospherics. Officers and men agreed that under Huw Williams, 3 Para was more relaxed than it had been in the Tootal era. That did not mean that the essential character of 3 Para had changed. Williams had no intention of trying to alter it. Each of the three regular Para battalions liked to think they had their own clearly marked identity. 3 Para’s nickname was ‘Gungy Third’.
‘I would say we are more laid back, more relaxed, slightly scruffy, not too worried about army-bullshit-type stuff,’ said Williams. ‘The blokes take a genuine pride in being a little bit off the wall. Yet no matter what happens, they perform to the highest standards and because they do that the whole hierarchy of 3 Para and certainly myself give them a lot of leeway’
Williams was breezy, good natured and straightforward. He carried his authority lightly. A stranger watching him chatting with a bunch of fellow officers in the dining hall would not automatically assume that he was the boss. But when he spoke everyone listened. There was wisdom and shrewdness beneath the easy surface manner. He was born and brought up in Cardiff and joined the army at eighteen straight from school. He had been a soldier now for twenty-two years. He first heard of the Paras through a book on his father’s bookshelves on the 1942 Bruneval raid, an operation full of all the dash and daring that the regiment relished. A small airborne force had parachuted on to a clifftop near Le Havre, attacked a strongly defended German radar base, captured a top-secret new electronic detection device and escaped by boat.
During his career Williams had served in 3 Para as a platoon commander, intelligence officer, commander of ‘B’ Company and as the battalion’s second-in-command. Commanding a battalion on operations is regarded as the most challenging and stimulating job an officer can do. He is out with his men on the ground, putting his and their capabilities to the test. It is the peak of active soldiering and the promotions, if they come thereafter, will take him farther and farther away from the real action. Having served as number two was no guarantee that he would eventually take over as boss. Williams regarded his promotion as ‘a dream job…not just being made CO but the fact that I was going to get to spend another two years in the battalion’.
His deputy was Major John Boyd, a tall, thoughtful Ulsterman, who uncomplainingly accepted the role of enabler. ‘I’m the oil that makes the machine work,’ he said. ‘I take the burden off the CO and let him go out and command.’ He had grown up on a reading diet of ‘Commando magazine, War Picture Library, the Victor. I used to wait every Friday for the comics to come in. At the age of five I just knew I was going to join the army one day’
Many in 3 Para talk about a feeling of vocation when they examine their reasons for joining up. The army seemed to offer an identity and a sense of community that the civilian world could not provide. Boyd had grown up on the Loyalist streets of East Belfast. The Troubles were at their height and many of those around him had served with the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. ‘My first platoon sergeant was a Catholic from Belfast and in those days we would never have socialised,’ he said. ‘But we’ve gone on to become very firm, good friends. I thought it was amazing that one of the few places where Irishmen could sit together without trying to stab each other or shoot each other was the British Army. I love the army and I love the regiment.’
Boyd had been posted away from the battalion during Herrick 4 but there were many senior figures among the officers and NCOs to provide continuity. Two of the 2006 company commanders remained, though they were to move before the end of the tour. Major Jamie Loden, who had taken over ‘A’ Company when it was under constant attack from the Taliban in the district centre at Sangin, was still in-post. So too was Major Adam Jowett, who commanded the hard-pressed defenders of the outpost at Musa Qaleh. Paul ‘Paddy’ Blair, who had commanded ‘C’ Company, had gone off to lead the Red Devils, the Parachute Regiment skydiving team, and Giles Timms, who commanded ‘B’ Company, had moved on to another role outside the regiment.
Timms was replaced by Major Stuart McDonald, a pale, shaven-headed Scotsman, whose aggressive tactical approach was to make him stand out even within the Paras. He was to win a Military Cross for his courage and leadership. Stu McDonald had light blue eyes that sparkled with what some interpreted as a quasi-mystical light. They had inspired a visiting German journalist to compare him to Jesus Christ, which provided the battalion with many laughs.
He had become a soldier, almost on a whim, at the time of the 1991 Gulf War. ‘My friend and I were sat on the train one day and had this great romantic notion that we would join the Territorial Army and be sent out to the Gulf to fight,’ he remembered. ‘At the time I was incredibly ignorant. I knew nothing about the army…’
The idea took hold. He did some basic training with the TA. Then his parents showed him a newspaper ad seeking recruits for the Paras’ territorial battalion. He had seen