War Dogs Read online

  Scott was the only American killed on any of the missions I went on during my time working with the US forces in Afghanistan, but during that period there were, that I was aware of, three ETTs killed elsewhere in the country. The losses among the advisers showed the danger they placed themselves in, sometimes on a daily basis. Barack Obama and Kevin Rudd like to talk about getting the Afghanis to take on more of the fighting, and the general public sometimes sees sending ‘trainers’ or ‘advisers’ as more acceptable than sending combat troops. What people don’t realise is that those trainers and advisers are sometimes involved in heavier combat – and in more danger of being killed and wounded – than, say, a battalion of coalition troops would be when out on patrol in their armoured vehicles.

  The Taliban believe in fate. We might believe in luck, but we also believe in knowing how to shoot properly, having our weapons zeroed correctly and in knowing how to do our jobs. I think the Taliban way of fighting, planting IEDs on the side of the road and running away, is cowardly, and I hate the way that villagers who might not be particularly anti-the Americans and the coalition, and are happy to take our humanitarian and medical aid, just stand there and watch our guys get blown away, having known there’s a bomb waiting for them. Maybe they’re scared of what the Taliban would do to them if they informed our men about the IEDs, or maybe they just don’t care.

  The soldiers who had gone in looking for Scott had come up against a section-strength group of Taliban – maybe ten or twelve guys – and we knew there were plenty more of them in the area. After the initial anger over Scott’s death, people withdrew into their shells and there was an uncomfortable silence hanging over the convoy, which was broken by the voice of the JTAC calling up the air controller, orbiting somewhere above us. We pulled back a bit and the air-to-ground controller called in an A-10 to deliver an air strike on the village. The Taliban had made it clear they were going to stand and fight, so the Americans were free to use whatever tools of war were at their disposal.

  The air force hammered that place and, according to later estimates, 80 or more Taliban died that day.

  After the TIC we didn’t go straight back to the FOB. We continued north towards the village of Nayazic.

  The weather turned to shit, with icy rain and wind that stabbed through my jacket, fleece and uniform and that made riding in the exposed back of the GMV under bleak grey clouds thoroughly miserable. The conditions mirrored how many of us felt, knowing that Scott was making the first leg of his final trip home, on the medevac chopper that had been called in to collect his body.

  The rain turned the dust to mud, and I felt our vehicle starting to lose traction. The back end swayed as the mud-clogged tyres struggled for more grip. We were lucky, though, and managed to get through the soft stuff, but a vehicle behind us became bogged.

  I sat in my seat behind the 240, shivering as the team sergeant moved up and down the line telling everyone to stay alert, while the stuck truck’s crew got out their shovels and started digging. Another humvee was manoeuvred around to try to tow the stranded vehicle. This was a perfect ambush position and we couldn’t abandon the vehicle and crew, so we just had to sit there in the sleet and rain, freezing our nuts off.

  It was like the bad weather was eating away at me, breaking down my resolve and laughing at my feeble attempts to stay warm. I had gloves and a balaclava on, but was freezing. I thought about Scott; killed by the enemy and abandoned by his Afghanis on the battlefield.

  ‘Stay alert, people,’ the team sergeant said. ‘I do not like this shit.’ I was with him.

  When we finally approached our remain overnight site, it was so cold that it was almost impossible to get to sleep, and I’m sure most of us were kept awake thinking about Scott anyway. Even Ricky was shivering, and in my after-action report I recommended the company buy some cold-weather coats for our dogs. I held Ricky close, hugging him to keep us both warm.

  Before settling in for the night, we had rendezvoused with a Dutch SF patrol from Task Force Viper. Officially, the Dutch government didn’t want its special forces working with the Americans, who they considered to be rogue elements but, funnily enough, we would often share our night positions with Dutch patrols that we just happened to bump into. It made sense to be around friendlies at night in the mountains, no matter what politicians sitting in their comfortable homes thought.

  As the long night wore on, I remembered Scott playing with Ricky, and telling me about his wife and kids back home; how proud he was of his children and how he missed his own dog. For the first time since I’d come to Afghanistan, I felt like I wanted to give it away. I’d give anything, I thought, to be back in the Australian sunshine. I could have been sitting on the beach having a beer, or out having dinner with my girlfriend. Instead, I was shivering to death in the mountains of Afghanistan.

  I’d never felt so low in all my life.

  ELEVEN

  Deh Rawood: Walking the dog

  February–March 2007

  I was disappointed to leave Tarin Khowt, as I’d really felt part of the team there, and had made goods friends in Adam, Dave and New John – so called because there were a couple of Johns on the base. The A-Team had given me specialist training of the likes usually reserved for SF soldiers, and I’d seen plenty of action. Sadly, too, with Scott’s death, I’d seen the cost of war first hand.

  After nearly four months, though, it was time for me to move. I had an enjoyable, but hectic, vacation back home, staying with all five of my kids in a two-bedroom flat my mum owned. It was great being a hands-on father again – taking the kids to sport and dancing, organising meals and bath times, and otherwise spending time with them, but it was over too soon.

  When I returned to Afghanistan, I once more teamed up with my Aussie mate Guy, and the pair of us were sent to the FOB at Deh Rawood. It was about 40 or 50 kilometres south-west of Tarin Khowt, still in Uruzgan Province.

  Deh Rawood had been the site of a controversial incident early in the war, back in 2002, when the local Afghanis claimed a Spectre gunship had opened fire on a wedding party and killed at least 20 civilians. The Spectre crew claimed heavy calibre anti-aircraft rounds were firing on them, while the villagers maintained they were just following the traditional practice of firing rifles in the air as a form of celebrating the happy couple’s marriage. The crew of the Spectre was exonerated, but the Taliban propaganda machine had a field day with the coverage of the civilian deaths. The incident highlighted just how confusing it could be to operate in a country that was still awash with weapons dating from the days of the Russian invasion.

  Uruzgan had been a Taliban stronghold in the old days, and was where the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar came from. From the Chinook, we could see the Helmand River, which runs between Tarin Khowt and Deh Rawood. The river passed through a steep narrow valley as it bisected the mountain range, and on either bank was a green zone where the Afghanis had established irrigated fields and grew their crops, including drugs. Beyond the life-giving water’s reach, there was nothing but rock and dirt.

  As we approached Deh Rawood, we flew over a mountain range that looked like a jagged line of broken beer bottles on top of a security fence. I knew that even without enemy threat, those mountains could be dangerous. My mate John Roberts, who ran the helicopters from Tarin Khowt, had told me that an Mi 26 helicopter full of cargo destined for the Dutch base had crashed in the ranges in bad weather, killing all eight crew on board. Even with the risk of accidents and ground fire, I preferred flying to driving in Afghanistan, though, because of the risk of IEDs.

  The FOB was a complex of square compounds, demarcated by hesco walls, with guard towers that overlooked the base, the river next to it, and the town of Deh Rawood on the other side of the river. On the town side of the river, the green zone crept as far as it could until it met the mountains, but on the base side there was nothing but dirt between the FOB and the hills. There was no airstrip at Deh Rawood for fixed wing aircraft, just a square cobbled
with smooth river stones where helicopters could land.

  As well as the A-Team, there was a detachment of four Dutch Marines at Deh Rawood, working as ETTs, training and advising the local ANA. The Dutch turned out to be a good bunch. They were friendly and laid-back, always taking the piss out of each other.

  One of the Dutchmen’s favourite pastimes, which we introduced them to, was to have wars with Meal Ready to Eat ‘bombs’. To make one, you take a plastic half- or one-litre sized drinking water bottle, drain off most of the water and squeeze in one of the little chemical Brillo pads from the inside of the meal’s heater bag, put the lid on the bottle, then shake it up. As the pad starts to heat up, the plastic bottle expands, rapidly, because the steamy vapours from the pad have nowhere to go. Depending on the amount of water you use, you can make a crude time bomb, so that the bottle doesn’t explode straight away.

  One night when the SF teams were all out on a mission, the tactical operations centre – the nerve centre of the FOB – was being manned by one of the DynCorp police mentors, an African American dude called Tony. The mentors were former US policemen who were working with the Afghani law enforcement authorities. The Dutchmen, Guy and I rigged up an extra big water bottle as a bomb, and set it by the door to the Tactical Operations Centre. When it went off, poor old Tony thought World War fucking-III had just broken out and was nearly shitting himself as he went running out to the shelter.

  Just as with my first deployment to Cobra, the SF team at Deh Rawood was nearing the end of its tour and near to going home, so they were not too inclined to take a new person under their wing. I still went on missions, but spent most of my off-duty hours hanging out with the Dutch guys. We had a massive television screen and Xbox, so when we weren’t out on missions, looking for real bad guys, the Dutch would visit Guy and me, and we’d sit in front of the TV for hours, killing pretend baddies in Ghost Recon.

  We could never take a break from training with the dogs. Guy and I would sometimes use the accommodation area, and take turns hiding explosives for each other’s dog to search for. One day, when it was my turn, I let Ricky off his lead and talked him through the indoor maze of unused bedrooms, hallways and the recreation area. ‘Sook, Ricky,’ I commanded.

  Ricky searched all the bedrooms, and found nothing in them or in the hallway. When we entered the TV room, we started working a pattern. Ricky stopped near a lounge chair in front of the TV, and sniffed under it, then just sat there. This change of behaviour told me he’d found something. He lowered his head, like he was having a second look, then sat there again. I stayed directly behind him as I walked closer, not wanting to distract him. When I crouched down, I saw the mortar round.

  ‘Good boy, Ricky! Ya-hoo! Good boy.’ You exaggerate your praise for the dog, as you do to reinforce a child’s behaviour, when it’s done something right. Next, I tossed Ricky’s ball over his head, so it landed just in front of him, and he scrambled for it. We played with the ball for a while and Ricky was happy. It’s not so easy to have fun if your dog finds something for real, out on operations. In that case, you praise the dog at the site of the find, then turn and run, getting yourself and your dog away from whatever it is you’ve found, and have your enjoyment at a safe distance.

  Helmand Province, in the south-west of Afghanistan, is the badlands. It’s mostly desert and is a thoroughly inhospitable place. Helmand was where Andrew Russell, who I’d served with in the army engineers before he went to the SAS, had been killed by a land mine.

  There had been lots of fighting down there and I was on a mission that just touched inside the province. We’d left from the FOB at Deh Rawood and I was in the GMV, manning the 240, with Ricky at my feet. I was with one of two A-Teams on the patrol, and behind us were the Dutch guys in one of their cut-down Land Rover Wolf vehicles.

  You don’t get a lot of rain when you’re in Afghanistan, so when you do, you tend to remember it. It was now early morning and raining and, as there was no cover over the gun position, I was wet, and I was cold. The vehicle’s movement produced a wind-chill effect and it was hard to concentrate on anything other than how miserable it was in the back of that fucking truck.

  The first mortar explosion was spectacular. The round must have embedded itself deep in the soft ground because when it hit, it obviously kept going a fair way down, through the mud and slush, before it detonated. When it went off, it sent up a fountain of muck into the grey sky, about 50 metres from us.

  I was facing rear and could see two of the Dutch dudes laughing. I was laughing and pointing too, but saying to myself, that was too fucking close, man.

  There’s never been a time that I’ve felt absolute terror while on patrol. The mortars didn’t faze me too much and, to be honest, driving through the barrage was a bit of a buzz. However, they were zeroing in and getting closer and closer to us as we moved through. Later on, one of the ANA guys who was with us told me he reckoned the Taliban must have had Pakistani army guys working with them.

  ‘Yes,’ the Afghani guy said, ‘that fire was too accurate to be just Taliban. I am sure it was Pakistanis.’

  I didn’t really believe him, but the mortars were close, and in intelligence briefings you’d often hear claims that rogue officers from the Pakistani security service, in the Inter Service Intelligence Directorate, were backing al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Their links went way back, to the days when the Mujahideen were fighting the Russians and the Americans were backing them, with the help of the Pakistanis on the ground. Who knows, maybe Pakistanis had trained these guys.

  We couldn’t really see where the mortar fire was coming from, but guessed it was from the compounds that made up the village we could see in the distance. The guy in the turret of my vehicle was on a .50 cal and once he started firing, that was my cue to open up as well. I watched his fall of shot, where the big fat glowing tracer rounds were landing, flicked the safety and fired a burst in the same direction. Ricky was between my legs.

  I heard a short, sharp zapping noise, and looked down and saw that Ricky was looking up at me. His nose was flicking from side to side, like he was watching something going by. It took me a few seconds to realise that Ricky was actually watching or listening to bullets flying past us. There were now machine-gun rounds coming down-range towards us, from the Taliban positions in the compounds. I put my foot on Ricky’s lead to keep him down and crouched as much as I could inside the vehicle while still firing back. Even though the M240 position was up-armoured, the bullet-proof plate normally only came up to my chest. It was mad that the first indication I had had that we were being shot at was from Ricky, but at the same time I was grateful to my dog for the warning.

  I glanced up ahead, and saw that all the guys in the vehicles in front of us were taking off their baseball caps and hurriedly putting their Kevlar helmets on. That was another reliable sign that the shit was about to start flying.

  In the middle of all this shooting, I saw an Afghani guy running through the mud. He’d been with a flock of sheep that had scattered. There were women and children running too, away from the village into the distance.

  ‘There’s civilians, there’s civilians; watch out!’ someone was shouting from the radio. If you moved through a village and didn’t see any civilians, you started to worry, because that usually meant the Taliban were ready for a fight. It was the same thing if you saw all the women and children start running away from a village – sometimes they wouldn’t get advance warning from the Taliban of an ambush, so that things would look normal when we first approached.

  Ricky was whimpering a bit and I again stood on his leash to keep him safe and out of sight on the floor of the truck. ‘Quiet, boy,’ I said to him. Ricky had a habit of barking at Afghani civilians when we passed through a village, so I didn’t want him poking his head up now, in case he added to the confusion. Also, I didn’t want him getting in my way as I swung the 240.

  I looked back out over the open country and was momentarily mesmerised by the shepherd continuing t
o run. He was obviously not Taliban – just some poor bastard caught in the middle of a gunfight. I wiped the drizzle from my face and, over the smoking barrel of the 240, tracked his progress. As he ran, it was as though he started to unravel. A long shawl or scarf he wore was coming loose and trailing behind him like a streaming pennant in the cold wind. He stumbled and, for a terrible moment, I thought he’d been hit, but he kept on running as the shawl fluttered for a moment on its own and then dropped to the mud. The attack had taken him, and the women and children of the village, by surprise.

  There’s so much to think about during a TIC but everything happens so fast, so it’s not hard to see how mistakes get made. I was watching the fall of shot from the .50 in my vehicle; keeping an eye on the civilians; reassuring Ricky; and, at the same time, occasionally checking the vehicle where my mate Guy was sitting. He, too, was taking fire. In among all this, I still had to keep putting rounds down-range. There were mountains off to our right, where we’d been heading, and we started taking heavy machine-gun fire from there as well.

  The SF guys decided to clear the village before pushing up into the mountains. My truck and the rest of our team gave fire support while the other team moved up to sweep through on foot. One of the Americans injured his ankle when they were dismounting. These things happen, even if they don’t in the movies, and a solider with a broken bone is no less important, and no less of a liability, to the team than one who has been shot.

  We kept giving covering fire while the rest of the injured American’s team swept through the village. We could hear their shouts and the sound of gunfire as they moved from compound to compound, clearing them one after another. They called the sweep off once they realised the injured guy’s ankle was broken and he would have to be evacuated. We continued to give covering fire while the other team got back into their vehicles. Ricky wriggled at my feet, to stay out of the way of the shower of hot brass raining from the 240.