22nd December

The patrol went out in the early afternoon into M1P and pushed up into M1N, an area we have not ventured into as it is far north of Qudrat then we have ever been. I was in sanger 1 for this, a bit licked as I wanted to be out there if it was a new area that I’ve never been to, but shit luck. The boss took the patrol up to the mosque in M1N, and just like that, all of the locals just fucked off big time, (I know this as I’m listening on the radio), the patrol sat static for around 45 mins, which is way too long in my eye’s, this really is not the place for a meet and greet and to be sat around for that long. The boss was talking to the mullah in the mosque, trying to get some J2 I guess.

So after this the lad’s start patrolling back in and not 5 minutes into the patrol back they get hit, and hit hard. I could hear on the radio, well couldn’t really hear because it was about 4/5 different people shouting, but I could hear the rounds flying down range from all types of weapon systems and it sounded like they were far away, in fact they were so far away even the super sanger had no eyes on them, or any possible firing points. After the chaos of the initial contact, which I’m guessing we smashed them because it sounded like a hell of a lot of lead went one way, J.. Rtried calling in 3 Para mortars to smoke screen an open field to their north to cover the way back in, mortars offline, amazing! So 7 Hat were called into action, and the round’s dropped 450/500m short, cracking! Then they went offline as there was call sign Ugly in the air so not another chance of any smoke. Gets better!, the lad’s had to double across 300 m of open ground, and I know how that feels, then the rounds started coming whizzing in again. Again it was lucky nobody got hit, but the Ugly started firing back and that soon got terry’s head down rapid.

The lads were able to make it back okay after that run across no man’s land! Ugly stayed with the patrol as it was a good 1.5km north of Qudrat they went, as they approached the wadi in front of Qudrat, Ugly starting blatting rounds into M1T, fuck know why maybe just warning shots, no rounds were coming in from that direction so must have been a dicker or something. So besides being licked all was okay. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some round’s down tomorrow as we’re heading back there for this re supply op. I’ll check back in tomorrow and let you know.