24th October
Well well well, the last time I wrote in here was 4 days ago, I was going on stag, thinking, easy, quiet seems okay, how wrong was I? Went out on patrol this morning to clear a route east down the Neb (river Neptune), so a convoy of Mastiff’s and Jackal’s could get to another call sign down the road about 1.5k away. We set out in high spirits, already been on a couple of ‘hearts and minds’ patrols so this was getting to be the normal now. We were all scoffed and watered, good sleep in between stags, all the blokes were fully bombed up and fingers were hovering over everyone’s trigger in anticipation. We were patrolling down the road, eyes were looking everywhere, ears listening for that one sound. Looking around we were being dicked from at least 3 positions locals just watching us a bit too much.
I’m in clip, carrying big blue (ECM Blue), on top of the body amour, weapon, ammo, spare batteries and all the other kit I’m carrying over 100lbs easy. Sweating all over the place, the message come’s over my PRR ‘ keep a look out possible contact reported’. My ass is going now that’s the first time we’ve heard that and now it’s real. 400 meters away I spot a bloke in between two buildings, ‘Boss there’s another dicker 400 meters up the Neb’, ‘Yep seen Burt’ was the reply, then not even a kilometer further down the road ‘POP”POP”CRACK”CRACK’, ”CONTACT”. Rounds were whizzing everywhere around us, then a burst of fire comes from my rear, and sprays the ground to my right side, ‘FUCKING HELL B……’ I scream at him as his finger went a bit loose on the LMG and nearly slotted me in the back! Couldn’t believe it i had rounds coming at me from all fucking angles. W…….. did not look happy when he saw what had happened either I thought he was going to flying kick him in the grid. So I took a knee tried to PID (positively identify) where the fuck all these rounds were coming from so I could let rip back, I saw dust being kicked up from a wall to ‘POP”POP”THUMP’, two rounds and a UGL went back down range, all of this happening whilst we are out on the open on top of the river.
W……… crack’s a couple of smoke’s to create the screening, ‘GET TO THAT FUCKING COMPOUND NOW’, 150 meters away across open ground whilst being shot at, ‘YEAH FUCK IT’ I thought, anywhere better then here. I got up and sprinted till my eye’s bleed. Then I heard the sound that made me wake up, I was like a ‘FWEZZZZZZ!’ like the sound of a pissed off bee stuck in your ear, which meant a round came pretty close to me. I’m sprinting still and big blue that had me in clip not 5 minutes ago suddenly was as light as a feather, and I’m just thinking ‘please don’t blow up, please don’t blow up!’. Made it to the compound in one piece thank fuck, and it turned out to be the local shitter, fucking gopping, I ran over to the furthest eastern corner of the compound, took a knee, reloaded a UGL quick sip of water, got back up and started smashing rounds back down range. The ANP bloke known to us as Jackie Chan for obvious reasons, after about 15mins into the contact just sat on the floor, J…….. shouted over to him ‘FUCKING FIRE BACK’, to which the reply was ‘MY MAGAZINE……ALL GONE’, we looked at each other and just started cracking up, silly bastard had done his front line scales in 15mins just spraying whatever and wherever. This contact carried on for about 4 hours as we bounced further down the Neb clearing compounds and fighting the enemy. Our compound dog ‘Shitbag’ was with us the whole way through she’s a fucking nut case of a war junkie that dog, not even fazed by the firing or explosions, Waldo had the shot of the day though. Conrad and W…… were on top of a roof at one point trying to PID the enemy, to which W……. did after about 5mins of looking round the suspect area, about 300m away the blokes kept jumping out spraying and jumping back behind cover. This was the funniest thing I’ve seen so far, W…….. pulls out his LASAM, effect range 200m, and goes, ‘I’ll aim off a bit and blow this fucker up’, ‘BACK BLAST’ and to say he might of overcompensated would be a bit generous as the round probably went nearly a 500m past the bloke and landed……..somewhere! In the midst of all this we were all just cracking up laughing our heads off returning fire to the enemy, it was a surreal moment.
The Mastiff’s made it up level to our position so we expected a huge contact now as terry has beautiful 10 ton targets to shot at, so Lewis screams to the top cover ‘When they fire again fucking beast that 50’, the not 2 seconds later ‘POP”POP”CONTACT’, I started firing UGL’s again, the best my 4th and 5th rounds landed inside the compound terry was firing from. ‘FUCKING YES’ I shouted I was so happy to smash some good rounds in.
This day carried on for nearly 11 hours! We bugged out once the convoy past us and it got dark, we went up and over and down into the Neb, as it was dry for now, so it provided the best cover to get back unseen. When we did get back to Qudrat I collapsed that big blue is a bastard, so heavy. I was hungry and exhausted. During the boss’s debrief we found out we were contacted on 8 different occasions that day from a hell of a lot of different firing positions, we identified 20 on the map during the debrief, so this was not just a $10 Taliban, this was proper fighters using premeditated positions. We really are in someone else’s back garden here!
Anyway my first contact was weird, getting shot at did not bother me at all, people always say ‘your training kicks in’, and it’s so true it just does, no emotion no time to think, you just react and smash anything that’s in your sights.
