12th April 2012
Back in the DPRK
Perhaps it was the rousing music on Air Koryo, the National carrier of North Korea that set the mood for the flight into Pyongyang or the Cabin Attendant who seemed insistent that boarding and seating meant you must not stop, to put your bags in the overhead lockers. The music was basically at the proverbial Spinal Tap volume level 11. You were in doubt that the destination has lofty ideals.
The flight was ok, if they offer a frequent flyer programme I may be inclined to enroll, but the choice of destinations is somewhat limited to Beijing – Pyongyang.
The in-flight magazine is dedicated to the Kim Jong Il, in fact it has nothing but pictures of Kim Jong Il touring factories and military installations handing out advice. In every photo there are people with notebooks and pens recording advice from the dear (former) leader.
The old terminal is being torn down which is a shame as it is classic Eastern Block 70’s architecture and the new terminal has the warmth of a carpet warehouse on the outskirts of Slough in England. However the pictures of the great father and the great son (recently departed) hang in full glory over the customs line were the x-ray machines, again soviet circa 1980’s scan every bag.
It is a matter of fact that you hand your phones in at customs and they give you an official receipt, it’s that simple. Try living without a cell phone again, the good thing is you never have to worry about losing it or having it stolen. The only worry is are everyone in your contact numbers and email addresses are on a data bank in North Korea’s answer to the CIA.
The drive from the airport to the hotel should of taken about 30 minutes, as traffic jams are not considered a big problem as 99.5% of the population does not have a car, and gas/petrol stations do not exist.
So heading to the hotel and suddenly our bus stops behind a couple of other buses, the few cars that were around suddenly did U turns and went back from whence they came as fast as possible. The reason became evident for the next 25 minutes, as open top army truck after truck came from around the next corner, each with 40 soldiers sitting ramrod straight in the back. They were off to the main square no doubt with a Kim in the title to rehearse for Sunday’s big parade to mark the 100th birthday of the founding father of modern North Korea Kim Il Song. The hotel became that little further away.
Now having just completed a Hostile & Security Refresher Course the week before in England, I remembered the advice for requesting hotel rooms, never go above the 6th floor as that is the limit of a fire engine’s rescue ladder. Well for one having never seen a fire engine in Pyongyang, this seemed a moot idea, and since all the foreign press did not have say on what floor you would like for your personal convince and safety, we were assigned rooms on the 38th floor. It makes it easier for Security to monitor, as on my last trip here surprise, we were also on the 38th floor.
Day 2 Notes Friday 13th April Pyongyang – Missiles and Statues
Given the time zone difference between Pyongyang and New York, thirteen hours behind. You basically do not get much sleep, you shoot all day and start the live rotation for New York at 8pm in Pyongyang.
Having not eaten the night before, I thought breakfast might be a good idea and was heading to the elevators when another journalist explained” have you heard they have just launched the Missile”. The launch of which has had the world in an frenzy, the North Koreans have never successfully launched a ballistic missile in the past two attempts and whilst this one was meant to be carrying a weather station (that somehow resembled a dishwasher wrapped in tin foil), North Korea does have more than one nuclear weapon in its arsenal, and if this launch worked then the whole game of brinksmanship could be taken to the next level.
Grabbing the camera kit I headed down to the Press Center where hopefully a local official would be holding a Press Conference. After jumping the spokesman he reassured the assembled foreign media that a statement would be forthcoming in ten minutes as to the whether the launch had been successful or not. Meanwhile the news was coming out that in fact it had been a stunning failure with a flight that lasted less than two minutes and the rocket had broken up and was now on the seabed somewhere off South Korea.
Naturally in this age of tweet news flashes, it was reassuring that “Darth Vader” had tweeted something along the lines of “Earth People, do not worry, if you need it the Death Star is available to help you”.
Ten minutes turned into and hour and another and the assembled foreign media sat and waited. Breakfast passed and so did lunch, there is no concept of ordering food or coffee. Stale chips and coffee in a can is available if you dare to leave the Press Center, in case the long awaited statement was forthcoming.
Our official government minder, every team is assigned a minder. Naturally had no news or idea and was not even mentioning the missile incident. But we were told to be in the hotel lobby ready for a security check at 1:30pm. We would be told in all good time what we were going to.
Trying to handle the approx 200 members of the Press who had been invited into Pyongyang to report on the Missile Launch and 100th birthday celebrations is never going to be easy. In fact it is like trying to herd cats.
Luckily the American TV Networks were called to the front and marched down the hall.
All kit goes thru the x-ray machine that’s standard practice. Then the airport style security door and hand wand , but with your hands by the side “please” again standard. Then the Geigemeter is swept around you by another person in case you are carrying a thermo nuclear device in your pocket, unusual to say the least. Then off to the next guy who has a minesweeper device what he was testing for was no one could figure out. Then you are called back to the x-ray machine and every single item in your bag is examined piece by piece and we members of the 4th estate carry a lot a stuff. They were especially on the lookout for cigarettes and lighters, if you had them in your bag then your name was taken in what we termed the naughty book and the Senior Inspector recorded a black mark dutifully.
After the ten minutes it took Greg, Claire and I to get through we realized that this was going to be a long process, straight from security and onto the bus, and wait. And wait, fall asleep and wait. Two hours later the buses were packed with journalists and still we had no idea of where in the hell we were going.
A short bus ride later we were at the site of the famous Kim Song Il statue, which was covered in cloth and we could just make out a new and second statue also under wraps. It was of course the unveiling of Kim Il Jong’s statue next to his father.
The buses then took us a mile away and we exited, then it becomes the whole media zoo circus of trying to get the best position. We were herded by our minders and set off, walking became brisker and brisker, and after a few minutes the frenzy became a run. Now the minders are going bat shit crazy at this point. At one point we came to a roundabout on the path and it looked like a scene from the Tour De France where the peleton splits and half go one way around and the others the other way trying to gain advantage. Up a hill , back down through tress and bushes. From here to there and back and yet we still could not even see the statues.
After explaining that we actually needed to see the statues and not the crowd at the bottom of the hill (more on the crowd in a short while) we were taken to the top of the hill and that was as good as it was going to get. Naturally the cat herding was not going well. And what was all the fuss about security
The crowd, a modest 300,000. Yes half million people are around the area as far as the eye can see. Silently and respectful, dressed in there finest, tens of thousands carrying plastic flowers. And there is no one drinking or eating, not a scrap of rubbish. There are no toilets and ducking behind a tree carries a penalty not worth thinking about in this country.
The band strikes up and a roar deafens every sense in you as the new supreme leader Kim Jung Um appears A spec a few hundred meters away through a sea of waving flowers, clapping hands and triumphal music is blasted as he waves solemnly surrounded by old general with so many medals on their uniforms that it is wonder that they don’t fall over forwards with from the weight.
The new leader never speaks in public, or for the matter Kim Jong Il never spoke but to utter a few words once many years ago. Can you imagine a politician in the West not talking to half a million people. Instead a General steps up to the podium and commences a speech which does nothing but extol the glories of the Kim family and the nation. He somehow did not mention the failed missile test from earlier that morning.
The new leader Kim Jung Um who is only 28 years old, whom during the day had been given a few new titles with the word supreme in them walks over to the switch, naturally out of view of every member of the press and pulls the cord to unveil the new statue of Kim Jong Il next to his father.
At this point the crowd goes wild, fireworks burst in the late afternoon sky. Note to North Korean Officials – Fireworks 101 , they look better at night. The statues are actually very good , big is an understatement, towering is more apt and these will become an even greater shrine in years to come.
Now cat herding comes back in force and each and every team is rounded up to wait to go back to the buses at a much more leisurely pace. Back down the hill and along the path to the square where we are told the buses are now at.
Approaching a main intersection the tens of thousands people on our road start running like a debt collector team is chasing them . The reason becomes obvious as we finally see to our left the largest number I have ever seen coming towards the intersection from a bridge across the river we had no concept that the bulk of the crowd was in fact out of sight a mile or two away. And they were all walking home, there is no other way everyone walks no matter how far across the capital city.
It was an amazing sight as the cross paths met and wound through each other.
Mr. Hong our minder, asked if we would like to use the public toilet, what sane rational person would turn down this opportunity after being on the go for 5 hours. Lets just say that in this public toilet was a smell that will outlast religion. My eyes watered and I doubt that my sinuses will ever be blocked again, and that’s only doing a proverbial number 1, God forbid nature would of wanted me to be seated. I should add this point that it has taken three days to get toilet paper in my room in the hotel.
It had been a long day, failed missile launch to filming the new Kim and New York was only just waking up.
We were told to be in the hotel lobby at 7:30 for security. Did not get the chance to eat today.
Saturday April 14, 2012
Pyongyang, North Korea.
“Another Number 1 Event”
So security is called for 7:30am in the lobby. First up breakfast, it is time to eat no matter what. And whilst every buffet in Number 1 Restaurant was loaded with Kim chi, there was some fried eggs and toast, plus my first coffee in 36 hours, apart from coffee in a can cold.
Now we had figured out that this was another “Number 1” event and that all going well it was going to take two hours to get on the buses, option one is get through security early and get some sleep or two loiter politely to the last moment and minimize the bus time but sacrifice sleep time.
We opted for the later and after being searched for thermo nuclear devices again. The wheels on the bus went round and round back thru the streets of the capital. Going to a Number 1 event means that you are not allowed to film whilst you are driving and for a change its nice to be able to see the city and observe it, rather than through a one inch black and white viewfinder.
Its what you observe rather than what you see that is the key to trying to understand this country. You never see people with bags or groceries walking around, you never see obese people, and you see police and military everywhere. Shops if and when you see them are empty of customers, there are few restaurants and local fast food is glimpsed on rare occasions. There are no advertising billboards , only propaganda slogans here and there. By the train station is a park with a large jumbotron, which looks like it has films on it and of all things a penny arcade style shooting gallery on the corner. You look two blocks down side streets and see dilapidated apartment blocks. Not the better ones that line the main routes through the city. A whole new cityscape has been built in one part of the city yet seems unoccupied, the buildings shine out at night all light up, yet there are no lights in the actual apartments. It’s the story that you cannot see here that is the story, and the frustration is that you are not free to explore and tell the story.
At least the minders tell us today that yes it is a “Number 1 Event” and everyone on the bus agrees that there will be no running today, which is the irony as we pull up outside one of the sporting stadiums in the city.
Walking into a stadium is a gladiator moment and as we were ushered through, it was scene that took my breath away 50,000 plus soldiers and people were seated in every available seat perfectly. Not one gap in the stands or on the field. There is almost a quietness of politeness. Again not one sign of food or drink, nobody going to or fro from their seats.
And for once there is actually space for the media so we don’t have to try and kick the proverbial out of each other for no good reason. Down on the pitch, naturally best quality Vinalon artificial turf . We point the cameras to the podium and wait. Not one person in the crowd is talking, the only buzz comes when the doors are opened on the podium level. This Kim family has a large executive box.
The Generals arrive and file in, the band starts up and the crowd goes wild as the Kim Jung Um appears, the only problem is that no one can see him as the official state press are on podium level and totally block him, swing the camera around and the stands full of military are united as one in cheering and clapping. Just what sort of society can collectively enforce this is the story. Is it true admiration or just fear of not being seen to admire as a collective. They clap as one , they stop at precisely the same time, and no one claps early or late.
Eventually the state media move and we can see Kim Jung Um. He does not speak but listens as yet again the virtues of legacy and glory are expounded. Every few minutes, at the correct time the stadium erupts with cheers and deafening clapping. Kim Jung Um has this new hand signal of “please enough, but keep clapping” .
The speech ends, the crowd erupts but for what ?. The leadership goes back from where they come and the stadium empties. There is no story here, it is merely a dog and pony show in a sense. Nothing is proclaimed the leader does not speak, the rhetoric remains the same.
We are herded back onto the buses and back to the hotel. It was a show and only a show.
Tomorrow the main event the parade, a big Number 1 Event, must remember not to consume any radioactive food tonight, then again it’s to late and the restaurants are closed.
Sunday 15th April 2012
Bucket List Day
It really is one of the coolest events in the world to cover, and yet at the same time you actually do not see the event. A North Korean Military Parade is just one step away from total awesomeness.
We all have watched them at some stage, commented on the precision, the complete devotion of the adoring masses and of course the benign dictator waving from the stands.
The bottom line, like everything in North Korea is that it is a show, a demonstration of might and power. That has many facets, the first is that for North Koreans it clearly shows the power and might of their armed forces, secondly and it scares the Western World.
The sheer precision of the marching in complete goosestep, then when they get to the actual spot in front of the podium they kick into double time goosestep, in complete sync, just shocks your system. It is clinical in its precision and timing, and no one not one person in tens of thousands is ever out of step, men and women.
Naturally we, had been ordered to assemble by our minders at some silly o’clock because naturally no doubt one of us had assembled a thermo nuclear device and had ingested it overnight in our hotel room in a cunning international plot to ruin the 100th birthday celebrations of the regime.
This time, due to the complete and utter lack of “guidance” from our minders, who were not allowed to actually tell us that we were going to the parade, the media decided that of the 4 buses we were seated on waiting for two hours, that the bus number was a clue as to your position at the parade. So it all of a sudden became a game to play move to another bus, which we all did at least once. Only to realize that it made no difference as we all ran around and thru the shrubs on the front of the parade ground, which only added to the minders screaming at us. If they had simply explained what was going to happen then nothing would of happened to cause them angst, but quite a few small official shrubs were killed in the filming of the parade, due to lack of “guidance”.
Guidance is without doubt the best and most over used word by the regime in North Korea. Somehow the Kim – Song/Jong/Un dynasty somehow cannot go anywhere without giving guidance in a photo. The text under every photo of the leader – Great, Dear or Supreme, shows them in some factory or army base ‘giving guidance”. Kim Jong il even gave guidance on how best to eat cold noodles properly and what’s scary is that the word of the Kim is gospel. If they declare that only two meals a day is more than enough, then surely having only one is even better.
So for the media the trip became a game of seeking “guidance” from our minders.
Or to use a better line “What would Kim do”
So having kicked the living shit out of each other, we all realized that in fact there was enough space for everyone so why the professional tensions, for fucks sake a bit of guidance from the minders and there would have been no destruction of small shrubs in front of the parade ground.
The parade starts, and then honestly the biggest shock of the trip, is that Kim Jong Un steps up to the microphone and starts to give a speech. In the West we naturally expect our leaders to speak at every event they attend. In North Korea, Kim Jong Il only said about seven words in public ONCE and was never heard again. So for the new leaders to actually give a full speech was incredible, forget the goosestep pictures it was now all about the “kid”, and he addressed issues from atomic weapons to the famine. But above all the message was clear “military first”.
Then the parade kicks off in full glory, you hear every goosestep, every tank rumble under your feet, the sheer volume of adulation, as every soldier is screaming, as they approach, not one mistake, not one error. It was honestly watching military perfection.
Then to wrap it up, Kim Jong Un does this whole parade closer thing when the people, read hundred thousand plus who have been diligently waving plastic flowers over their heads for the past two hours, one in each hand. Laugh about it, but try doing it – two hours both arms up, just a flick of the wrist on the count of one / two. However you can have a piece of string connecting them around your neck, just in case you have to stop waving to hear some guidance. So Kim does the walk, fantastic pictures and the crowd is going wild and its all stage managed, middle aged men screaming as if they were teenage girls at a boy band. Of all the things in the world to try and film this is one of the easiest “ a mass adoration shot at a military parade in Pyongyang”.
The goose-stepping is visual but the missiles are the showstoppers that everyone wants to see, and after the failure two days before of the Missile Launch of the dishwasher wrapped in tin foil. The word was that a new missile was going to be shown for the first time in public. Which actually means “Western Powers” here’s what we got, be afraid and we have the bomb, in fact we have at least ten atomic bombs according to all reports. Success in the North Korean missile program is defined by when they can strike America.
Parade done, bucket list for me ticked. And once again thru the whole charade of security again, to film this time a fireworks show. Because the Supreme Leader was there we had to have security clearance even though he was 500 meters away and they blocked our view of him with a bus. What we did see though for the first time was that every single person at these events, hundred’s of thousands are indivually screened and checked as well. Documents checked, any Kim event is ticket only.
Filming fireworks is one of the most boring things in the world, after five minutes you honestly have everything you need and the bottom line was that it was all cheap loud bang fireworks. I finished filming and realized that after six hours of this event, not a single frame would make air and it didn’t.
Monday 16th April 2012
Have and Have Not’s
There is no doubt that the regime wants to showcase Pyongyang, and according to analysts it is working. The problem for the regime is that they are definitely creating a two-tiered nation. We cannot go outside Pyongyang freely, not that we can do it in the capital itself, you are always being ‘minded” Mr. Hong a nice guy but he is doing his job to put the message out. Turn the camera to something slightly dodgy and you are reminded.
But for the first time, we were actually allowed to go out, not in the vast press gaggle of 4 buses. But in our own people carrier alone, sounds silly but here this is a major step, we actually had the chance to film whatever we wanted (to a degree), the message clear and loud we want to show off Pyongyang. Look we have cell phones and taxis, never before have we been allowed to just film on the streets, of course with minders watching.
Up market restaurants, pizza and wine … of course you can film.
They want a message out, BUT only the capital, only the showcase.
Starvation, poverty and gulag work camps never an option. You cannot leave the capital, so you have to take what you can, but not drink the Kool Aid.
Of everything I filmed on this trip from parades to stadiums and fireworks, they meant nothing compared to one sequence just after lunch we walked over to the river and watched a group of about twenty people simply having a picnic.
Nothing planned or planted, just a group of friends having a bbq, telling stories and jokes, sharing a laugh, singing songs just simply having fun. It was ten minutes, of honest magic it was the chance to actually see and film people in a non orchestrated manner. And yes they did sing songs of praise to the Supreme Leader, that’s what people do in North Korea it’s a fact. But they simply sat around and laughed, offered Greg and I food and drink.
And you know what at the end of the trip, the closing sequence to Greg’s final prime time story was not the dog and pony shows of hundred’s of thousand’s, idolizing the regime.
It was the picnic and with reflection the most honest and genuine shots I have filmed in North Korea.
It was a one and half hour flight back to Beijing, and the 21st Century.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Another Bad Morning
FOB Joyce, Kunar Afghanistan – Combat Outpost Nevada
Ok, getting caught with your pants down whilst under attack is bad enough, what the hell could be worse than that.
Take this morning, after a sleepless night and a chopper to catch further into the mountains to a remote Combat Outpost on a mountaintop in a couple of hours.
This was a good chance to have a shower before a few days of basically living in the dirt and having to ablute without porcelain, (a polite way of having to shit in a bag then throw into a fire pit to burn slowly).
So enjoying the warm caress of hot water cascading down, and feet slipping in my flip-flops.
The gentle hiss of water was broken by the deafening scream of the siren.
Incoming Waa Waa, Incoming Waa Waa
Great, f…ing fantastic bad enough getting caught with your pants down the other day, now buck naked in flip-flops in the shower.
So stumble out wrap the micro fleece towel around and collect my stuff and try to get back to the shelter. Out the door and naturally in wet feet slipping one of the flip-flops breaks within two steps.
Back at the tent, into clothes and then the reality if nothing has gone bang in the last few minutes. What the hell, I am going to get dressed.
Two minutes later the all clear is broadcasted, and life on the base returns too normal.
Half an hour later with kit packed ready to go and up at the landing zone waiting for the chopper to the Combat Outpost. I had managed to get to the DFAC and grab a cup of coffee and taken it up to the chopper pad. Putting it down on the bench I turned to watch a heavy lift chopper with a sling come into to transport fuel drums.
The down draught then hits and my coffee is basically flying through the end and naturally lands on my body armor at the end of the bench. Great what else can go wrong?
Then again it only takes a simple sign on the back of the Portaloo door to restore the Zen of the day, as they say.
I write this from the top of a mountain at the edge of the Pech Valley in Afghanistan, perhaps one of the most remote and dangerous places in this war zone. Food is no longer at a DFAC three times a day across the base, but is delivered in the morning on the back of a donkey.
Home for the next two days is in a pit depression on the mountain, with twelve soldiers and a lot of mountains around us.
Ok, getting caught with your pants down whilst under attack is bad enough, what the hell could be worse than that.
Take this morning, after a sleepless night and a chopper to catch further into the mountains to a remote Combat Outpost on a mountaintop in a couple of hours.
This was a good chance to have a shower before a few days of basically living in the dirt and having to ablute without porcelain, (a polite way of having to shit in a bag then throw into a fire pit to burn slowly).
So enjoying the warm caress of hot water cascading down, and feet slipping in my flip-flops.
The gentle hiss of water was broken by the deafening scream of the siren.
Incoming Waa Waa, Incoming Waa Waa
Great, f…ing fantastic bad enough getting caught with your pants down the other day, now buck naked in flip-flops in the shower.
So stumble out wrap the micro fleece towel around and collect my stuff and try to get back to the shelter. Out the door and naturally in wet feet slipping one of the flip-flops breaks within two steps.
Back at the tent, into clothes and then the reality if nothing has gone bang in the last few minutes. What the hell, I am going to get dressed.
Two minutes later the all clear is broadcasted, and life on the base returns too normal.
Half an hour later with kit packed ready to go and up at the landing zone waiting for the chopper to the Combat Outpost. I had managed to get to the DFAC and grab a cup of coffee and taken it up to the chopper pad. Putting it down on the bench I turned to watch a heavy lift chopper with a sling come into to transport fuel drums.
The down draught then hits and my coffee is basically flying through the end and naturally lands on my body armor at the end of the bench. Great what else can go wrong?
Then again it only takes a simple sign on the back of the Portaloo door to restore the Zen of the day, as they say.
I write this from the top of a mountain at the edge of the Pech Valley in Afghanistan, perhaps one of the most remote and dangerous places in this war zone. Food is no longer at a DFAC three times a day across the base, but is delivered in the morning on the back of a donkey.
Home for the next two days is in a pit depression on the mountain, with twelve soldiers and a lot of mountains around us.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Caught with my Pants Down
November 20, 2011
FOB Joyce
Kunar
Afghanistan
There is the expression getting caught with your pants down. Normally associated with acts that have absolutely nothing to me this morning.
Having woken at a normal time around 7am, not that you know inside the tent with partitioned into small rooms with plywood walls (think Ikea natural pine) and a stretcher for a bed, thou some interior designer has come in and added some ambience by putting some nails in the wall studs so you can hang stuff up, a minimalist wardrobe approach is the best way to describe the nails.
With the sun shining in the valley as I walked back from the Conex (Container) Box that serves as the Latrine, rather than the Portaloo on the corner. It was time for a shower also in a Conex Box next to the Latrine, every two to three days it is nice to wash and change clothes. Not mandatory by any stretch of the imagination. But given the sun was out and the golden rays shined across the valley on the mountains, it felt that why put off today what I have put off the last three days.
Having flip-flopped my way over thru the rocks and dirt, I enjoyed the hot water cascading over me and dried off. I flip flopped my way back into my suite in Tent 13 and looked at the clean clothing on my stretcher. I had decided on a khaki look for the day around the Forward Operating Base to blend in and not clash with the camouflage of the Army uniforms.
And just as I was reaching down to pull up my pants …..
“BOOM, BOOM, ratta tat tat, ratta tat tat”…. Gunfire and explosions erupt in the valley
“INCOMING Waa Waa Waa INCOMING Waa Waa Waa”
The base is under fire and the warning siren is set to Volume 12 on the Spinal Tap scale of amplification.
So with my pants around my ankles, decisions have to be taken. Do you kick them off and run for the bunker or pull them up and run the risk of being unlucky.
“Waa Waa Waa” the sirens continue
I honestly thought that at one stage, the Robot’s voice was going to come over and come out with the classic “Warning Will Robinson Danger, Danger”.
Pants up, grabbed the camera and out the door, behind the concrete barrier, film for a few minutes. Then in a lull head for the nearest bunker to find Conor in his shorts straight out of bed. But suitably attired in his flak jacket and Kevlar helmet.
With sleep in his eyes we filmed a quick piece to camera describing but was happening.
Gunfire and mortar booms gradually ceased.
The robot came back on and proclaimed “All clear, return to your duties”.
All this before a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning or as someone pointed out it is in fact the equivalent of a Taliban Monday. As someone wisely pointed out always avoid the DFAC (Dining Facility) for the first hour of daylight as the bad boys constantly try to target it early in the morning thinking it will be full of hungry souls.
I will sleep in tomorrow an extra hour to allow for this new found wisdom, and also have my pants ready just in case.
FOB Joyce
Kunar
Afghanistan
There is the expression getting caught with your pants down. Normally associated with acts that have absolutely nothing to me this morning.
Having woken at a normal time around 7am, not that you know inside the tent with partitioned into small rooms with plywood walls (think Ikea natural pine) and a stretcher for a bed, thou some interior designer has come in and added some ambience by putting some nails in the wall studs so you can hang stuff up, a minimalist wardrobe approach is the best way to describe the nails.
With the sun shining in the valley as I walked back from the Conex (Container) Box that serves as the Latrine, rather than the Portaloo on the corner. It was time for a shower also in a Conex Box next to the Latrine, every two to three days it is nice to wash and change clothes. Not mandatory by any stretch of the imagination. But given the sun was out and the golden rays shined across the valley on the mountains, it felt that why put off today what I have put off the last three days.
Having flip-flopped my way over thru the rocks and dirt, I enjoyed the hot water cascading over me and dried off. I flip flopped my way back into my suite in Tent 13 and looked at the clean clothing on my stretcher. I had decided on a khaki look for the day around the Forward Operating Base to blend in and not clash with the camouflage of the Army uniforms.
And just as I was reaching down to pull up my pants …..
“BOOM, BOOM, ratta tat tat, ratta tat tat”…. Gunfire and explosions erupt in the valley
“INCOMING Waa Waa Waa INCOMING Waa Waa Waa”
The base is under fire and the warning siren is set to Volume 12 on the Spinal Tap scale of amplification.
So with my pants around my ankles, decisions have to be taken. Do you kick them off and run for the bunker or pull them up and run the risk of being unlucky.
“Waa Waa Waa” the sirens continue
I honestly thought that at one stage, the Robot’s voice was going to come over and come out with the classic “Warning Will Robinson Danger, Danger”.
Pants up, grabbed the camera and out the door, behind the concrete barrier, film for a few minutes. Then in a lull head for the nearest bunker to find Conor in his shorts straight out of bed. But suitably attired in his flak jacket and Kevlar helmet.
With sleep in his eyes we filmed a quick piece to camera describing but was happening.
Gunfire and mortar booms gradually ceased.
The robot came back on and proclaimed “All clear, return to your duties”.
All this before a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning or as someone pointed out it is in fact the equivalent of a Taliban Monday. As someone wisely pointed out always avoid the DFAC (Dining Facility) for the first hour of daylight as the bad boys constantly try to target it early in the morning thinking it will be full of hungry souls.
I will sleep in tomorrow an extra hour to allow for this new found wisdom, and also have my pants ready just in case.
Friday, November 18, 2011
84 Hours
1:50 am Friday November 18th 2011
Bagram Air Base
Afghanistan
You just wait, and when you are tired of waiting you wait some more. The misconception of arriving in Afghanistan is that from the moment you arrive you are under gunfire from Taliban or Insurgents can be misleading to say the least.
We arrived at the base here Tuesday afternoon and had high hopes of catching a flight to the East later that night only to have all hopes dashed as the Air Force just cancelled that flight, remember that they do not have to give a reason they can just cancel. And the wait begins in the aptly named Hotel California that is the media holding rooms on Disney Road the main road in the base.
Now the word, Hotel is somewhat of a misnomer. In fact a wooden shack divided by ply wood into four rooms, three bunks in each room, a mattress and a pillow, no sheets or pillow cases so God only knows what creatures are from head lice to bed bugs are free to breed. Though I do add we had Room 1, which is considered the suite, as it is few square feet larger, and the luxury of a metal folding chair. Each room has a small fridge with a few bottles of water, I should add though that according to the energy consumption labels still on the door indicated that energy efficient rating was about as bad as you could possibly seek out.
There are no windows in any buildings as glass and bombs are not a good combination in the case of a rocket attack. So you have no concept of day or night. The heating and air conditioning is pumped into the building via by what sounded like a pre cold war jet engine. The tranquility of the environment is rocked every ten to fifteen minutes by this rush of noise more than heat or cold air.
The routine of waiting to hear that the next flight has been cancelled or that there are no flights to where we want to go, usually means being woken up by a knock at the door at 11pm, 1am or 6am. Flight schedules for daily flights are posted at different times and only 24 hours in advance. So if there is no flight you know that the wait to try again is 24 hours away.
There are no stories to be done at the base here as after ten years of war every story has been done at least five times and no one has any interest in day-to-day operations, because in a word nothing has changed, so you wait.
Breakfast in the DFAC (Dinning Facility) is followed by Lunch at the DFAC, wait and then dinner at the DFAC. The walk from Hotel California to the DFAC is about 8 minutes down Disney Road. More anything it kills time. The food is good, but obviously the big issue at the base here is obesity, as you enter the DFAC there are signs trying to explain portion size, which to some members of the Armed Forces and Contractors needs to be enforced. An extra large serving of fried onion rings is not considered 2 of your 5 daily requirements.
Of course there is option of Pizza Hut, but to the consternation of many on the base is not open for breakfast. Popeye’s another fast food chain is closed but reopening soon.
The other popular time wasting pastime, shopping. And the PX store is the same as it was 5 years plus again, from chewing tobacco to knives. Then just down the road is the local Afghan equivalent to the PX store, where every known dodgy DVD is available for $3 along with more aftershave and perfume than a duty free store at an airport. But the best sign in the bazaar is a note posted everywhere from the Base Commander stating that claiming something is fake is not a reason for demanding a refund.
The most disliked people on the Base seem to be the MP’s (Military Police) these people are more diligent than a traffic warden in London. Caught not wearing a seat belt, even in the back seat and your car is compounded for ten days and you must do a self criticism and how you will change your ways. Maximum speed 5 mph is enforced, no wonder service personnel have trouble adjusting to the real world after a tour of duty, spend a year driving the same roads at 5 mph. I suspect that a private wheel-clamping contractor is not that far away.
Finally after 84 hours we boarded our flight to Jalalabad, as they say a mere elevator ride less than 25 minutes in the air. The irony is that we could of driven from Kabul to Jalalabad in just over two hours. And saved 82 hours, nothing moves easy, in which you are part of a 32,000-person jigsaw that is the US Military.
Bagram Air Base
Afghanistan
You just wait, and when you are tired of waiting you wait some more. The misconception of arriving in Afghanistan is that from the moment you arrive you are under gunfire from Taliban or Insurgents can be misleading to say the least.
We arrived at the base here Tuesday afternoon and had high hopes of catching a flight to the East later that night only to have all hopes dashed as the Air Force just cancelled that flight, remember that they do not have to give a reason they can just cancel. And the wait begins in the aptly named Hotel California that is the media holding rooms on Disney Road the main road in the base.
Now the word, Hotel is somewhat of a misnomer. In fact a wooden shack divided by ply wood into four rooms, three bunks in each room, a mattress and a pillow, no sheets or pillow cases so God only knows what creatures are from head lice to bed bugs are free to breed. Though I do add we had Room 1, which is considered the suite, as it is few square feet larger, and the luxury of a metal folding chair. Each room has a small fridge with a few bottles of water, I should add though that according to the energy consumption labels still on the door indicated that energy efficient rating was about as bad as you could possibly seek out.
There are no windows in any buildings as glass and bombs are not a good combination in the case of a rocket attack. So you have no concept of day or night. The heating and air conditioning is pumped into the building via by what sounded like a pre cold war jet engine. The tranquility of the environment is rocked every ten to fifteen minutes by this rush of noise more than heat or cold air.
The routine of waiting to hear that the next flight has been cancelled or that there are no flights to where we want to go, usually means being woken up by a knock at the door at 11pm, 1am or 6am. Flight schedules for daily flights are posted at different times and only 24 hours in advance. So if there is no flight you know that the wait to try again is 24 hours away.
There are no stories to be done at the base here as after ten years of war every story has been done at least five times and no one has any interest in day-to-day operations, because in a word nothing has changed, so you wait.
Breakfast in the DFAC (Dinning Facility) is followed by Lunch at the DFAC, wait and then dinner at the DFAC. The walk from Hotel California to the DFAC is about 8 minutes down Disney Road. More anything it kills time. The food is good, but obviously the big issue at the base here is obesity, as you enter the DFAC there are signs trying to explain portion size, which to some members of the Armed Forces and Contractors needs to be enforced. An extra large serving of fried onion rings is not considered 2 of your 5 daily requirements.
Of course there is option of Pizza Hut, but to the consternation of many on the base is not open for breakfast. Popeye’s another fast food chain is closed but reopening soon.
The other popular time wasting pastime, shopping. And the PX store is the same as it was 5 years plus again, from chewing tobacco to knives. Then just down the road is the local Afghan equivalent to the PX store, where every known dodgy DVD is available for $3 along with more aftershave and perfume than a duty free store at an airport. But the best sign in the bazaar is a note posted everywhere from the Base Commander stating that claiming something is fake is not a reason for demanding a refund.
The most disliked people on the Base seem to be the MP’s (Military Police) these people are more diligent than a traffic warden in London. Caught not wearing a seat belt, even in the back seat and your car is compounded for ten days and you must do a self criticism and how you will change your ways. Maximum speed 5 mph is enforced, no wonder service personnel have trouble adjusting to the real world after a tour of duty, spend a year driving the same roads at 5 mph. I suspect that a private wheel-clamping contractor is not that far away.
Finally after 84 hours we boarded our flight to Jalalabad, as they say a mere elevator ride less than 25 minutes in the air. The irony is that we could of driven from Kabul to Jalalabad in just over two hours. And saved 82 hours, nothing moves easy, in which you are part of a 32,000-person jigsaw that is the US Military.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Pizza Deliveryman
Your normal pizza deliveryman does not check his AK47 before he starts a delivery and makes sure it is cocked and the safety is off. The again Ahmad is getting ready to make a delivery to the rebel soldiers on the frontline.
The Pizza factory in an abandoned building is less than 3km from the front, we cannot show the exterior of the building for security reasons as they do not want Gaddafi’s army to recognize the area and shell them out of business as they say.
Filming pizza making is not normally a dangerous assignment, but here I was in a flak jacket shooting a truly bizarre scene, 20 young men all volunteers under the watchful eye of a pizza chef of Libyan descent who until a few weeks ago was living and making pizza in Sweden.
The call of the revolution had bought him back to his hometown of Misrata, Ehmad Daiki had never fired a gun or any type of weapon and when asked by leaders what he could do, he replied I can make pizza.
And thus for the last two weeks, with his team he has been turning out 6000 slices of pizza a day for fighters. A production line chops olives, breaks up fresh garlic by banging it in a plastic bottle, crushes fresh tomatoes, knead and roll out dough. People and shopkeepers in Misrata as part of their war effort donate each and every ingredient.
Every time a rocket is launched in the area or even worse an incoming rocket lands in an adjacent field the whole production line celebrates by yelling
“Allah Akhbar”
Three ovens run non stop thru the late morning and lunch, each tray is cut up and five to six slices of fresh hot pizza are wrapped in tin foil to keep warm and within half an hour they are delivered up the road.
My producer and security advisor, refused to let me go up to the front for the delivery footage. Despite my annoyance of not being able to go up and film the final scenes.
The reason being
“Mal, How in the hell am I going to explain to New York, that you got injured or killed for a story on pizza, no you cannot go”
Even I had to agree after a short sulk, risk and reward as they say. No story or single shot is worth risking your life for, and a pizza story is not how I want to be remembered.
We gave a small camera to the delivery guy with the AK47.
Mal
Misrata, Libya
The Victim's
Misrata, Libya.
Viewer Discretion advised
“We wish to advise that some images in this story…………….”
If the image is shocking to watch on a TV News bulletin, image being in the hospital room and having to physically experience the pain, suffering and anguish of the victim.
9-year-old Faraz Abu Shaba is staring at the lens and his face fills the frame, it is a haunting image of a young boy suffering 2nd degree burns; every feature is burnt and discolored. Every few seconds his expression changes and is contorted with pain. His head is listless and his eyes are elsewhere.
You have to distance yourself and somehow the lens becomes a shield that helps break the reality of where you find yourself.
His father lay in a bed next to him, eyes in a catatonic stare to nowhere. And again I filled the frame so that only his eyes gave the window to his soul and despair.
It is the first hospital we are to visit on this day.
Farazs’ older brother Ibrahim is dead, cut in half by ball bearings that had been packed in a grad rocket and fired into Misrata from Gadaffi’s forces outside the city. He had been standing at the sink outside the kitchen of his modest house in the Eastern section of the city, when the rocket landed less than 10 meters away. A steel propane tank in the yard is full of holes, from the ball bearings; Ibrahim did not stand a chance as he washed to get ready for evening prayers.
Relatives show us a passport photo of Ibrahim as a 9 year old; he looked almost angelic in that photo.
Shrapnel razor sharp is gathered and displayed on the base of what remains a wall, so that everyone who visits can examine the evidence of another war atrocity.
From the roof of our hotel in the centre of the city, we can hear and see these rockets coming in. You become accustomed to the sound of war in a weird and disjointed way. In Misrata there is no escape, you cannot simply drive away and escape, surrounded on three sides by Gadaffi troops, and the sea on the fourth side. It was one of these rockets that had hit the Shaba family home. A distant boom and smoke cloud as dusk fell the night before.
Across town in the second hospital, as I walked into the ward room it was the sound of Faraz and Ibrahim’s youngest brother that drew my attention, 2 days old and lying in his grandmother’s arms and making new born squeals and lifting his arms and legs.
On the other side of the room his mother lay, burnt head to toe and wrapped in bandages, only her face and toes exposed charred and raw. She had probably been standing in the kitchen when the rocket hit and a fireball engulfed her after killing Ibrahim a second beforehand. I remember standing in her kitchen only an hour ago, everything black, mangled metal plates half melted and a pool of aluminum on the floor that had melted in the firestorm.
She cannot open her eyes due to the burns and swelling.
In a whisper barely audible thru cracked and burnt lips, she says
“God will take care of the people responsible”
It is hard not to want to show the close up because, the impact of the horrors of war are not some computer game whereby if you die you get another life, when you are hit the impact is forever and all that matters in life is shattered.
I walk out and back to the car, it has been a tough morning and more rockets fall that afternoon, from the roof I wonder if another families life has been destroyed.
I send the edited story back to Washington, and at the end I include extra video of wide shots of the hospital rooms in case the close-ups are too graphic they can decide, for at the frontlines of a war zone, you find yourself with a different acceptance of what war is really like. Close ups of faces and eyes show the doorway to the soul and without seeing into the soul you cannot feel the pain of innocent victims.
Mal
Misrata
Viewer Discretion advised
“We wish to advise that some images in this story…………….”
If the image is shocking to watch on a TV News bulletin, image being in the hospital room and having to physically experience the pain, suffering and anguish of the victim.
9-year-old Faraz Abu Shaba is staring at the lens and his face fills the frame, it is a haunting image of a young boy suffering 2nd degree burns; every feature is burnt and discolored. Every few seconds his expression changes and is contorted with pain. His head is listless and his eyes are elsewhere.
You have to distance yourself and somehow the lens becomes a shield that helps break the reality of where you find yourself.
His father lay in a bed next to him, eyes in a catatonic stare to nowhere. And again I filled the frame so that only his eyes gave the window to his soul and despair.
It is the first hospital we are to visit on this day.
Farazs’ older brother Ibrahim is dead, cut in half by ball bearings that had been packed in a grad rocket and fired into Misrata from Gadaffi’s forces outside the city. He had been standing at the sink outside the kitchen of his modest house in the Eastern section of the city, when the rocket landed less than 10 meters away. A steel propane tank in the yard is full of holes, from the ball bearings; Ibrahim did not stand a chance as he washed to get ready for evening prayers.
Relatives show us a passport photo of Ibrahim as a 9 year old; he looked almost angelic in that photo.
Shrapnel razor sharp is gathered and displayed on the base of what remains a wall, so that everyone who visits can examine the evidence of another war atrocity.
From the roof of our hotel in the centre of the city, we can hear and see these rockets coming in. You become accustomed to the sound of war in a weird and disjointed way. In Misrata there is no escape, you cannot simply drive away and escape, surrounded on three sides by Gadaffi troops, and the sea on the fourth side. It was one of these rockets that had hit the Shaba family home. A distant boom and smoke cloud as dusk fell the night before.
Across town in the second hospital, as I walked into the ward room it was the sound of Faraz and Ibrahim’s youngest brother that drew my attention, 2 days old and lying in his grandmother’s arms and making new born squeals and lifting his arms and legs.
On the other side of the room his mother lay, burnt head to toe and wrapped in bandages, only her face and toes exposed charred and raw. She had probably been standing in the kitchen when the rocket hit and a fireball engulfed her after killing Ibrahim a second beforehand. I remember standing in her kitchen only an hour ago, everything black, mangled metal plates half melted and a pool of aluminum on the floor that had melted in the firestorm.
She cannot open her eyes due to the burns and swelling.
In a whisper barely audible thru cracked and burnt lips, she says
“God will take care of the people responsible”
It is hard not to want to show the close up because, the impact of the horrors of war are not some computer game whereby if you die you get another life, when you are hit the impact is forever and all that matters in life is shattered.
I walk out and back to the car, it has been a tough morning and more rockets fall that afternoon, from the roof I wonder if another families life has been destroyed.
I send the edited story back to Washington, and at the end I include extra video of wide shots of the hospital rooms in case the close-ups are too graphic they can decide, for at the frontlines of a war zone, you find yourself with a different acceptance of what war is really like. Close ups of faces and eyes show the doorway to the soul and without seeing into the soul you cannot feel the pain of innocent victims.
Mal
Misrata
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
The Field Hospital
June 21st 2011
Misrata Libya
You can get used to things in life, but the constant drone from the Mosque next door is starting to wear thin. From mid morning to night it plays a constant loop of call to prayer, repeated every 60 seconds, the same again and again and again.
Then again there are the Grad Rockets fired by the Gadaffi forces who are surrounding this city, from the roof of the hotel you can see them impact some a few km’s away towards the port and steel mill appear as plumes of smoke, whilst with closer ones you feel the impact and the smoke is much closer. As I was writing that sentence another landed close by, heard and felt the thump.
The attacks on the city itself are sporadic and come at anytime. Go to the frontlines outside the city and it is a constant barrage, both incoming and outgoing. At a field hospital 5km (3miles) from the frontline separating the Loyalists and the Rebels yesterday, a grad came in low and fast, hearing the incoming it’s a matter of dropping and preying because it is close, very close.
The field hospital is a converted tractor repair workshop. The doctor in charge, Mohammed Al Bayra is in his mid twenties and before the revolution worked in Oncology, asked how many rebels he has seen come arrive by ambulance or on the back floor of cars and pick ups, injured or dead. His response “Thousands”.
Frontlines are not “Lines in the Sand”, what was a safe distance can be become a disaster zone in the matter of minutes. The first indicator is normally the rebels fleeing back down the road in the back of trucks, faster than rats up a drainpipe. This is always a good cue for us to likewise consider a tactical relocation just in case, not to mention the Grad Rocket that came way to close for comfort.
An hour later we are back at the field hospital, and 6 ambulances and pickups arrive within ten minutes carrying more wounded back, Wounds to the arms, legs, chest and stomach evident as they are wheeled into the makeshift frontline hospital. They are patched up by the young doctor and his team of students and sent back into Misrata half an hour back down the road.
We leave too, there are only so many injured you need to film for a story and the scene will not change in the coming hours or days.
Back in Misrata. NATO jets are heard thousands of feet up in the sky, but even their noise does not drown out the mosque next door, the call continues and likewise the rockets will continue to fall around us, for the foreseeable future.
Misrata Libya
You can get used to things in life, but the constant drone from the Mosque next door is starting to wear thin. From mid morning to night it plays a constant loop of call to prayer, repeated every 60 seconds, the same again and again and again.
Then again there are the Grad Rockets fired by the Gadaffi forces who are surrounding this city, from the roof of the hotel you can see them impact some a few km’s away towards the port and steel mill appear as plumes of smoke, whilst with closer ones you feel the impact and the smoke is much closer. As I was writing that sentence another landed close by, heard and felt the thump.
The attacks on the city itself are sporadic and come at anytime. Go to the frontlines outside the city and it is a constant barrage, both incoming and outgoing. At a field hospital 5km (3miles) from the frontline separating the Loyalists and the Rebels yesterday, a grad came in low and fast, hearing the incoming it’s a matter of dropping and preying because it is close, very close.
The field hospital is a converted tractor repair workshop. The doctor in charge, Mohammed Al Bayra is in his mid twenties and before the revolution worked in Oncology, asked how many rebels he has seen come arrive by ambulance or on the back floor of cars and pick ups, injured or dead. His response “Thousands”.
Frontlines are not “Lines in the Sand”, what was a safe distance can be become a disaster zone in the matter of minutes. The first indicator is normally the rebels fleeing back down the road in the back of trucks, faster than rats up a drainpipe. This is always a good cue for us to likewise consider a tactical relocation just in case, not to mention the Grad Rocket that came way to close for comfort.
An hour later we are back at the field hospital, and 6 ambulances and pickups arrive within ten minutes carrying more wounded back, Wounds to the arms, legs, chest and stomach evident as they are wheeled into the makeshift frontline hospital. They are patched up by the young doctor and his team of students and sent back into Misrata half an hour back down the road.
We leave too, there are only so many injured you need to film for a story and the scene will not change in the coming hours or days.
Back in Misrata. NATO jets are heard thousands of feet up in the sky, but even their noise does not drown out the mosque next door, the call continues and likewise the rockets will continue to fall around us, for the foreseeable future.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
The Crossing
Libya June 17th 2011
Benghazi as a story has been stagnant for while now, just as the frontline has varied little since the last time I was here at the start of the Civil War. However on the western coast is the third largest city in Libya, Misrata after Tripoli the capital held by Gaddafi loyalists, and Benghazi held by the rebels.
It has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting and clashes, rebels despartely trying to hang on whilst being pounded by Gadaffi loyalists from three sides. The only side left to them is the sea. The port has become the lifeline for the people and rebels. And the only way into Misrata is by sea, a twenty hour crossing from Benghazi.
9:30pm Thursday 16th June Benghazi Port.
There is a scene of complete chaos and confusion as 700 people congregate in darkness the stern. As families, the injured and rebel reinforcements try to board the C/F Azzurra, a Turkish gambling ship. Shouts of Allah Akbar ring in the air as the mob pushed against barrier in the humid. People waving tickets in the air and screaming at the top of their voices illicit blank responses, from the men on the stern ramp. The only way onto the ship.
Finally the last truck is loaded with what looks like ammunition, we are told its food but I have my doubts. And the crowd surges, all trying not to fall off the edge of the ramp into the harbor waters.
And in the midst of this scene I have the camera out trying to film at the same time as get on the ship. Rick’s line as the crowd momentum finally pushes us thru is “That was insane”.
We had managed to get two small cabins, rather than sleep on the deck but until you have the door opened to your cabin nothing is assured and somehow we had left the vital cabin receipt down in the car deck at the bottom of the 4x4 Land cruiser we have bought with us.
“No paper, no cabin opened”
Was the response from the ship member who we quickly christened Side Show Bob from The Simpson’s, due to his hair.
Martin disappeared down to the bowels and ten minutes later came back brandishing the prize receipt as if it was a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. And cabin doors were opened.
Perhaps saying the place smelt of shit was a bit harsh, and that the sheets pillow and blanket looked they had been rearranged rather than changed. But it is far batter than sleeping on the deck.
Enquiries about when we would depart and met with a shrug and the standard “Inshallah” response. A round of heavy tracer fire lights the sky over Benghazi before I head back to the cabin.
Lying in the dark, I thought to myself this has to be one of the craziest ways to a frontline. Once there, you simply cannot leave when you want. Because the ship is the only way and if they stop running then we will be trapped like every other citizen of Misrata. And we have only bought a one-way ticket.
2:30am, Benghazi. Thru the haze of half sleep I feel the Azzurra slip the berth and head out of harbor. Rolling over, I feel my stomach start to cramp and spasm.
“What a great time to start getting the shit’s”
11:00am “Some where in the Gulf of Sirte, Med Sea”
Shoes lie in piles, men sleep on the floor, under tables, and children run around, as children do on an adventure. Babies cry behind doors and young men watch home made videos of battles against Gadaffi forces on their cell phones. Dreaming of glory and ignorant of the reality of recent rebel losses.
5:30pm “Still some where in the Gulf of Sirte, Med Sea”
Closer but no cigar as they say, the trip is a slow 240 miles, just off the coastline of Libya. Story done, edited all but final piece to camera. Another black coffee and stare out to sea. We are due to dock at 9:39pm, according to the crew; given the state of the ship I have my doubts to the accuracy of their chronometers.
Lying on my bunk, writing this and at the same time realizing that in four hours. I will be in a war zone under potential rocket fire. The handover at the border seems a long time ago.
9:30pm Could be anywhere, pitch black outside but still at sea
You get to a point where you have no bearings or clues as to where you are, ship messages are only in Arabic and feeling the ship slow it is obvious that we are close. Managed to set up the bgan and transmit tonight’s story back to New York whilst still traveling, incredible to consider that in the middle of the med sea you can still transmit.
Strange but have no nerves at the moment, a sense of calm before the storm. Not based on any rationale. Could do with a shower though at least the runs have stopped for the time being.
Postscript
Misrata 9:39 pm we arrive to the minute as planned, fuck me stranger things have happened in this world. Shouts of Allah Akbar echo around the decks.
Turning to Ken, our security guy,
“Game on”
“To fucking right”
We enter Misrata, one-way ticket, our only escape back via sea.
Benghazi as a story has been stagnant for while now, just as the frontline has varied little since the last time I was here at the start of the Civil War. However on the western coast is the third largest city in Libya, Misrata after Tripoli the capital held by Gaddafi loyalists, and Benghazi held by the rebels.
It has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting and clashes, rebels despartely trying to hang on whilst being pounded by Gadaffi loyalists from three sides. The only side left to them is the sea. The port has become the lifeline for the people and rebels. And the only way into Misrata is by sea, a twenty hour crossing from Benghazi.
9:30pm Thursday 16th June Benghazi Port.
There is a scene of complete chaos and confusion as 700 people congregate in darkness the stern. As families, the injured and rebel reinforcements try to board the C/F Azzurra, a Turkish gambling ship. Shouts of Allah Akbar ring in the air as the mob pushed against barrier in the humid. People waving tickets in the air and screaming at the top of their voices illicit blank responses, from the men on the stern ramp. The only way onto the ship.
Finally the last truck is loaded with what looks like ammunition, we are told its food but I have my doubts. And the crowd surges, all trying not to fall off the edge of the ramp into the harbor waters.
And in the midst of this scene I have the camera out trying to film at the same time as get on the ship. Rick’s line as the crowd momentum finally pushes us thru is “That was insane”.
We had managed to get two small cabins, rather than sleep on the deck but until you have the door opened to your cabin nothing is assured and somehow we had left the vital cabin receipt down in the car deck at the bottom of the 4x4 Land cruiser we have bought with us.
“No paper, no cabin opened”
Was the response from the ship member who we quickly christened Side Show Bob from The Simpson’s, due to his hair.
Martin disappeared down to the bowels and ten minutes later came back brandishing the prize receipt as if it was a Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. And cabin doors were opened.
Perhaps saying the place smelt of shit was a bit harsh, and that the sheets pillow and blanket looked they had been rearranged rather than changed. But it is far batter than sleeping on the deck.
Enquiries about when we would depart and met with a shrug and the standard “Inshallah” response. A round of heavy tracer fire lights the sky over Benghazi before I head back to the cabin.
Lying in the dark, I thought to myself this has to be one of the craziest ways to a frontline. Once there, you simply cannot leave when you want. Because the ship is the only way and if they stop running then we will be trapped like every other citizen of Misrata. And we have only bought a one-way ticket.
2:30am, Benghazi. Thru the haze of half sleep I feel the Azzurra slip the berth and head out of harbor. Rolling over, I feel my stomach start to cramp and spasm.
“What a great time to start getting the shit’s”
11:00am “Some where in the Gulf of Sirte, Med Sea”
Shoes lie in piles, men sleep on the floor, under tables, and children run around, as children do on an adventure. Babies cry behind doors and young men watch home made videos of battles against Gadaffi forces on their cell phones. Dreaming of glory and ignorant of the reality of recent rebel losses.
5:30pm “Still some where in the Gulf of Sirte, Med Sea”
Closer but no cigar as they say, the trip is a slow 240 miles, just off the coastline of Libya. Story done, edited all but final piece to camera. Another black coffee and stare out to sea. We are due to dock at 9:39pm, according to the crew; given the state of the ship I have my doubts to the accuracy of their chronometers.
Lying on my bunk, writing this and at the same time realizing that in four hours. I will be in a war zone under potential rocket fire. The handover at the border seems a long time ago.
9:30pm Could be anywhere, pitch black outside but still at sea
You get to a point where you have no bearings or clues as to where you are, ship messages are only in Arabic and feeling the ship slow it is obvious that we are close. Managed to set up the bgan and transmit tonight’s story back to New York whilst still traveling, incredible to consider that in the middle of the med sea you can still transmit.
Strange but have no nerves at the moment, a sense of calm before the storm. Not based on any rationale. Could do with a shower though at least the runs have stopped for the time being.
Postscript
Misrata 9:39 pm we arrive to the minute as planned, fuck me stranger things have happened in this world. Shouts of Allah Akbar echo around the decks.
Turning to Ken, our security guy,
“Game on”
“To fucking right”
We enter Misrata, one-way ticket, our only escape back via sea.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The Handover Libya June 2011
Everyone has excuses and I am no different. But it is time to start writing again, things may be a little different as times have changed. Posts may be late or written after events, the reason is security. Life is not what it was back in the old days now and in the media we find ourselves in more and more inhospitable places, with people who consider the media as another enemy.
I have always kept extensive notes of observations of places and events and they will come forward as I go back read and remember those times.
140 characters is not an option, as I see and bring to life events from good and evil places.
Mal
Benghazi Libya
June 15th 2011
Libyan War June 2011 Second Trip
1. The Handover
The Handover is a relatively short affair in conflict zones. The team leaving wants to get out as fast as possible, as freedom and safety is normally a short walk across a border with only your personal bags. For the incoming team, Rick Levanthal, correspondent, Martin Francis, producer and it, myself is the beginning of another rotation in country and the dangers of entering a war zone.
I had been in Libya chasing the rebels a few months back and this was my second foray into this conflict. The handover was planned for the Egypt / Libya border at the Saloume Border Crossing, a seven hour drive from Cairo. Basically head North from Cairo, hit the coast turn west and eventually you will come to Libya. There are no other roads so getting lost is not an issue there are no other roads.
The customs and clearance in Egypt is a matter of being patient, things do not move quickly, it could be fifteen minutes, and it may take two hours. Nothing is checked, you simply sit and wait. All we had was our personal bags, as the kit that the Network has slowly built up and smuggled into Libya over many trips stays in country to avoid problems with Customs, who on a whim will confiscate a Camera or Bgan (the small Satellite Communication dish we carry, slightly bigger than a laptop). Thus creating major issues and problems.
The Cameraman I replacing Rich Harlow, was waiting for me on the Libyan side with all the kit plus body armor.
After watching an Arabic woman in the full black Niqab scream at an Egyptian Boarder Policeman, with such venom that she must have been questioning the hereditary of the man’s mother. Martin came out with our passports cleared for exit, drive to the next gate and then the short walk into Libya a final glance at the passport exit stamp and then you are in a country in full on War.
The other team was next to the cars, as planned. Handshakes and man hugs happen and then its business, they want out and for a few minutes. Each member of the team huddles down with their respective other.
What’ where in what case, What’s happening where, from editorial to money, from logistics to security and it happens in a few short minutes. Questions answered with no bullshit, the stakes are real and everyone knows it. This meeting is not a sit down around a table and discussing options back in New York, but in a car park on the border of a country engaged in civil war under a blazing sun, no subject is taboo. And it happens quickly.
We still have another seven hours drive ahead of us to Benghazi and the other team faces an equally long drive to Cairo. Forget the Hollywood hype of News teams turning up in exotic war zones after a montage over music. Basically getting to war takes time and frustration. You find yourself driving thru inhospitable parts of the planet at hi speed with a driver who normally does not speak the same language, listening to local music on the radio and trying to keep comfortable.
You find relief at the occasional stop for petrol and then realize that the toilet at the Gas Station is also the shower. A shower head limply hangs over the foot print squat toilet and I always find myself re affirming my vow that I will never shit and shower on the same spot, unless I have a pair of flip flops and even then I doubt that I could.
You finally shake hands and man hug again, the final words of a departing team are always the same “Keep Safe and Be Careful” and then they walk off and it’s done.
Standing in the no mans land between Egypt and Libya, a simple road with concrete barriers between the nations on either side. We have Security man with us, a fact of life now in dangerous zones, just like you read about these guys are normally ex SAS or Special Forces who have found a new career in the highly lucrative and dangerous world of the security in global hotspots. They are in fact the fourth member of the team; you do nothing without them and rely on them to make judgment calls for your safety and life.
Safety briefings and situation updates become part of daily life; to ignore them is to place the team at risk. “What blood group are you Mal, and are you allergic to any drugs?” Ken asked. Security guys normally do not swop out at the same time as teams so there is always a reassuring continuity.
We get back in the car and enter Libya. New York wants a live shot in two hours so we will just stop by the side of the road in a town. Benghazi is 7 hours away across the desert.
Ahmed one our local drivers turns on the radio and luck has changed, we must of grown up in the same era, as Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” blares out as we watch stunning sunset engulf us on the horizon. Ahmed even slows down as nightfall’s; camels wandering onto the road at night are a greater threat than Gadaffi’s forces, for the final leg.
I have always kept extensive notes of observations of places and events and they will come forward as I go back read and remember those times.
140 characters is not an option, as I see and bring to life events from good and evil places.
Mal
Benghazi Libya
June 15th 2011
Libyan War June 2011 Second Trip
1. The Handover
The Handover is a relatively short affair in conflict zones. The team leaving wants to get out as fast as possible, as freedom and safety is normally a short walk across a border with only your personal bags. For the incoming team, Rick Levanthal, correspondent, Martin Francis, producer and it, myself is the beginning of another rotation in country and the dangers of entering a war zone.
I had been in Libya chasing the rebels a few months back and this was my second foray into this conflict. The handover was planned for the Egypt / Libya border at the Saloume Border Crossing, a seven hour drive from Cairo. Basically head North from Cairo, hit the coast turn west and eventually you will come to Libya. There are no other roads so getting lost is not an issue there are no other roads.
The customs and clearance in Egypt is a matter of being patient, things do not move quickly, it could be fifteen minutes, and it may take two hours. Nothing is checked, you simply sit and wait. All we had was our personal bags, as the kit that the Network has slowly built up and smuggled into Libya over many trips stays in country to avoid problems with Customs, who on a whim will confiscate a Camera or Bgan (the small Satellite Communication dish we carry, slightly bigger than a laptop). Thus creating major issues and problems.
The Cameraman I replacing Rich Harlow, was waiting for me on the Libyan side with all the kit plus body armor.
After watching an Arabic woman in the full black Niqab scream at an Egyptian Boarder Policeman, with such venom that she must have been questioning the hereditary of the man’s mother. Martin came out with our passports cleared for exit, drive to the next gate and then the short walk into Libya a final glance at the passport exit stamp and then you are in a country in full on War.
The other team was next to the cars, as planned. Handshakes and man hugs happen and then its business, they want out and for a few minutes. Each member of the team huddles down with their respective other.
What’ where in what case, What’s happening where, from editorial to money, from logistics to security and it happens in a few short minutes. Questions answered with no bullshit, the stakes are real and everyone knows it. This meeting is not a sit down around a table and discussing options back in New York, but in a car park on the border of a country engaged in civil war under a blazing sun, no subject is taboo. And it happens quickly.
We still have another seven hours drive ahead of us to Benghazi and the other team faces an equally long drive to Cairo. Forget the Hollywood hype of News teams turning up in exotic war zones after a montage over music. Basically getting to war takes time and frustration. You find yourself driving thru inhospitable parts of the planet at hi speed with a driver who normally does not speak the same language, listening to local music on the radio and trying to keep comfortable.
You find relief at the occasional stop for petrol and then realize that the toilet at the Gas Station is also the shower. A shower head limply hangs over the foot print squat toilet and I always find myself re affirming my vow that I will never shit and shower on the same spot, unless I have a pair of flip flops and even then I doubt that I could.
You finally shake hands and man hug again, the final words of a departing team are always the same “Keep Safe and Be Careful” and then they walk off and it’s done.
Standing in the no mans land between Egypt and Libya, a simple road with concrete barriers between the nations on either side. We have Security man with us, a fact of life now in dangerous zones, just like you read about these guys are normally ex SAS or Special Forces who have found a new career in the highly lucrative and dangerous world of the security in global hotspots. They are in fact the fourth member of the team; you do nothing without them and rely on them to make judgment calls for your safety and life.
Safety briefings and situation updates become part of daily life; to ignore them is to place the team at risk. “What blood group are you Mal, and are you allergic to any drugs?” Ken asked. Security guys normally do not swop out at the same time as teams so there is always a reassuring continuity.
We get back in the car and enter Libya. New York wants a live shot in two hours so we will just stop by the side of the road in a town. Benghazi is 7 hours away across the desert.
Ahmed one our local drivers turns on the radio and luck has changed, we must of grown up in the same era, as Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” blares out as we watch stunning sunset engulf us on the horizon. Ahmed even slows down as nightfall’s; camels wandering onto the road at night are a greater threat than Gadaffi’s forces, for the final leg.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The Winnable War
Reflections from 36,000 ft
Afghanistan Dec 2009
The Winnable War
The irony is that the largest explosion I heard in terms of enemy attacks in this war in 30 days on the frontline was this morning on the day we were to leave Kabul. In the capital not 300m from our bureau/residence, Greg & I were just editing our final piece before 10am when suddenly the whole room and building just went blank.
Describing a bomb blast like this morning is like trying to explain the first time you hear or experience a car crash. For a second your world collapses down into microseconds, as your brain comprehends before you feel the shock wave of the actual explosion. The sound traps you before the concussion holds you, and this all takes place inside a few seconds and then realizing that you have survived the next mode of capturing the story and pictures kicks in.
It is if your mind is in a fog for those first few seconds, reality is the sound of the explosion, which is not as loud as Hollywood makes it out, but your senses combine in that one moment to terrify you before you realize that you have survived.
Welcome back to Afghanistan Conor Powell.
Half undressed, half asleep Conor looked thru the window, as I looked the camera lens. Conor our Kabul/Afghanistan Correspondent had been back in the country less than 24 hours, arriving only the late evening before after a months holiday back in the states whilst Greg Palkot & I covered for him.
Conor has seen and experienced bombs in Kabul before so being thrown out of your bed by a morning explosion is nothing new, but the look on his face portrayed that this suicide bombing is yet one step closer to the our reality of living and working in Kabul.
A city so corrupted by corruption, that to find someone not asking for a bribe is the exception. Example for a quick ten dollars at the airport the check in guy will reduce your excess baggage quota, hard cashes no questions. Just hand over the dollars quietly.
Want to drive your car thru check points with a suicide bomber ready to go, would not require much more. In we had heard that there were three bombers/bombs ready and in place in Kabul prior to this mornings attack. And that is only the media’s grapevine; as per usual all the so-called security experts with their contacts knew nothing or had any warning.
Reality check. Foreign or International Security Companies in Kabul/Afghanistan are now (8 years into this war) are having trouble holding onto there own staff. Run by foreign companies that are only in Afghanistan to suck money from International organizations from the NGO’s (Non Government Organization’s) to Multi National Companies. These Security companies under pay their local so badly that it is now common knowledge that the Taliban pay a monthly salary that is 25% more than foreign security companies offer the majority of its security staff.
The Taliban is clearly and openly offering better employment opportunities, rather than the corrupted official channels or even worse foreign security companies who are sucking the blood out of the capital and this country.
It is pathetic to try and grasp how bad it has become in the capital, you are know at this point that honestly, it is dog eat dog. Yes you survive for today is today, tomorrow is tomorrow. Nobody cares as long as someone is making more money.
This is the “Winnable War” reality check.
Flying back to London offers no solace for within months no doubt I will be back there and it will only be worse.
Military & Govt Officials will massage figures to give the appearance of it is all going to plan in the coming months, I have honestly given up on truth in any respect to do with Afghanistan.
Covering war zones I get to see a very small but honest part and after a month in country the gut feeling is that after 8 years of rebuilding, reconstructing, retraining, 98% of the population hates and loathes the US and its Allies, for what it has done and is doing now.
In regard to the other 2% I have seen, all is well, by the way in a mountain village high in the mountains of Southern Afghanistan with no water or power the local school bus has a farm tractor and you know what children laugh as they climb up to go home.
A six year old asks nothing more than a chance to grow old and prosper. In Kabul on that, 8 people lost that chance and multiple more injured will never get the chance to grow old and prosper.
Afghanistan Dec 2009
The Winnable War
The irony is that the largest explosion I heard in terms of enemy attacks in this war in 30 days on the frontline was this morning on the day we were to leave Kabul. In the capital not 300m from our bureau/residence, Greg & I were just editing our final piece before 10am when suddenly the whole room and building just went blank.
Describing a bomb blast like this morning is like trying to explain the first time you hear or experience a car crash. For a second your world collapses down into microseconds, as your brain comprehends before you feel the shock wave of the actual explosion. The sound traps you before the concussion holds you, and this all takes place inside a few seconds and then realizing that you have survived the next mode of capturing the story and pictures kicks in.
It is if your mind is in a fog for those first few seconds, reality is the sound of the explosion, which is not as loud as Hollywood makes it out, but your senses combine in that one moment to terrify you before you realize that you have survived.
Welcome back to Afghanistan Conor Powell.
Half undressed, half asleep Conor looked thru the window, as I looked the camera lens. Conor our Kabul/Afghanistan Correspondent had been back in the country less than 24 hours, arriving only the late evening before after a months holiday back in the states whilst Greg Palkot & I covered for him.
Conor has seen and experienced bombs in Kabul before so being thrown out of your bed by a morning explosion is nothing new, but the look on his face portrayed that this suicide bombing is yet one step closer to the our reality of living and working in Kabul.
A city so corrupted by corruption, that to find someone not asking for a bribe is the exception. Example for a quick ten dollars at the airport the check in guy will reduce your excess baggage quota, hard cashes no questions. Just hand over the dollars quietly.
Want to drive your car thru check points with a suicide bomber ready to go, would not require much more. In we had heard that there were three bombers/bombs ready and in place in Kabul prior to this mornings attack. And that is only the media’s grapevine; as per usual all the so-called security experts with their contacts knew nothing or had any warning.
Reality check. Foreign or International Security Companies in Kabul/Afghanistan are now (8 years into this war) are having trouble holding onto there own staff. Run by foreign companies that are only in Afghanistan to suck money from International organizations from the NGO’s (Non Government Organization’s) to Multi National Companies. These Security companies under pay their local so badly that it is now common knowledge that the Taliban pay a monthly salary that is 25% more than foreign security companies offer the majority of its security staff.
The Taliban is clearly and openly offering better employment opportunities, rather than the corrupted official channels or even worse foreign security companies who are sucking the blood out of the capital and this country.
It is pathetic to try and grasp how bad it has become in the capital, you are know at this point that honestly, it is dog eat dog. Yes you survive for today is today, tomorrow is tomorrow. Nobody cares as long as someone is making more money.
This is the “Winnable War” reality check.
Flying back to London offers no solace for within months no doubt I will be back there and it will only be worse.
Military & Govt Officials will massage figures to give the appearance of it is all going to plan in the coming months, I have honestly given up on truth in any respect to do with Afghanistan.
Covering war zones I get to see a very small but honest part and after a month in country the gut feeling is that after 8 years of rebuilding, reconstructing, retraining, 98% of the population hates and loathes the US and its Allies, for what it has done and is doing now.
In regard to the other 2% I have seen, all is well, by the way in a mountain village high in the mountains of Southern Afghanistan with no water or power the local school bus has a farm tractor and you know what children laugh as they climb up to go home.
A six year old asks nothing more than a chance to grow old and prosper. In Kabul on that, 8 people lost that chance and multiple more injured will never get the chance to grow old and prosper.
Friday, December 11, 2009
The Highway to ($)War
Zabul Province
Afghanistan
It is not the fighting season, but more than anything the war of words thousands of miles away seem to dominate issues here. Sitting in a FOB (Forward Operating Base) in Southern Afghanistan we have been affected by weather for the last week, missions planned are cancelled due to weather. So far we have had everything from rain to snow and freezing winds blowing off the mountains, which means that air assets cannot fly and without air all missions are grounded.
If anything this has given me time to look behind some issues in this war, whilst Senior Administration figures continue their drive to put more troops into the battlefield here, figuring that more numbers will solve the war here, it is also a desperate gamble of a punter on a losing streak who believes that eventually luck will turn his way
Perhaps it is time to start looking at issues that they would like to ignore for on the ground the reality can be only to obvious.
It should be noted that the US Government via the Dept of Defense is funding the Taliban. Forget the Opium and Poppy trade that is small money compared to what Uncle Sam is indirectly giving the Taliban.
Food, water, toilet paper and anything else you care to think about has to be trucked from the main US Military Base in Bagram, just North of Kabul to the main battle arena of Kadahar and Helmend in the South. There exists one and only one road, Highway 1. A never ending procession of trucks bring supplies down this route every day.
As part of reconstructing the economy of Afghanistan it was decided to award the trucking contract to six local companies. All very well connected with the upper echelons of the Government here, via family or tribal connections. The value moving the logistics required to fight the war is estimated to be worth close to $2.2 billion.
These civil convoys by law are not allowed to arm themselves with anything more than a rifle such as an AK47. And the warlords who control vast stretches of these roads have no such morals, together with the Taliban they control the Highway to War.
Thus the local trucking companies who want to ensure their lucrative multi million dollar contracts are happy to pay between 10 and 20% to ensure that their convoys reach the battlefield. Taking the low percentage 10% of $2.2 billion dollars, means that the $220 million dollars is going indirectly from Uncle Sam to the Taliban to support their war efforts against the foreign troops here.
It is not a matter of the US Military turning a blind eye to the issue, they know it is happening and whilst it annoys them deeply, they are with like so many other issues in Afghanistan, powerless to end it let alone figure out how to stop it.
In the coming months, thousands more troops will be deployed, meaning that more trucks will be making the trip down the “Highway to War”. More trucks, more corruption, more money for the Taliban. Whilst we wait out the winter, the Taliban may not be as active fighting the war, but their war chest will be reaping the benefits of the surge, one truck at a time.
Afghanistan
It is not the fighting season, but more than anything the war of words thousands of miles away seem to dominate issues here. Sitting in a FOB (Forward Operating Base) in Southern Afghanistan we have been affected by weather for the last week, missions planned are cancelled due to weather. So far we have had everything from rain to snow and freezing winds blowing off the mountains, which means that air assets cannot fly and without air all missions are grounded.
If anything this has given me time to look behind some issues in this war, whilst Senior Administration figures continue their drive to put more troops into the battlefield here, figuring that more numbers will solve the war here, it is also a desperate gamble of a punter on a losing streak who believes that eventually luck will turn his way
Perhaps it is time to start looking at issues that they would like to ignore for on the ground the reality can be only to obvious.
It should be noted that the US Government via the Dept of Defense is funding the Taliban. Forget the Opium and Poppy trade that is small money compared to what Uncle Sam is indirectly giving the Taliban.
Food, water, toilet paper and anything else you care to think about has to be trucked from the main US Military Base in Bagram, just North of Kabul to the main battle arena of Kadahar and Helmend in the South. There exists one and only one road, Highway 1. A never ending procession of trucks bring supplies down this route every day.
As part of reconstructing the economy of Afghanistan it was decided to award the trucking contract to six local companies. All very well connected with the upper echelons of the Government here, via family or tribal connections. The value moving the logistics required to fight the war is estimated to be worth close to $2.2 billion.
These civil convoys by law are not allowed to arm themselves with anything more than a rifle such as an AK47. And the warlords who control vast stretches of these roads have no such morals, together with the Taliban they control the Highway to War.
Thus the local trucking companies who want to ensure their lucrative multi million dollar contracts are happy to pay between 10 and 20% to ensure that their convoys reach the battlefield. Taking the low percentage 10% of $2.2 billion dollars, means that the $220 million dollars is going indirectly from Uncle Sam to the Taliban to support their war efforts against the foreign troops here.
It is not a matter of the US Military turning a blind eye to the issue, they know it is happening and whilst it annoys them deeply, they are with like so many other issues in Afghanistan, powerless to end it let alone figure out how to stop it.
In the coming months, thousands more troops will be deployed, meaning that more trucks will be making the trip down the “Highway to War”. More trucks, more corruption, more money for the Taliban. Whilst we wait out the winter, the Taliban may not be as active fighting the war, but their war chest will be reaping the benefits of the surge, one truck at a time.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Life in Gitmo
Kandahar
Starting another embed involves moving sometimes accross the country on mujltiple flights taking days, Saturday's move to our next embed was a simple matter of being picked from our hooch/bunkhouse/room driving five minutes across the airfield base and turning into another camp, within a base.
Now not all room are created equal and our room was basically a 10 x 8 feet (not meters or yards) plywood box, in a building that must of been built around Sept 12th 2001. These were without doubt the oldest buildings I had come across at Kandahar. within the block there are 6 identical plywood boxes, no windows but a plywood square over a hole cut in the wall.
Sparsely decorated is a way to describe the bunk bed and nailed up table in the corner. For Greg and I it was easier if either one of us wanted to get anything out of a box or bag for the other to step out of the suite. After Greg had lost the pick which hand the bullet is in as to who gets the bottom bunk in Khost a couple of weeks ago. He immediately grabbed the bottom bunk, the only thing he forgot was that the only heater in the room was directly above the top bunk, effectively he had chosen the coldest spot in the whole Gitmo cell with a cold breeze coming in through gaps in the plywood.
By 4:30 am, he could stand it no more and asked to change bunks a i was lying there with barely my sleeping bag on. Given that any movement on the top bunk made enough noise to wake the dead, we swopped over. I barely noticed the cold and slept for a few more hours.
Come 7 am I wanted to get a run in before the day started and we were to move to another province with the embed. Closing the door to the Gitmo cell i put the latch across as i did not want to let the door swing open and cold air in the cell.
50 minutes later getting back from my run the door is till closed, I open it to find Greg there cross legged holding up a water bottle that is green in color. I had by mistake locked him in the cell and the call of nature in the morning had found him a prisoner.
So another night was over and if anything a funny start to another day in the war zone.
Starting another embed involves moving sometimes accross the country on mujltiple flights taking days, Saturday's move to our next embed was a simple matter of being picked from our hooch/bunkhouse/room driving five minutes across the airfield base and turning into another camp, within a base.
Now not all room are created equal and our room was basically a 10 x 8 feet (not meters or yards) plywood box, in a building that must of been built around Sept 12th 2001. These were without doubt the oldest buildings I had come across at Kandahar. within the block there are 6 identical plywood boxes, no windows but a plywood square over a hole cut in the wall.
Sparsely decorated is a way to describe the bunk bed and nailed up table in the corner. For Greg and I it was easier if either one of us wanted to get anything out of a box or bag for the other to step out of the suite. After Greg had lost the pick which hand the bullet is in as to who gets the bottom bunk in Khost a couple of weeks ago. He immediately grabbed the bottom bunk, the only thing he forgot was that the only heater in the room was directly above the top bunk, effectively he had chosen the coldest spot in the whole Gitmo cell with a cold breeze coming in through gaps in the plywood.
By 4:30 am, he could stand it no more and asked to change bunks a i was lying there with barely my sleeping bag on. Given that any movement on the top bunk made enough noise to wake the dead, we swopped over. I barely noticed the cold and slept for a few more hours.
Come 7 am I wanted to get a run in before the day started and we were to move to another province with the embed. Closing the door to the Gitmo cell i put the latch across as i did not want to let the door swing open and cold air in the cell.
50 minutes later getting back from my run the door is till closed, I open it to find Greg there cross legged holding up a water bottle that is green in color. I had by mistake locked him in the cell and the call of nature in the morning had found him a prisoner.
So another night was over and if anything a funny start to another day in the war zone.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Under the Boardwalk
Kandahar Air Field
Afghanistan
There is no doubt that General Mc Crystal is not happy with the lifestyle of troops at the ISAF base here in Kandahar. The reality is that whilst many consider that Kandahar is a key strategic location in the war, the place at times resembles a shopping mall.
Consider what is on the main area known as the boardwalk, a wooden enclosed square purpose built entertainment area. Starting by the Tim Horton’s (Canadian) Coffee shop overlooking the rink, where hockey and football are played. Past the Kebab shop whose slogan is Gyros for Heroes, next to the 24/7 Pizza Hut, which attracts a crowd of all night and day. They also offer home delivery to your bunkhouse or office. Then there is the Subway store and the Burger King, which has a sign apologizing that the Whopper is not available at the moment.
Sunglasses or lingerie no problems available at the Oakley franchise on the corner. Continuing along there is the Canadian PX store, no to mention the German PX and the French PX, which also includes a patisserie offering smoked salmon baguettes and croissants freshly, baked. The Dutch PX is off the boardwalk but like the French is a two storey complex where Play Station and Plasma TV’s are available.
The American PX is modest by the standards set by other nations, offering the necessities of life here similar to other American PX’s in Afghanistan.
If there is a danger at Kandahar then obesity rates higher than the threat faced by Taliban. Watching soldiers from various nations shoveling pizza down at 8am is not unusual, and these are not guys who are dirt encrusted from days out on operations.
When you consider that to put a US soldier into the war her costs approx a million dollars per deployment, you do start to question what the hell is the need for a shopping mall in war zone. It seems like some are more concerned with the frills of life than the mission.
There are DFAC’s (Dining Facilities) all around the base offering food and drinks over four meal sittings a day. All fully paid for and staffed by third world nationals earning a minimum wage catering to troops based at Kandahar.
For soldiers on the frontline a meal from a bag and water sustain them and they enjoy a far greater satisfaction from their efforts than the troops based at Kandahar Air Field. If as much effort was put into the war itself and less emphasis on maintaining a lifestyle enjoyed at home, then after 8 years would we still be bogged down in a war that is going from bad to worse with each passing month.
I have learnt to tune out to the words of Senior Officers as they describe how well it is going, because I heard the same words eight years ago. One soldier barely twenty years old by his appearance told us that the US defeated the Taliban after seven months. Which puts the war at an end in July 2002. Well a 300% increase in attacks on coalition forces between 2007 to 2009, a figure stated by General Mc Crystal reveals the ignorance of some soldiers, as to how the fight is going.
Perhaps that is why we are hearing that the boardwalks days are numbered and whilst it may only be a small step, hopefully actions like that may refocus some soldiers minds on the operation, because if things have not turned around drastically within a year the war can be clearly be termed a complete failure and hundreds of lives will have been lost for no reason and the Taliban, like the Viet Cong in Vietnam will claim victory and world opinion will be with them.
I never doubt the resolve of the young soldiers I meet and film at Combat Outpost’s for they are true heroes. But for a dose of reality the big news of Boardwalk yesterday was that donuts were once again available at the Tim Horton’s Coffee Shop.
The war continues.
Afghanistan
There is no doubt that General Mc Crystal is not happy with the lifestyle of troops at the ISAF base here in Kandahar. The reality is that whilst many consider that Kandahar is a key strategic location in the war, the place at times resembles a shopping mall.
Consider what is on the main area known as the boardwalk, a wooden enclosed square purpose built entertainment area. Starting by the Tim Horton’s (Canadian) Coffee shop overlooking the rink, where hockey and football are played. Past the Kebab shop whose slogan is Gyros for Heroes, next to the 24/7 Pizza Hut, which attracts a crowd of all night and day. They also offer home delivery to your bunkhouse or office. Then there is the Subway store and the Burger King, which has a sign apologizing that the Whopper is not available at the moment.
Sunglasses or lingerie no problems available at the Oakley franchise on the corner. Continuing along there is the Canadian PX store, no to mention the German PX and the French PX, which also includes a patisserie offering smoked salmon baguettes and croissants freshly, baked. The Dutch PX is off the boardwalk but like the French is a two storey complex where Play Station and Plasma TV’s are available.
The American PX is modest by the standards set by other nations, offering the necessities of life here similar to other American PX’s in Afghanistan.
If there is a danger at Kandahar then obesity rates higher than the threat faced by Taliban. Watching soldiers from various nations shoveling pizza down at 8am is not unusual, and these are not guys who are dirt encrusted from days out on operations.
When you consider that to put a US soldier into the war her costs approx a million dollars per deployment, you do start to question what the hell is the need for a shopping mall in war zone. It seems like some are more concerned with the frills of life than the mission.
There are DFAC’s (Dining Facilities) all around the base offering food and drinks over four meal sittings a day. All fully paid for and staffed by third world nationals earning a minimum wage catering to troops based at Kandahar.
For soldiers on the frontline a meal from a bag and water sustain them and they enjoy a far greater satisfaction from their efforts than the troops based at Kandahar Air Field. If as much effort was put into the war itself and less emphasis on maintaining a lifestyle enjoyed at home, then after 8 years would we still be bogged down in a war that is going from bad to worse with each passing month.
I have learnt to tune out to the words of Senior Officers as they describe how well it is going, because I heard the same words eight years ago. One soldier barely twenty years old by his appearance told us that the US defeated the Taliban after seven months. Which puts the war at an end in July 2002. Well a 300% increase in attacks on coalition forces between 2007 to 2009, a figure stated by General Mc Crystal reveals the ignorance of some soldiers, as to how the fight is going.
Perhaps that is why we are hearing that the boardwalks days are numbered and whilst it may only be a small step, hopefully actions like that may refocus some soldiers minds on the operation, because if things have not turned around drastically within a year the war can be clearly be termed a complete failure and hundreds of lives will have been lost for no reason and the Taliban, like the Viet Cong in Vietnam will claim victory and world opinion will be with them.
I never doubt the resolve of the young soldiers I meet and film at Combat Outpost’s for they are true heroes. But for a dose of reality the big news of Boardwalk yesterday was that donuts were once again available at the Tim Horton’s Coffee Shop.
The war continues.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Airport Chaos
Kabul Airport
The fact that a taxing plane wing misses the terminal building by less than a meter. Gives you any indication of the safety standards that operate at the airport.
Travelling here is never easy and lets face it flying from Kabul to Kandahar is not a route or destination of ones own choosing .
It was decided yesterday that we should cover the troop surge announcement from Kandahar rather than the bureau in Kabul, which was a former brothel called Paradise. Now online or telephone booking is impossible because you cannot factor in bribes and corruption online .
So a 4:30 start involves traipsing to the airport waiting in the cold damp dawn whilst our fixer does what he has become an expert at obtaining the impossible at a benefit to the airline staff, paying twice the ticket price and getting a boarding pass that has no destination, no name and no seat number.
As he said just sit anywhere
Another day in Afghanistan begins
The fact that a taxing plane wing misses the terminal building by less than a meter. Gives you any indication of the safety standards that operate at the airport.
Travelling here is never easy and lets face it flying from Kabul to Kandahar is not a route or destination of ones own choosing .
It was decided yesterday that we should cover the troop surge announcement from Kandahar rather than the bureau in Kabul, which was a former brothel called Paradise. Now online or telephone booking is impossible because you cannot factor in bribes and corruption online .
So a 4:30 start involves traipsing to the airport waiting in the cold damp dawn whilst our fixer does what he has become an expert at obtaining the impossible at a benefit to the airline staff, paying twice the ticket price and getting a boarding pass that has no destination, no name and no seat number.
As he said just sit anywhere
Another day in Afghanistan begins
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Night Letters
Khost, Afghanistan
Like shadows in the night, they deliver warnings to villagers, side with the foreign forces and we will kill you and or your family. Whilst US Forces in Khost Province in South East Afghanistan, may claim they have superior technology and thermal cameras to protect themselves and their bases. Out in the villages the Taliban deliver their messages with no one capable of preventing them.
Talk with any Afghani and without hesitation they tell you things are getting worse from security to corruption. The optimism of 2002 – 2003 has long gone, from translators to waiters we hear nothing but negativity in regard to the future of Afghanistan.
Transpose this with what the US Military continue to tell you in countless briefing after briefing and honestly you start to think they are talking about a different country to the one they are in. Reality is an inconvenient truth that every officer seems to ignore.
Things are getting better, we are working with the Afghan Army and Police to develop an effective and stable nation, is a mantra that is well past its use by date. Eight years on in this war, and yet the Afghan Army is in any way capable of enforcing security.
The Police are despised and loathed by every local, and petty issues are more important than major events. The other day we went out on a patrol and the Police did not come along, not due to staffing or morale issues but because they could not be bothered. The Afghan Army set up a roadblock outside of a small village and started checking cars. Sure enough fifteen minutes later two men are caught with an AK 47, four magazines, two pistols, a knife and two hand grenades.
The question then arose did the army have the authority to seize he weapons, what would happen to the two guys. It short it was a balls up, in the end the Army flexi cuffed the two guys and took then back to their base and not the Police Station.
Once the Police heard about this they were pissed to say the least, the main reason they were annoyed was that the Army kept the weapons and would not hand them over to them. The two guys well they were friends of someone in some high position and within half an hour of getting to the Army base they were drinking tea and having a good old laugh by all accounts.
Whilst this incident is one small event in the grand scheme it also highlights the simple fact that on the ground these are the issues that the Afghans deal with because it is something they control and each and everyone has there turf. The locals here do not care what is happening in the next province because it has never affected their life.
Everyone knows that each US Unit is only there for around a year and that after they leave another Unit will replace them and try to reinvent the wheel. With new ideas and new plans, again a simple case of taking four steps backwards follows the progress of the current unit.
The incident that best captured the lack of respect the Afghan’s have for the US Forces was etched on hundreds of faces the other morning. The celebration of Eid-ul-Ahza is on the Muslim calendar a major holiday and everyone goes to the Mosque to give thanks and enjoy friends and family, as they were leaving their Mosque to go home for lunch. The US troops decided that they had to go back to the main camp, so loaded up in four MRAP’s they drove through the people tooting horns and waving guns to get out of the way, cursing them for walking on the road and getting in their way.
The look of disgust for these foreign invaders was all to clear to see, but the soldiers in the vehicle I was in were blind to the obvious, a mission had to take place. For all the goodwill they believe that they have created they have once again set themselves back another year in this valley.
People will not forget the disregard for their religious holiday soon and those letters in the night will not seem as threatening.
Like shadows in the night, they deliver warnings to villagers, side with the foreign forces and we will kill you and or your family. Whilst US Forces in Khost Province in South East Afghanistan, may claim they have superior technology and thermal cameras to protect themselves and their bases. Out in the villages the Taliban deliver their messages with no one capable of preventing them.
Talk with any Afghani and without hesitation they tell you things are getting worse from security to corruption. The optimism of 2002 – 2003 has long gone, from translators to waiters we hear nothing but negativity in regard to the future of Afghanistan.
Transpose this with what the US Military continue to tell you in countless briefing after briefing and honestly you start to think they are talking about a different country to the one they are in. Reality is an inconvenient truth that every officer seems to ignore.
Things are getting better, we are working with the Afghan Army and Police to develop an effective and stable nation, is a mantra that is well past its use by date. Eight years on in this war, and yet the Afghan Army is in any way capable of enforcing security.
The Police are despised and loathed by every local, and petty issues are more important than major events. The other day we went out on a patrol and the Police did not come along, not due to staffing or morale issues but because they could not be bothered. The Afghan Army set up a roadblock outside of a small village and started checking cars. Sure enough fifteen minutes later two men are caught with an AK 47, four magazines, two pistols, a knife and two hand grenades.
The question then arose did the army have the authority to seize he weapons, what would happen to the two guys. It short it was a balls up, in the end the Army flexi cuffed the two guys and took then back to their base and not the Police Station.
Once the Police heard about this they were pissed to say the least, the main reason they were annoyed was that the Army kept the weapons and would not hand them over to them. The two guys well they were friends of someone in some high position and within half an hour of getting to the Army base they were drinking tea and having a good old laugh by all accounts.
Whilst this incident is one small event in the grand scheme it also highlights the simple fact that on the ground these are the issues that the Afghans deal with because it is something they control and each and everyone has there turf. The locals here do not care what is happening in the next province because it has never affected their life.
Everyone knows that each US Unit is only there for around a year and that after they leave another Unit will replace them and try to reinvent the wheel. With new ideas and new plans, again a simple case of taking four steps backwards follows the progress of the current unit.
The incident that best captured the lack of respect the Afghan’s have for the US Forces was etched on hundreds of faces the other morning. The celebration of Eid-ul-Ahza is on the Muslim calendar a major holiday and everyone goes to the Mosque to give thanks and enjoy friends and family, as they were leaving their Mosque to go home for lunch. The US troops decided that they had to go back to the main camp, so loaded up in four MRAP’s they drove through the people tooting horns and waving guns to get out of the way, cursing them for walking on the road and getting in their way.
The look of disgust for these foreign invaders was all to clear to see, but the soldiers in the vehicle I was in were blind to the obvious, a mission had to take place. For all the goodwill they believe that they have created they have once again set themselves back another year in this valley.
People will not forget the disregard for their religious holiday soon and those letters in the night will not seem as threatening.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Listening to Leaves fall
It was bad enough to see the General goose stepping, as the President inspected the guard of honor, what was even more funny was when he realised he was on the wrong side of the President and had to break step trot behind and commence the goose stepping again.
In yet another complete failure of democracy. President Karzai was today inaugarated for his second 5 year term. In any flourishing democracy the inaugaration ceremony is a time when the people can share the moment, cast your mind back to the scenes in Washington in January, when President Obama took the oath of office.
Today in Kabul, under a crisp winter sun, you could hear the leaves fall to the footpath. The solution to any potential problem here is to close the city and ban cars, to prevent suicide and or car bombs. The ceremony was such a controlled event that even TV cameras were not permitted into the Palace, and as such we were herded into the old Radio Television studios built in the classic Soviet style of the 1950's. the walls adorned with old black and white pictures from what looked like the 50's and 60's.
Technically it was a nightmare, but the staff there did there best with old equipment then told us about there new facility which was a state of the art gift from a foreign country. Why we could not use the new facility is still a mystery. The quality of audio reminded me of watching television with a deaf aunty, whose solution is to turn the sound up fully when there is no sound then to have it tear your ears apart when something actually does happen.
The guests can best be described as a b grade status of nations, the only other leader there was from Pakistan, whilst most of the nations involved in fighting the war here were represented by their Foreign Ministers. The Inaugaration speech was written for the West and the first clapping from the audience came after 13 minutes when Karzai promised a crackdown on corruption, but everyone here knows that words are cheap. Corruption is far more profitable.
As far as an end to the war and foreign troops, five years from now will become the mantra, as the President pledged that Afghanis will take control of all of the nations security by then. As he spoke a car bomb went off in a Southern Province killing two US service members.
As left we tried to gauge the mood on the streets, using the most ineffective method known to poll, known as Vox pops only to be told by the first person we asked as to whether he had watched the ceremony
"No, we had no electricity, I hope to be able to see it later tonight".
In a city that was empty of life, apart from Army and Police on every corner, an historic day has passed and yet failed at the same time. But it was nice to listen to the leaves fall and rustle along the footpath for a change.
In yet another complete failure of democracy. President Karzai was today inaugarated for his second 5 year term. In any flourishing democracy the inaugaration ceremony is a time when the people can share the moment, cast your mind back to the scenes in Washington in January, when President Obama took the oath of office.
Today in Kabul, under a crisp winter sun, you could hear the leaves fall to the footpath. The solution to any potential problem here is to close the city and ban cars, to prevent suicide and or car bombs. The ceremony was such a controlled event that even TV cameras were not permitted into the Palace, and as such we were herded into the old Radio Television studios built in the classic Soviet style of the 1950's. the walls adorned with old black and white pictures from what looked like the 50's and 60's.
Technically it was a nightmare, but the staff there did there best with old equipment then told us about there new facility which was a state of the art gift from a foreign country. Why we could not use the new facility is still a mystery. The quality of audio reminded me of watching television with a deaf aunty, whose solution is to turn the sound up fully when there is no sound then to have it tear your ears apart when something actually does happen.
The guests can best be described as a b grade status of nations, the only other leader there was from Pakistan, whilst most of the nations involved in fighting the war here were represented by their Foreign Ministers. The Inaugaration speech was written for the West and the first clapping from the audience came after 13 minutes when Karzai promised a crackdown on corruption, but everyone here knows that words are cheap. Corruption is far more profitable.
As far as an end to the war and foreign troops, five years from now will become the mantra, as the President pledged that Afghanis will take control of all of the nations security by then. As he spoke a car bomb went off in a Southern Province killing two US service members.
As left we tried to gauge the mood on the streets, using the most ineffective method known to poll, known as Vox pops only to be told by the first person we asked as to whether he had watched the ceremony
"No, we had no electricity, I hope to be able to see it later tonight".
In a city that was empty of life, apart from Army and Police on every corner, an historic day has passed and yet failed at the same time. But it was nice to listen to the leaves fall and rustle along the footpath for a change.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
A Clock Ticking to Failure?
“Westerners are occasionally targeted by criminals or Taliban sympathisers, and kidnapping can be a threat. The target of suicide bombers are mostly military convoys, stay far away. Riots happen occasionally and are often accompanied by looting - stay well away from them as authorities will respond with lethal force. Avoid walking after dark, and vary your routes during the day. Kabul is generally considered one of the safer parts of the country, but bombings have increased somewhat since late 2006”
You would at first read consider the quote to have come from a security briefing, or a travel warning issued by a Government source. But no the above actually comes from the inflight magazine of Safi Airways, which flies into Kabul, from Dubai.
Not exactly a happy picture of a destination that is to be home for the next month. Then again it reflects a true picture of just how bad things are getting here in Afghanistan.
This is my third trip this year to Afghanistan and no matter how I try to reflect on the positive side the negatives of the situation here outweigh everything. Yesterday we met with US military and Western Diplomats, for once it would be good if they were to give an honest and truthful account of just how bad it is going here.
Forget the war for one moment and consider the domestic issues. Here you have a population that considers it’s own Police force not as partners in society, but as predators and according to a senior US Military Commander, “People here consider the police as worse than the Taliban”.
The level of corruption starts at the very bottom and extends to the highest levels. In fact whilst filming a story on corruption, we walked away from our vehicles to film in the market. Only to find out that the local police had shaken down our driver for 200 Afghanis or 4 dollars.
Want a passport, pay the bribe. Need hospital treatment then consider a donation as a precursor to treatment. Need to register your car then take extra to the office. According to diplomatic sources the average person here is spending a minimum of 20% of their annual income on paying corrupt officials.
In fact the Government department that is charge of monitoring corruption is regarded as “Inept and Useless”. To placate Western donors the Government has relaunched for a third time a task force to investigate corruption. Laws here do not have any legal status for any official to declare any of his assets. On a previous trip we learnt that govt officials on a salary of approx $600 a month had somehow managed to get assets worth in excess of 20 million dollars. .
You get tired of hearing Diplomats and Military Leaders saying “It’s a start” or “They have good intent”, whenever there is a relaunch of a taskforce here.
There has only been one issue on which everyone has agreed, the clock is ticking down to failure here. Victory will not be measured in Military success but by the willingness of Afghan’s and the West to “settle for an imperfect state” according to sources here.
Certain failure and the complete collapse of society is predicted to be less than twelve months away, unless things change. Eight years in the war here and the reality of expectations is at an all time low.
One reality check for Afghanistan, is that is now ranked 179th out of 180 countries in the world for “Corruption” according to the monitoring group “Transparency International”. The only country that is considered worse is Somalia.
You would at first read consider the quote to have come from a security briefing, or a travel warning issued by a Government source. But no the above actually comes from the inflight magazine of Safi Airways, which flies into Kabul, from Dubai.
Not exactly a happy picture of a destination that is to be home for the next month. Then again it reflects a true picture of just how bad things are getting here in Afghanistan.
This is my third trip this year to Afghanistan and no matter how I try to reflect on the positive side the negatives of the situation here outweigh everything. Yesterday we met with US military and Western Diplomats, for once it would be good if they were to give an honest and truthful account of just how bad it is going here.
Forget the war for one moment and consider the domestic issues. Here you have a population that considers it’s own Police force not as partners in society, but as predators and according to a senior US Military Commander, “People here consider the police as worse than the Taliban”.
The level of corruption starts at the very bottom and extends to the highest levels. In fact whilst filming a story on corruption, we walked away from our vehicles to film in the market. Only to find out that the local police had shaken down our driver for 200 Afghanis or 4 dollars.
Want a passport, pay the bribe. Need hospital treatment then consider a donation as a precursor to treatment. Need to register your car then take extra to the office. According to diplomatic sources the average person here is spending a minimum of 20% of their annual income on paying corrupt officials.
In fact the Government department that is charge of monitoring corruption is regarded as “Inept and Useless”. To placate Western donors the Government has relaunched for a third time a task force to investigate corruption. Laws here do not have any legal status for any official to declare any of his assets. On a previous trip we learnt that govt officials on a salary of approx $600 a month had somehow managed to get assets worth in excess of 20 million dollars. .
You get tired of hearing Diplomats and Military Leaders saying “It’s a start” or “They have good intent”, whenever there is a relaunch of a taskforce here.
There has only been one issue on which everyone has agreed, the clock is ticking down to failure here. Victory will not be measured in Military success but by the willingness of Afghan’s and the West to “settle for an imperfect state” according to sources here.
Certain failure and the complete collapse of society is predicted to be less than twelve months away, unless things change. Eight years in the war here and the reality of expectations is at an all time low.
One reality check for Afghanistan, is that is now ranked 179th out of 180 countries in the world for “Corruption” according to the monitoring group “Transparency International”. The only country that is considered worse is Somalia.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Operation Eastern Resolve Day 2 - Compound Day
Operation Eastern Resolve 2
Day 2
Dahaneh, Helmand, Afghanistan
It was the flies that woke me up before dawn, lying on the floor of a filthy piece of carpet covered in dirt and broken glass. These were not the type of normal domestic flies, but the ones that seemed intent on landing on the corners of your eyes or the edge of your mouth.
The day had not even begun and the filth of deprivation had begun.
You become so exhausted that any gunfire outgoing from the roof of the compound does raise anymore of a thought than I must film some more of that later.
There is no cup of coffee, no breakfast and for a toilet, go and relieve yourself on that old car tire in the corner of the compound. The concept of even changing clothes is not on the cards, I had bought on extra t-shirt and a pair of trousers but decided to save them, as there had been no talk at all about when we would be able to get out, as this was only the morning of day 2 of the Operation. So I wanted to save them for a future day.
Perhaps if there was one luxury I could point too, was that there was a well. Yep a plain old fashioned, been around for two thousand years type of well, hole in the ground, bucket on a pulley, lower it and lift it and you have water.
Water that was actually cool and you could wash in, as for drinking it. Well no one tried, as there was only one WAG room and hundreds of Marines.
Morning is often a time for reflection; everyone after the adrenaline of yesterday’s firefight was flat. Those who could not claim that had a shot a Taliban were jealous of those who had, and those who had been on the trigger on the roof knew that they had shot a lot of rounds into mud brick walls but would not admit it.
The greatest damage to the Taliban the previous day had come from the sky, via a large J Dam bomb. One enormous explosion but given the situation in the village no one had been out to try and assess the number of Taliban that had actually been killed. Even when they did get out no traces of bodies were ever found or reported on, numbers were always so vague and variable that I did not bother to write down them. The estimated claim for the first day had been according to Operations Commander Captain Zachary Martin had been “at least a dozen Taliban have been killed”.
Logic would have it that any operation in the heat, given that it would rise into the high 120’s within hours, should logically take place earl in the morning or later in the afternoon. But enter the ANA (Afghan National Army) of which I wrote about in the entry “Rambo’s Pink Mirror”. The ANA would not be able to get ready before 11:30am and thus the mission to search every compound in the village would take place during the hottest period of the day.
The Marines privately would not hold back in their stinging criticism’s and complaints about the performance of this ANA unit, turn a camera on and ask a question and it was as if they discussing a completely different army.
This mission was dangerous by any definition, apart from the threat of having your legs blown off by an IED or shot from the hills around the village as you tried to run across fields between compounds. A third threat was that we would be going out and trying to get the ANA to enter the compounds and conduct the searches for the Taliban.
To win the hearts and minds of the residents of Dahaneh, well those who had remained after the first day, during which they had been bombed, strafed from Apache helicopters, had more ammunition fired within their homes than in history.
It was considered politically correct for the ANA to enter and search the Compounds, putting an “Afghan Face” on the operation, whilst the US Marines would provide security outside.
The Marines were ready to start at 11:30 and standing in the sun slowly cooking inside our body armor and Kevlar helmets, we waited and waited for the ANA to get ready. They had no desire to leave the shade and start anything.
The operation was divided into 2 patrols, and Greg and I were with the second patrol. As the first team left they were greeted with gunfire and from behind the walls of the compound it was not a nice sound to hear.
Finally after getting the half a dozen ANA assigned to our patrol to get into formation we too walked out and made for the first compound. As the gunfire began around us, you just kept low and kept moving searching for a wall to provide shelter. The Marines maintained tight formation, the ANA for their part did not have a clue and it was not unusual to hear a Marine screaming at an ANA soldier to stop pointing his weapon at a Marine. The wording of these pleas soon descended into out and out swearing, which mattered little to the rag tag fighters.
The Marines would kick or blow in a door and stand back; the ANA would then enter and find the first piece of shade and somewhere to sit down. We would wait a few minutes them in frustration enter and try to get them to search. It was repeated time after time.
The heat was now at its zenith and every movement was becoming soul destroying. Each run across the open drained me to the point of exhaustion. After one sprint the Marine medic with us dropped to the ground and vomited everything in his stomach up, losing any precious liquid in his body.
Two hours into the search and I was finished, my body was just closing down in the heat. I had stopped sweating and my skin was dry, I had trouble even focusing my eyes and leaning against a wall, I realized that heatstroke was rapidly overcoming me.
I had the video and material we needed and after the patrol returned to the sanctuary of the compound I collapsed. Removing my body armor my t-shirt crusted in sweat and salt I knew that to go back out would have only endangered my own life and potentially those of the Marines if I collapsed.
Drinking water hot enough to make coffee in, is no cure and I dropped for half an hour,
The patrol went back out for a few more hours, and the ANA became so ineffective that the Marines took on all responsibilities including searches.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon on the roof watching attempts to bomb the hills were the Taliban had positions, editing material and doing a live shot from the compound.
The mission “Operation Eastern Resolve 2” had perhaps accomplished its goal to drive the Taliban out of the village, but it seemed that little had been achieved. And if anything it was becoming bogged down. Observing the Captain and XO of Golf Company locked in a conversation it was apparent that even the Generals back at the Marines HQ at Camp Leatherneck were questioning just what had been achieved in two days of fighting given the new directives of how to fight this war.
We heard word that a convoy was going back to FOB Now Zad that night and that it could be the last one for three day, given we had to get back to Kabul for the Elections. We made the decision to leave Dahaneh; the kinetic fighting was all but over.
Lying on a steel grate for a bed and a water bottle for a pillow, I looked up at an amazing sky of stars and thought long and hard about the previous two days. There were few positive thoughts that evening.
I never question the attitude of the fighting Marine, for they are each and everyone of them are heroes fighting as they are directed.
The problem is that this war, after eight years has if anything gotten worse and to which a solution seems further away. And those in charge truly have no clear cohesive strategy to bring it to an end, all we have to look forward too in the coming months and years, are more reports of young brave men being injured and dying.
Day 2
Dahaneh, Helmand, Afghanistan
It was the flies that woke me up before dawn, lying on the floor of a filthy piece of carpet covered in dirt and broken glass. These were not the type of normal domestic flies, but the ones that seemed intent on landing on the corners of your eyes or the edge of your mouth.
The day had not even begun and the filth of deprivation had begun.
You become so exhausted that any gunfire outgoing from the roof of the compound does raise anymore of a thought than I must film some more of that later.
There is no cup of coffee, no breakfast and for a toilet, go and relieve yourself on that old car tire in the corner of the compound. The concept of even changing clothes is not on the cards, I had bought on extra t-shirt and a pair of trousers but decided to save them, as there had been no talk at all about when we would be able to get out, as this was only the morning of day 2 of the Operation. So I wanted to save them for a future day.
Perhaps if there was one luxury I could point too, was that there was a well. Yep a plain old fashioned, been around for two thousand years type of well, hole in the ground, bucket on a pulley, lower it and lift it and you have water.
Water that was actually cool and you could wash in, as for drinking it. Well no one tried, as there was only one WAG room and hundreds of Marines.
Morning is often a time for reflection; everyone after the adrenaline of yesterday’s firefight was flat. Those who could not claim that had a shot a Taliban were jealous of those who had, and those who had been on the trigger on the roof knew that they had shot a lot of rounds into mud brick walls but would not admit it.
The greatest damage to the Taliban the previous day had come from the sky, via a large J Dam bomb. One enormous explosion but given the situation in the village no one had been out to try and assess the number of Taliban that had actually been killed. Even when they did get out no traces of bodies were ever found or reported on, numbers were always so vague and variable that I did not bother to write down them. The estimated claim for the first day had been according to Operations Commander Captain Zachary Martin had been “at least a dozen Taliban have been killed”.
Logic would have it that any operation in the heat, given that it would rise into the high 120’s within hours, should logically take place earl in the morning or later in the afternoon. But enter the ANA (Afghan National Army) of which I wrote about in the entry “Rambo’s Pink Mirror”. The ANA would not be able to get ready before 11:30am and thus the mission to search every compound in the village would take place during the hottest period of the day.
The Marines privately would not hold back in their stinging criticism’s and complaints about the performance of this ANA unit, turn a camera on and ask a question and it was as if they discussing a completely different army.
This mission was dangerous by any definition, apart from the threat of having your legs blown off by an IED or shot from the hills around the village as you tried to run across fields between compounds. A third threat was that we would be going out and trying to get the ANA to enter the compounds and conduct the searches for the Taliban.
To win the hearts and minds of the residents of Dahaneh, well those who had remained after the first day, during which they had been bombed, strafed from Apache helicopters, had more ammunition fired within their homes than in history.
It was considered politically correct for the ANA to enter and search the Compounds, putting an “Afghan Face” on the operation, whilst the US Marines would provide security outside.
The Marines were ready to start at 11:30 and standing in the sun slowly cooking inside our body armor and Kevlar helmets, we waited and waited for the ANA to get ready. They had no desire to leave the shade and start anything.
The operation was divided into 2 patrols, and Greg and I were with the second patrol. As the first team left they were greeted with gunfire and from behind the walls of the compound it was not a nice sound to hear.
Finally after getting the half a dozen ANA assigned to our patrol to get into formation we too walked out and made for the first compound. As the gunfire began around us, you just kept low and kept moving searching for a wall to provide shelter. The Marines maintained tight formation, the ANA for their part did not have a clue and it was not unusual to hear a Marine screaming at an ANA soldier to stop pointing his weapon at a Marine. The wording of these pleas soon descended into out and out swearing, which mattered little to the rag tag fighters.
The Marines would kick or blow in a door and stand back; the ANA would then enter and find the first piece of shade and somewhere to sit down. We would wait a few minutes them in frustration enter and try to get them to search. It was repeated time after time.
The heat was now at its zenith and every movement was becoming soul destroying. Each run across the open drained me to the point of exhaustion. After one sprint the Marine medic with us dropped to the ground and vomited everything in his stomach up, losing any precious liquid in his body.
Two hours into the search and I was finished, my body was just closing down in the heat. I had stopped sweating and my skin was dry, I had trouble even focusing my eyes and leaning against a wall, I realized that heatstroke was rapidly overcoming me.
I had the video and material we needed and after the patrol returned to the sanctuary of the compound I collapsed. Removing my body armor my t-shirt crusted in sweat and salt I knew that to go back out would have only endangered my own life and potentially those of the Marines if I collapsed.
Drinking water hot enough to make coffee in, is no cure and I dropped for half an hour,
The patrol went back out for a few more hours, and the ANA became so ineffective that the Marines took on all responsibilities including searches.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon on the roof watching attempts to bomb the hills were the Taliban had positions, editing material and doing a live shot from the compound.
The mission “Operation Eastern Resolve 2” had perhaps accomplished its goal to drive the Taliban out of the village, but it seemed that little had been achieved. And if anything it was becoming bogged down. Observing the Captain and XO of Golf Company locked in a conversation it was apparent that even the Generals back at the Marines HQ at Camp Leatherneck were questioning just what had been achieved in two days of fighting given the new directives of how to fight this war.
We heard word that a convoy was going back to FOB Now Zad that night and that it could be the last one for three day, given we had to get back to Kabul for the Elections. We made the decision to leave Dahaneh; the kinetic fighting was all but over.
Lying on a steel grate for a bed and a water bottle for a pillow, I looked up at an amazing sky of stars and thought long and hard about the previous two days. There were few positive thoughts that evening.
I never question the attitude of the fighting Marine, for they are each and everyone of them are heroes fighting as they are directed.
The problem is that this war, after eight years has if anything gotten worse and to which a solution seems further away. And those in charge truly have no clear cohesive strategy to bring it to an end, all we have to look forward too in the coming months and years, are more reports of young brave men being injured and dying.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Fire in The Hold
Operation Eastern Resolve 2
Dahaneh, Helmand Province, Afghanistan
Ten km’s (6 miles) from FOB (Forward Operating Base) Now Zad lays the village of Dahaneh. To get there you must enter thru what is know as Devil’s Pass, according to the Marines of Golf Company, Alexander the Great, the British of a 100 years ago and the Russian’s thirty years ago had been defeated trying to enter the “Devil’s Pass”.
However we did not have the heart to tell them that despite exhaustive research, there has been no record of any of the above armies ever mentioning “Devils Pass”.
The objective of the mission was to enter and control the village of Dahaneh, where no form of Government or law had existed for years and was in affect in the control of the Taliban. Secure the village, eliminate the Taliban threat and enable free and fair elections to take place. Given that the good residents of Dahaneh have never voted before in history and have probably never felt the need too. The village Shura and Jirga system had served them well for centuries, only the Taliban were causing problems for the locals.
Thus the powers to be that run this war decided that Dahaneh was a critical lynch pin in the “Surge” and close to 500 US Marines and 20 or so ANA (Afghan National Army) were to establish democracy, law and order, build an Outpost, win hearts and minds and kill as many Taliban as possible all in time for the Election.
August 12th 2009, 2 am FOB Now Zad.
The mission was already running late before we had even started, the reason was that the ANA were running late and were not ready. Under a waning moon Greg Palkot and I stood and waited frustrated by the fact that we were assigned to the last vehicle in convoy, a 7 ton truck that was also carrying the ANA. Which given there track record meant that the chances of us seeing kinetic action and the assault were greatly diminished?
If I heard one more cliché speech that included lines like “ A watershed moment or a critical point in time” I would of vomited. Standing in the dark a Marine to hide his nerves stood on a truck and sang Neil Diamond songs as if he were auditioning American Idol.
Eventually the ANA came to the Convey rendezvous point with about as much interest for this mission as one has going for a root canal treatment at the dentist. In the event of trouble or actually running into Taliban I had no doubt that these troops would have been totally ineffective and more of a danger to us than the Taliban.
With the Commanders stretcher safely on the truck and a box of RPG’s to clog the benches so that they could not get out the convoy, we began the very slow and painful trip to Devils Pass.
The frustration of being at the back of a convey for a cameraman trying to cover war is dreadful, as I commented to Greg as we approached we might as well be doing radio for what I could see thru the lens.
Dawn broke as we entered the pass and the sound of gunfire suddenly increased dramatically, there was a lot going down as the first Marines had gone in by chopper under darkness and where coming under stiff resistance. With each 100 yards closer to the village the sound of gunfire reverberated around the truck, at least one good thing was that the ANA never bought their weapons up into any offensive posture and the risk for us of being accidentally shot was negated.
As we entered the village outskirts it became apparent that things were spinning wildly and the Taliban resistance was stronger than originally anticipated and waves of gunfire swept around us from the mountains.
Villagers were seen fleeing from compounds as more bullets cracked from heavy guns and recoilless rifles. A RPG went screaming between two Marine MRAP's and exploded on the hill behind us. The compound of the base of operations that the Marines had set up in was under serious attack and from a hundred yards away I stood in the back of the 7-ton truck and filmed Marines ducking and running as the Taliban bullets kicked up dust around their feet.
The worst thing is that you realize in a few minutes we would both be having to do the run ourselves from truck to compound, not a happy thought as I could see from my viewfinder what was going down.
On the rooftop a line of Marines could be seen and the noise from the gunfire echoed around the valley and village. I needed to get there and get the action as soon as possible, the smell of cordite is a lure to a cameraman that is hard to avoid. And knowing that it is safer to be at the front rather than stuck in a truck exposed also weighed on my mind.
When it came time to disembark, my mind switched off from the scenes I had been filming minutes before and it was a fast crouching weaving run across the 30 yards to the sanctuary of the compound.
“Where is the rooftop?” was my first question panting and dripping from sweat. Greg was to get the equipment into the compound I was to get to the roof and start filming. Climbing thru a hole blown between compound walls I raced thru the building and up onto the roof.
8 Marines were stationed behind a three-foot wall on the roof; the floor of the roof was littered with spent ammunition. And every few seconds another volley was spewed into the village. Keeping low I dashed across the roof to the wall and took cover next to the Marines. Bathed in sweat and dirt they looked happy this was the action that every one of them craved.
One Marine stood up with binoculars exposed and started calling directions for fire, at that moment a Taliban bullet hit the wall inches from him and flew up, missing him by inches. Another volley from there machine guns bought a few minutes of silence from the Taliban.
And so for the next hour or so it was volley, counter volley. I crawled up and down the line trying to anticipate the salvo. Greg joined me on the roof next to the wall; keeping low we filmed a couple of on cameras and talked with the Marines as they improvised ways of trying to keep their ammunition out of the dirt.
By now the sun was a furnace above us, and Marines poured water down there backs trying to keep cool, none of them wanted to be relieved as this was were the action was going down. I realized that soon Greg and I would start getting heatstroke if we did not get off the roof soon and crouching low we ran to the stairwell and down.
It was now past noon and I needed to get the footage to New York, the incredible thing is that with todays technology we carry a small satellite dish about the size of a briefcase that gives us a direct uplink and hooked up to a computer, I can edit, compress and send the files direct to New York.
The room we found in the compound had been stormed earlier and the dirt floor was covered in broken glass, window frames hang loosely, old rags and a frayed piece of rug were the only things in the room. And old tin box became my workspace out of the wreckage that existed.
First footage sent in and a live shot from the safety of the garden outside, every few minutes another volley of gunfire echoed around, to a bizarre extent you can become immune to the noise, as if it were just the norm.
The next phase for us was to edit a feature length piece for the Evening Primetime broadcast, and sitting in the shell of the room we were piecing together a spot, when all of a sudden there was a loud scream around the compound.
“Fire in the Hold”
What the f…! . Every single person suddenly ducks down into a fetal position and puts their fingers in their ears. You close your eyes not sure of what are about to happen.
Boom !!!!
A explosion blasts thru every single nerve in your body, it shakes every organ and the room simply disappeared in a barrage of dirt, dust, rubble and even pieces of window frame exploded and shattered around us. The computer was blown almost to the ground and the dish outside was now in a new position.
A wall had been blasted to allow more movement round the compound.
Picking ourselves back up Greg took a photo of the aftermath.
You cannot dwell on what has happened, the explosion had blown the computer around so much that I lost half the work I had done and had to start again. Brushing the debris off it. I started again. Five minutes later…
“Fire in the Hold,” screamed from room to room. Grasping a bit of rag I covered what I could in the few seconds. Computer on the ground this time. Running for the door we ducked down and covering our ears waited for the explosion again.
Kaboom !!!!
The building shook around us as dirt and dust once again engulfed us. Like Pig Pen from a Peanuts cartoon we stood up and looked back into our room half expecting that everything would have been destroyed.
But as the dust cleared the computer and camera gear came into sight, looking the worse for wear yet still working. Daylight was fading fast and I told Greg “ Forget the next live shot to New York”, we were basically trying to stay alive.
With no power the computer and little satellite transmitter were running on battery and it was a race against time. As I started the file transfer to New York the computer low battery warning came on, as did the satellite battery. It was a race against time and as darkness fell the story made it to New York, and a minute later the sat dish went dead.
As we lay down amongst the rubble and broken glass for the night, drinking a hot bottle of water, the gunfire continued from the roof above us. Exhaustion swept over us and in clothes crusted with salt from sweat I slipped into a sleep on the floor. Sharing the space with a company of young Marines we all had just enough room to stretch out.
Dawn was a few hours away and for a few brief hours we both slept. Tomorrow we knew was when we would begin foot patrols around the village to clear out the Taliban compound by compound.
Dahaneh, Helmand Province, Afghanistan
Ten km’s (6 miles) from FOB (Forward Operating Base) Now Zad lays the village of Dahaneh. To get there you must enter thru what is know as Devil’s Pass, according to the Marines of Golf Company, Alexander the Great, the British of a 100 years ago and the Russian’s thirty years ago had been defeated trying to enter the “Devil’s Pass”.
However we did not have the heart to tell them that despite exhaustive research, there has been no record of any of the above armies ever mentioning “Devils Pass”.
The objective of the mission was to enter and control the village of Dahaneh, where no form of Government or law had existed for years and was in affect in the control of the Taliban. Secure the village, eliminate the Taliban threat and enable free and fair elections to take place. Given that the good residents of Dahaneh have never voted before in history and have probably never felt the need too. The village Shura and Jirga system had served them well for centuries, only the Taliban were causing problems for the locals.
Thus the powers to be that run this war decided that Dahaneh was a critical lynch pin in the “Surge” and close to 500 US Marines and 20 or so ANA (Afghan National Army) were to establish democracy, law and order, build an Outpost, win hearts and minds and kill as many Taliban as possible all in time for the Election.
August 12th 2009, 2 am FOB Now Zad.
The mission was already running late before we had even started, the reason was that the ANA were running late and were not ready. Under a waning moon Greg Palkot and I stood and waited frustrated by the fact that we were assigned to the last vehicle in convoy, a 7 ton truck that was also carrying the ANA. Which given there track record meant that the chances of us seeing kinetic action and the assault were greatly diminished?
If I heard one more cliché speech that included lines like “ A watershed moment or a critical point in time” I would of vomited. Standing in the dark a Marine to hide his nerves stood on a truck and sang Neil Diamond songs as if he were auditioning American Idol.
Eventually the ANA came to the Convey rendezvous point with about as much interest for this mission as one has going for a root canal treatment at the dentist. In the event of trouble or actually running into Taliban I had no doubt that these troops would have been totally ineffective and more of a danger to us than the Taliban.
With the Commanders stretcher safely on the truck and a box of RPG’s to clog the benches so that they could not get out the convoy, we began the very slow and painful trip to Devils Pass.
The frustration of being at the back of a convey for a cameraman trying to cover war is dreadful, as I commented to Greg as we approached we might as well be doing radio for what I could see thru the lens.
Dawn broke as we entered the pass and the sound of gunfire suddenly increased dramatically, there was a lot going down as the first Marines had gone in by chopper under darkness and where coming under stiff resistance. With each 100 yards closer to the village the sound of gunfire reverberated around the truck, at least one good thing was that the ANA never bought their weapons up into any offensive posture and the risk for us of being accidentally shot was negated.
As we entered the village outskirts it became apparent that things were spinning wildly and the Taliban resistance was stronger than originally anticipated and waves of gunfire swept around us from the mountains.
Villagers were seen fleeing from compounds as more bullets cracked from heavy guns and recoilless rifles. A RPG went screaming between two Marine MRAP's and exploded on the hill behind us. The compound of the base of operations that the Marines had set up in was under serious attack and from a hundred yards away I stood in the back of the 7-ton truck and filmed Marines ducking and running as the Taliban bullets kicked up dust around their feet.
The worst thing is that you realize in a few minutes we would both be having to do the run ourselves from truck to compound, not a happy thought as I could see from my viewfinder what was going down.
On the rooftop a line of Marines could be seen and the noise from the gunfire echoed around the valley and village. I needed to get there and get the action as soon as possible, the smell of cordite is a lure to a cameraman that is hard to avoid. And knowing that it is safer to be at the front rather than stuck in a truck exposed also weighed on my mind.
When it came time to disembark, my mind switched off from the scenes I had been filming minutes before and it was a fast crouching weaving run across the 30 yards to the sanctuary of the compound.
“Where is the rooftop?” was my first question panting and dripping from sweat. Greg was to get the equipment into the compound I was to get to the roof and start filming. Climbing thru a hole blown between compound walls I raced thru the building and up onto the roof.
8 Marines were stationed behind a three-foot wall on the roof; the floor of the roof was littered with spent ammunition. And every few seconds another volley was spewed into the village. Keeping low I dashed across the roof to the wall and took cover next to the Marines. Bathed in sweat and dirt they looked happy this was the action that every one of them craved.
One Marine stood up with binoculars exposed and started calling directions for fire, at that moment a Taliban bullet hit the wall inches from him and flew up, missing him by inches. Another volley from there machine guns bought a few minutes of silence from the Taliban.
And so for the next hour or so it was volley, counter volley. I crawled up and down the line trying to anticipate the salvo. Greg joined me on the roof next to the wall; keeping low we filmed a couple of on cameras and talked with the Marines as they improvised ways of trying to keep their ammunition out of the dirt.
By now the sun was a furnace above us, and Marines poured water down there backs trying to keep cool, none of them wanted to be relieved as this was were the action was going down. I realized that soon Greg and I would start getting heatstroke if we did not get off the roof soon and crouching low we ran to the stairwell and down.
It was now past noon and I needed to get the footage to New York, the incredible thing is that with todays technology we carry a small satellite dish about the size of a briefcase that gives us a direct uplink and hooked up to a computer, I can edit, compress and send the files direct to New York.
The room we found in the compound had been stormed earlier and the dirt floor was covered in broken glass, window frames hang loosely, old rags and a frayed piece of rug were the only things in the room. And old tin box became my workspace out of the wreckage that existed.
First footage sent in and a live shot from the safety of the garden outside, every few minutes another volley of gunfire echoed around, to a bizarre extent you can become immune to the noise, as if it were just the norm.
The next phase for us was to edit a feature length piece for the Evening Primetime broadcast, and sitting in the shell of the room we were piecing together a spot, when all of a sudden there was a loud scream around the compound.
“Fire in the Hold”
What the f…! . Every single person suddenly ducks down into a fetal position and puts their fingers in their ears. You close your eyes not sure of what are about to happen.
Boom !!!!
A explosion blasts thru every single nerve in your body, it shakes every organ and the room simply disappeared in a barrage of dirt, dust, rubble and even pieces of window frame exploded and shattered around us. The computer was blown almost to the ground and the dish outside was now in a new position.
A wall had been blasted to allow more movement round the compound.
Picking ourselves back up Greg took a photo of the aftermath.
You cannot dwell on what has happened, the explosion had blown the computer around so much that I lost half the work I had done and had to start again. Brushing the debris off it. I started again. Five minutes later…
“Fire in the Hold,” screamed from room to room. Grasping a bit of rag I covered what I could in the few seconds. Computer on the ground this time. Running for the door we ducked down and covering our ears waited for the explosion again.
Kaboom !!!!
The building shook around us as dirt and dust once again engulfed us. Like Pig Pen from a Peanuts cartoon we stood up and looked back into our room half expecting that everything would have been destroyed.
But as the dust cleared the computer and camera gear came into sight, looking the worse for wear yet still working. Daylight was fading fast and I told Greg “ Forget the next live shot to New York”, we were basically trying to stay alive.
With no power the computer and little satellite transmitter were running on battery and it was a race against time. As I started the file transfer to New York the computer low battery warning came on, as did the satellite battery. It was a race against time and as darkness fell the story made it to New York, and a minute later the sat dish went dead.
As we lay down amongst the rubble and broken glass for the night, drinking a hot bottle of water, the gunfire continued from the roof above us. Exhaustion swept over us and in clothes crusted with salt from sweat I slipped into a sleep on the floor. Sharing the space with a company of young Marines we all had just enough room to stretch out.
Dawn was a few hours away and for a few brief hours we both slept. Tomorrow we knew was when we would begin foot patrols around the village to clear out the Taliban compound by compound.
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