Free Spoken from the Front by Andy McNab Page A

much
to do except look at the view. There were other places I
wanted to be at that time. But we got the boys off.
    We were on the deck and tensions were running high. Then
I started to take off but there were two troops still on who
hadn't had time to get off. So we lifted off, but then someone
shouted we still had two guys on so I held it there. But the
guys had already decided they were going to go for it – leave,
jump. I was going to put it back down but they just jumped,
not knowing how high we were. We were probably twenty
feet off the deck but we could have been 200 and they were
going to go for it anyway. They just jumped – that was real
balls. The radio-ops guy broke his foot landing. It was a
communications problem [in the back of the helicopter], but
these things happen.
    Then another heavy-machine-gun post opened up behind
us. I looked at my co-pilot and these big balls of green tracer
were passing close to his head. We were very lucky. But we
got out of it. I've never seen that amount of fire before or
since. It was good fun. We then got engaged all the way up
till we were out of the threat band. But we were lucky. I still
don't know how it happened but my aircraft didn't take any
rounds. The other two aircraft took quite a few. We were just
close to the bank and the fire was coming within inches of the
aircraft all around us. We didn't lose any guys, but a guy on
one of the other aircraft got shot in the arm.
1 August 2006
    McNab: Three Paras were killed in a carefully set ambush as they
went to resupply comrades at a remote outpost in Helmand province.
The men were in a convoy of twelve armoured vehicles. The ambush
was launched by more than fifty Taliban using machine-guns and
RPGs. The men who died, along with another soldier who was
seriously wounded, had leapt out of their Spartan armoured personnel
carriers to engage the insurgents with their rifles. Air support was
called in and an Apache attack helicopter killed at least one Taliban
fighter. The dead men were named as Second Lieutenant Ralph
Johnson, twenty-four, a member of D Squadron, Captain Alex Eida,
twenty-nine, of 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, and
Lance Corporal Ross Nicholls, twenty-seven, also of D Squadron.
August 2006
    Corporal Tara Rankin, 16 Medical Regiment
    Corporal Tara Rankin, a combat medical technician currently
serving with 16 Medical Regiment, is twenty-nine. She was born
in Fiji, the daughter of a teacher, and is an only child. Her uncle,
Trooper Talaiasi Labalaba, served in the SAS and was killed
during the heroic battle of Mirbat, Oman, in 1972 when nine
soldiers from the Regiment fought off a 250-strong enemy force.
She was brought up mainly in Britain, and left school at sixteen,
in 1996, to return with her parents to Fiji. Rankin had long
considered a military and medical career, partly to follow in her
uncle's footsteps, so in 2000 she returned to Britain and joined
up the next year as a medic. In 2003 she did a tour in Iraq and
went to Afghanistan three years later. In March 2007, she
married Corporal Simon Rankin, who serves with the Royal
Signals. She is based in Colchester, Essex.
    I love my job. I've always liked the medical side of things but
I thought the Army would be a challenge so I might as well
go for it. I like seeing people getting better, being there for
sick people, sick relatives or friends. It's the satisfaction you
get out of helping them to get better. I do feel I'm a front-line
soldier just as much as the men, but sometimes I have to
remind myself that I'm female. It's all about how a female
member of the armed forces fits into the environment. If she
feels at ease amongst her male colleagues, then she'll fit in
well and the men will work well with her.
    On 6 August, I was a 7 Para RHA [Royal Horse Artillery]
medic, part of a patrol that deployed out on a three-hour
ground ops known as Op Snakebite with 3 Para. I was
involved as A1 Echelon and RAP Rear [3 Para] alongside our
Canadian med