Free Spoken from the Front by Andy McNab Page B

team. The main aim was to resupply Musa
Qa'leh and relieve Pathfinder Platoon. We carried out
patrolling and route clearance. We were reassuring the local
population and, at the same time, looking out for enemy
forces or any enemy activities around the area.
    We had to treat a guy who got shot. He had been in a small
convoy helping deliver supplies to Danish troops based near
Musa Qa'leh. He was doing top cover in a WMIK [armed
Land Rover]. It was one of those unexpected events but anything
can happen out here. A young soldier had apparently
got shot by a sniper, just after three p.m. The bullet went
straight through his head and chest. I was sad because he was
only young – nineteen years old – and it was his first tour as
well. When he was shot, I was in a Pinzgauer. We were only
a few hundred yards from him: first we heard an echo [from
a shot] and then a lot of shouting in the distance. The casualty
was brought to us in the back of a Pinz. Then he was put on
a stretcher. We had expected more than one but in the end he
was the only one. There were four of us waiting for him when
he arrived: a doctor, who is in charge, a med senior, who was
a sergeant, and two other medics, including me.
    We knew from the start that he was very badly injured.
But we tried to do what we could for him for as long as
possible. We got information on his condition from those who
had accompanied him. But there was no sign of breathing
from the chest and no pulse. Eventually, the doctor had to call
it a day after about twenty minutes. It was very sad, but there
was nothing more that we could do. I had met him before –
he was a funny character, with a great sense of humour. I
used to see him in the cookhouse with his colleagues at Camp
Bastion to say, 'Hi,' and ''Bye,' or to have a cup of tea.
    His comrades were in a bad way too. The shock of losing a
colleague, a friend, really got to them. Some were in a state
of shock, feelings of mixed emotions, as well as being
apprehensive for an hour. We had to treat them in the same
way as if they were suffering from battle shock.
August 2006
    Major Maria Holliday, QGM, Royal Military Police (RMP)
    In the middle of the tour, the brigade set up the Security
Sector Reform Cell at the Brigade Headquarters in Lashkar
Gah. This basically meant that we were helping the Afghan
institutions, like the army and the police, get back on their
feet. We had already been helping the army for quite some
time, but there was a recognition that the police play a vital
role in security too and they desperately needed help
with training and mentoring. Although the Foreign Office
employed some ex-civil policemen to mentor the civil police,
they were mentoring at a higher level, the heads of department,
and there was nobody really to mentor the police on
the ground. So this partly became our role. We set up a cell
and formed a team of mentors to go and help them. There
was some training going on that the US provided, but this
was us setting up the British effort to assist the process. This
unit was formed in Lashkar Gah but the boys were going out
on the ground starting in Lashkar Gah and then also in
Gereshk, Sangin and Garmsir.
    I sent a young officer down there to Garmsir: a young
lieutenant and a sergeant too. In terms of learning experience,
they certainly learnt a great deal because that was a very
difficult area to work in. It was full of insurgents, and the only
people on the ground in Garmsir were British soldiers,
Taliban and Afghan police. All the civilians had long gone: it
was far too dangerous. Lieutenant Paul Armstrong and the
sergeant did what they could to mentor the police but it was
hard work. They had quite a nasty incident where a lot of
the guys they had been mentoring were blown up by a roadside
bomb. Some died, and others had horrendous injuries.
After the incident, the police brought their injured to the
British camp. The lieutenant was giving first aid to the guys
he had been mentoring and that was