I discovered James Elroy Flecker’s verse play Hassan (1922) at the weekend. His words ring true, perhaps because they reference snow covered mountains or perhaps because they so perfectly describe my mid life crisis. Ironically, they are also much admired by the Special Air Service, with whom I was mostly at loggerheads throughout my time in Afghanistan.
Go as a pilgrim and seek out danger far from the comfort and the well lit avenues of life.
Pit your every soul against the unknown and seek stimulation in the comfort of the brave.
Experience cold, hunger, heat and thirst and survive to see another challenge and another dawn.
Only then will you be at peace with yourself and be able to know and to say;
“I look down the farthest side of the mountain, fulfilled and understanding all, and truly content that I lived a full life and one that was my own choice.”
We are the Pilgrims, master; we shall go always a little further; it may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow across that angry or that glimmering sea.
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
The New York Times reports that the Kabul government is losing control of Afghanistan’s Highway network – built by international donors at a cost of $3 billion. I can’t say I’m surprised:
“The Kandahar–Herat highway forms part of Highway One, which itself is part of the southern section of a 2,200km ring road inside Afghanistan connecting the cities of Mazari Sharif, Kabul, Ghazni, Kandahar, Farah, and Herat.
Originally constructed by the Soviets in the 1960s, hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid, mostly from the US, Saudi Arabia and Japan, have been invested in its reconstruction following ISAF intervention in the country. In 2005, then US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad called the highway ‘a symbol of Afghan renewal and progress’. But in some quarters it is also known as the Highway to Hell.
Anyone wishing to travel the highway must pay illegal tolls, not only at the many ANA and AUP checkpoints along its route, but also to armed gangs and brigands, some of whom claim to be Taliban, who control its more remote stretches.
Kidnappings and killings of those unable or unwilling to pay are common, as are attacks on both military and civilian ISAF convoys that use the route. The road is heavily cratered in places and littered with burned out trucks, further hazards for the unwary traveller. In addition to logistics convoys, locals working with the government, aid agencies, and those connected to Westerners are also frequently targeted and killed.
Travelling at night is not recommended. Some sections of the highway have solar powered street lighting installed, but the photovoltaic panels have been stolen long ago. Lone headlights attract the attention of local bandits. Approaching one of the many ANA checkpoints after dark is likely to attract automatic gunfire from nervous soldiers who, with good reason, fear suicide bombers.”
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
When I first set out to write a book about my experiences in Afghanistan I was informed by Army Media Communications that it could not:
Criticise our allies, other Government Departments or past/current Prime Ministers.
Include anything that would undermine the Army’s reputation.
Since I planned to do all these things it became immediately apparent that, in order to escape censorship, I would have to leave the army reserve.
I now find myself subject to censorship from an unexpected quarter.
Facebook.
Initially there was some, not unreasonable, objection to the doodle on the front cover of my notebook. This was resolved with gaffer tape.
However, the Facebook censors have also determined that the book’s title is unsuitable. With good reason Facebook insists that “posts can’t contain profanity, harassment, or references to your audience’s personal characteristics (such as gender, race, age or name).”
So, it turns out that ‘Old Man’ was a little too personal and has now been redacted from the Facebook page name and profile image. However, the book itself remains unapologetically unchanged.
I can’t help but wonder what Mark Zuckerberg would make of this? Facemash, the precursor to Facebook was shut down after it was deemed inappropriate.
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
Yesterday, as the Invictus Games were concluding in Orlando, I joined an email thread between two readers, one in London and the other in Thailand (my only reader in Thailand so you know who you are). They were discussing Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). It was impossible not to reflect that many of the Invictus competitors are the victims of IEDs and have overcome terrible injuries to compete for their country. In my book I have tried to provide an insight into what all soldiers endured as they patrolled the badlands of Helmand Province:
“As the Grenadiers or fighting Ribs1 of Inkerman Company knew only too well, living with the constant possibility that your every next step may trigger an IED slowly and inevitably degrades the human spirit. It pervades every waking moment and is a constant and exhausting factor. Every breath must be carefully savoured lest it be your last. Every footfall must be critically considered and evaluated before being placed. Each tread is committed with unyielding trepidation. The euphoria of one safe step is immediately replaced by apprehension at the next and so on and so on until …
According to Aristotle, ‘Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.’ Not being as erudite as the great Greek polymath, for me, fear is the ever‑present possibility that my fellow man has carefully concealed a yellow palm oil container packed with a volatile mixture of ammonium nitrate and aluminium in the ground beneath my feet. It is the screaming anticipation that my very next step will initiate this crude mixture and a dark and powerful blast will remove my legs and my manhood and leave me bloodied and broken in the dirt.
As friends and colleagues fall victim to these devices and are forever mutilated or killed in circumstances or locations you have visited yourself, it becomes possible to reflect not that you have been lucky, but that you must be next. It’s a conviction that slowly and inexorably takes hold in the darkest recesses of your exhausted mind and grows like a malignant cancer.
During the course of my patrols in the Gap I witnessed young Guardsmen so overcome with fear that they would vomit at the front gates of the base before bravely stepping off on a patrol they have convinced themselves will be their last. I have also seen men so exhausted by constant vigilance that they lose all reason and stumble about blindly, no longer caring if they live or die.
Both are equally distressing to observe. But in this I was not always a mere observer.
On one patrol I was myself so overwhelmed by the certainty that I was about to take my last few steps on this earth that I became rooted to the spot unable to move either forward or back. It took the gentle and patient persuasion of a better man half my age to guide me, temporarily broken and useless, to safety.
I would hear IEDs detonated by other callsigns, sometimes less than a kilometre distant. Or I would join a platoon for a few days, to learn soon afterwards that one of their number had been grievously wounded.
One device claimed the legs of another London Regiment soldier, Lance Corporal John Wilson with whom I’d trained and prepared for deployment, another took the foot of Jay, an SF soldier whom I’d got to know. Jay had postponed his end of tour date when yet more faults on the ageing RAF Tristar fleet had delayed his replacement’s arrival into theatre.
I tried to convince him that he didn’t need to go back out on the ground but he ignored my advice. When the news came through that his patrol had been whacked by an IED and had a serious casualty I instantly feared it must be him, and so it proved to be. Some reckoned he’d been lucky – the device only partially detonated and his injuries could have been much worse – but I knew that Jay’s luck had run out with his chuff chart2”
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
1Ribs/fighting Ribs: Inkerman Company, First Battalion The Grenadier Guards are known as the Ribs or fighting Ribs after their predecessors took part in the Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-74) as marines, accommodated in the ship’s hold amongst the ribs.
2Chuff Chart: A chart or calendar used by servicemen and woman to count down the days until the end of a tour of duty.
It’s easy to see why Prince Harry has always been such a great role model for soldiers. He scraps outside nightclubs. He wears inappropriate fancy dress. He gets naked with beautiful young women. But he may just have surpassed all these prior achievements with this speech at the Invictus Games opening ceremony:
“Hello Orlando!
I cannot tell you how proud and excited I am to open the second Invictus games here in America.
I’m a long way from London tonight. But when I look out and I see so many familiar faces, servicemen and women, their friends and their families and all the people who have got them here – I feel like I’m at home.
I spent 10 years in the British Army and I was deployed to Afghanistan twice. I served alongside soldiers from all over the world. I saw the sacrifices you and your families made to serve your nations. I learned about the importance of teamwork and camaraderie in a way that only military service can teach you. And when I travelled back from the battlefield on a plane carrying the body of a Danish soldier and three young Brits, fighting for their lives, I began to understand the real, permanent cost of war.
I joined the Army because, for a long time, I just wanted to be one of the guys. But what I learned through serving was that the extraordinary privileges of being a Prince gave me an extraordinary opportunity to help my military family. That’s why I had to create the Invictus Games – to build a platform for all those who have served to prove to the world what they have to offer.
Over the next four days, you will see things that in years past just wouldn’t have been possible. You will see people who by rights should have died on the battlefield – but instead they are going for gold on the track or in the pool. You will be inspired, you will be moved, and I promise you will be entertained.
While I have your attention, though, I want to briefly speak about an issue that for far too many of you is shrouded in shame and fear. An issue that is just as important for many of you watching at home as it is for those of you in this stadium tonight.
It is not just physical injuries that our Invictus competitors have overcome. Every single one of them will have confronted tremendous emotional and mental challenges. When we give a standing ovation to the competitor with the missing limbs, let’s also cheer our hearts out for the man who overcame anxiety so severe he couldn’t leave his house. Let’s cheer for the woman who fought through post-traumatic stress and let’s celebrate the soldier who was brave enough to get help for his depression.
Over the next four days you will get to know these amazing competitors. They weren’t too tough to admit that they struggled with their mental health, and they weren’t too tough to get the help they needed.
To those of you watching at home and who are suffering from mental illness in silence – whether a veteran or a civilian, a mum or a dad, a teenager or a grandparent – I hope you see the bravery of our Invictus champions who have confronted invisible injuries, and I hope you are inspired to ask for the help that you need.
To end, can I just say thank you to all of you guys.
You are fierce competitors.
You are role models that any parent would be proud to have their children follow.
You’ve made me a better person. You are about to inspire the world and I’m proud to call you my friends.
So, let’s put on a hell of a show in memory of all of our fallen comrades who didn’t make it back.
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
An FV-432 armored personnel carrier of the 7th Brigade Royal Scots, 1st United Kingdom Armored Division, crosses into Kuwait from southern Iraq during Operation Desert Storm.
As the Royal Artillery exhibit 100 years of artillery pieces at a historical display marking their 300th anniversary I wonder how many are still in service:
“MY FIRST ASSIGNMENT with my new regiment was to attend the two week annual training package, or ATP as it is known. Every TA unit is expected to undertake two weeks of collective training each year. The London Regiment had elected to conduct its ATP at RAF St Mawgan, near Newquay in Cornwall. It wasn’t entirely clear what my duties would be but this didn’t seem to matter so long as I turned up with all the kit with which I had recently been issued.
The year prior to my leaving regular service in 1996, the army had introduced new clothing and personal equipment which had been collectively labelled ‘Combat ‘95’. Like the rest of the British public, I was aware of the debate about under‑resourcing in the army. Hardly a day went by without talk of the inadequacy of Snatch Land Rovers, or the shortage of helicopters in Afghanistan.
The debate was vividly brought home to me by my kit issue.
In the 15 years I’d been away there appeared to have been no upgrades or improvements to Combat ‘95, other than there seemed to be less of it. ‘Barrack dress’ and ‘lightweights’ had been removed as orders of dress, as had the Jersey, Heavy Wool – which was probably a good thing. Although Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) protective clothing had been rebranded as Chemical, Biological, Radioactive and Nuclear (CBRN), it was otherwise unchanged and in any event was ‘dues out’ and not available for issue.
I was later to discover that giving old bits of kit new names was a recurring theme. The ancient FV432 armoured personnel carrier, a relic of the 1960s Cold War, had returned to service as the ‘Bulldog’. The Lynx helicopter, somehow forced upon the British Army by Westland in a deal dating back to the 1970s, was now the ‘Wildcat’.
The Lynx was originally much loved by pilots for its ability to do a barrel roll. This feature made it tremendous fun to fly, but turned out not to be a battle winning capability and did little to compensate for its failings. It was too small to be an effective troop carrier, and lacked the integrated weapon systems of an attack helicopter. It had first come in to service in the year Showaddywaddy topped the charts with You got what it takes but as a military helicopter it could never aspire to the title of that particular hit single.
A Lynx would later get me out of trouble whilst on a fighting patrol in the insurgent stronghold of Zumbalay. Following a pre‑dawn infiltration to probe enemy strengths and dispositions our presence had proved unpopular with the local Taliban. A number of small arms engagements ensued before the insurgents succeeded in blocking our exfiltration route. It was time to call for some air support and an Apache attack helicopter, callsign Ugly, was requested.
The Ugly is an awesome killing machine and the Taliban know better than to try and take it on. Its presence alone would be enough to make them go to ground and secure our safe passage. But we were informed that our request would be met by a different attack helicopter, callsign Crucial. This callsign was unknown to me and, when it came on station a few minutes later, I was dismayed to discover that it was nothing more than a Lynx with a 50‑calibre machine gun mounted in the door. Calling this an attack helicopter and thus comparing it with an Apache was like comparing the space shuttle with a paper aeroplane.
As I had anticipated, the Crucial did not have the desired effect on our adversaries, at least until the door gunner opened up with his 50, killing two of their number and giving us the opportunity to break cover and hot foot it back to the relative safety of our desert leaguer. I was grateful to the Lynx pilot and his crew, they may well have saved our lives, but I still reckoned the Lynx should have retired about the same time Showaddywaddy called it a day.
Even the Land Rover in which I travelled that summer from central London to Cornwall had been renamed the ‘Wolf’. It was hard to imagine a more inappropriate name. The gutless beast was nearly as old as I was and incapable of speeds in excess of 45 miles per hour. From where I was sitting on the sweaty vinyl cushion of that ancient vehicle, it didn’t feel like the MoD was investing in its strategic reserves.”
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the true story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
Rustam Ali Seeram’s report makes for difficult reading. I see only an abundance of risk and a glimmer of hope. Although it’s hard to imagine how things could be worse, sadly it seems little has changed since 2012:
“According to its menfolk the city of Gereshk was a model for gender equality and required no further encouragement from Western infidels. It already had a school for girls and even allowed women to walk the streets – albeit covered with a burkha and escorted by a male member of the family. This was quite liberal enough.
Being an infidel, I personally believed that the vast majority of social problems in Afghanistan could ultimately be traced back to the absurd practice of gender segregation. I was pretty certain that nature had intended men and women to coexist and from time to time to engage in consensual sexual intercourse. But these were radical and seditious views that had no place in Helmand.
Curiously, the Ministry of Defence also imposed strict gender segregation rules on its representatives in Helmand and banned sexual congress entirely, not as some botched attempt at cultural sensitivity, but because ‘our personnel are expected to behave in accordance with the Armed Forces values and standards at all times’. It was never clear to me which of these values and standards applied to my sex life, but since this was an entirely solitary activity anyway it was not a question that ever came up, so to speak.
Despite their liberal tendencies, the male inhabitants of Gereshk still routinely imprisoned their wives and daughters in the family compound and subjected them to appalling abuse. Josef Fritzl – ‘Das Monster von Amstetten’ – who imprisoned his daughter in the basement of his house and abused her over a 24 year period, would have been considered an upstanding member of the community. But he was already serving a life sentence in an Austrian prison for the criminally insane.
What had shocked the whole of Europe and been utterly incomprehensible in Amstetten, however inconceivable it might sound, was culturally normal activity in Helmand.”
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the true story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
As I discovered firsthand, The Prime Minister is right. Afghanistan is fantastically, mind-bogglingly corrupt:
“At the top of the list was the District Governor (DG), Salim Rodi. In addition to his role as the official representative of the people of Nahr‑E‑Saraj District, like almost all appointees of the Government of the Islamic Republic (GIRoA) he was also heavily implicated in Helmand’s narcotics industry, believed to be responsible for around 75% of global opium production.
The pressures of high office in the violent international opium business, and the even more violent business of Helmandian politics, had taken their toll and he was also a heavy drinker. Rather like Jeffrey Bernard, only with perhaps greater justification, he was frequently too unwell to perform his gubernatorial duties.
Neither his drinking nor his role in the opium trade were condoned in any of the 48 copies of the Qur’an inadvertently reduced to ashes in the Bagram incinerators. Nonetheless the Governor was outraged at the news, although he grudgingly accepted our heartfelt apology.
The DG would later claim that he personally intervened to quell a riot when ‘hundreds’ of outraged citizens marched through Gereshk in protest. Since none of our ground units or reconnaissance assets reported any unusual public gatherings I concluded that the DG was extemporising. It seemed more likely to me that having failed to foment a riot himself, perhaps because he’d been too drunk at the time, he was attempting to spin his lack of incitive powers to his advantage.
Next on the list was the District Chief of Police, the appropriately abbreviated D‑CoP, Ghullie Khan. Like his boss the Governor, the D‑CoP was predictably involved in the narcotics business. To supplement this income he also used the Afghan Uniformed Police (AUP) department he commanded to collect illegal taxes from local citizens. There were a number of ISAF apologists who defended this unlawful activity as ‘culturally normal’. I even read a paper on the subject.
Personally, I was deeply sceptical of this point of view. The truth was that ISAF seemed powerless to prevent the endemic corruption that pervaded every level of the AUP, and not a little ashamed that the primary source of these illegal taxes was a levy on the use of the main highways that bisected the district – all of which had been funded at great expense with international aid.
No one in ISAF was really sure how much the illegal taxation business was worth in Nahr‑E‑Saraj but it wasn’t petty cash. Ghullie Khan had previously been a senior police officer in the neighbouring district of Sangin. He had been removed from this post after an ISAF investigation revealed that he’d been sodomizing little boys there. In the wake of this scandal his boss, Nabi Elham – the Provincial Chief of Police – naturally promoted him to be top cop in Nahr‑E‑Saraj, although it was rumoured that he’d first demanded a bribe of half a million US dollars.
There were ISAF papers defending paedophilia and bribery as culturally normal activities too, although I didn’t waste any time reading them. Culturally normal or not, I reckoned that the citizens of those countries that had helped to fund the district’s new highways would be dismayed to learn that they were now being used to line the pockets of a known pederast, drug baron and all round bad guy.
Ghullie’s favourite son, Zaibiullah was a chip off the old block and had followed his father into the AUP. When a local shopkeeper failed to pay his taxes on time he tied his arms and legs together and drowned him into the Nahr‑E‑Buhgra canal to teach him a lesson. Such was Zaibiullah’s intellect that it was quite possible to imagine him warning the drowning man that next time he failed to pay Zaibiullah would put a bullet in his head.
It was just as possible to imagine some obscure ISAF department publishing a paper defending drowning as a culturally normal method of deterrence in much the same way that waterboarding was a culturally normal interview technique in the United States.”
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the true story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the true story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.
A must read; the unauthorised, irreverent and deeply moving first hand account of the British mission in Afghanistan by Chris Green. Read it on Kindle now http://bit.ly/SpinZhira
1Ribs/fighting Ribs: Inkerman Company, First Battalion The Grenadier Guards are known as the Ribs or fighting Ribs after their predecessors took part in the Anglo-Dutch Wars (1652-74) as marines, accommodated in the ship’s hold amongst the ribs.
David Cameron calls Nigeria and Afghanistan ‘fantastically corrupt’ in conversation with the Queen.
(and phallic imagery)
SPIN ZHIRA 