Afghanistan conflict: Troops risking their lives for a chance of normality

The regiment, which is known as 3 Close Support Logistic Regiment (CSLR) in Afghanistan, transports equipment and supplies in convoys of up to 100 heavily-armoured and armed vehicles back and forth between Camp Bastion and outlying bases.

Between April 1 and July 1 this year alone, personnel from 3 CSLR have travelled 121,705 miles – equivalent to around the world five times – to deliver equipment including 1.8m litres of bottled water and enough fuel to travel to the moon and back six times.

The convoys are led by three Mastiffs or Ridgebacks and backed by another two. The vehicles feature distinctive bars to protect from rocket attacks, a bomb-proof undercarriage and vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns that are accurate up to two kilometres.

But the job is nonetheless one of the most exposed and dangerous at present because UK infantry have handed over to the Afghan National Army and are no longer carrying out so many patrols.

The men and women from 3 CSLR told of being attacked by small arms fire, woken by rockets and hearing threats of suicide bombers over the radio, all while working in 50C or more in vehicles for days.

Commander follows dad’s footsteps

Lieutenant Sarah Dunn, 24, was brought up in Bloxham and has followed her father into the Army. She now commands a troop and is one of the few women in 3 CSLR.

The former Bloxham School student said: “My father was in the forces and I always thought it would be an exciting job. I get to travel and I get the responsibility.

“I have 30 people in the camp to command and 16 vehicles that I have to maintain. I don’t know many other 24-year-olds who can say that.”

Lt Dunn is in charge of where the vehicles are, where they are going and what they are carrying. She also manages the drop-off when the vehicles arrive at their destination.

She added: “Everyone’s got this sort of romantic idea of going to war. I’m almost glad I can go home and say I have experienced it, but then the other side is that people have died and it’s very serious.”

She has witnessed a fatal attack while monitoring overhead cameras and has come under rocket and small arms fire herself, but she said one of the biggest dangers was maintaining focus while working for hours at a time.

She said: “We have had people go to sleep and go off the road and when you’re on top cover for 15 hours in the heat and you’re tired, that’s when people stop looking. That’s the hardest, to motivate yourself when you’re in the same state, and to motivate everyone else.”

But Lt Dunn also faces the challenge of being one of the few women working in 3 CSLR.

She said: “Sometimes when you are working with the interpreters they make comments to the other lads asking if I’ve got a boyfriend, and one of the local shopkeepers wanted to buy me, because he wanted to get back to the UK.

“But I don’t see anything different. No-one is trying to prove themselves out here, we are just out doing a job like everyone else – you’re either good or you’re not.”

Sense of humour is key but safety is paramount

Corporal Darran Price, 32, commands the vehicle second from the front of 3 CSLR’s huge convoys, but he cannot wait to return home to his wife and four children in Abingdon.

He said: “We have a laugh on operations. It is a lot of fun – the squaddie sense of humour – but we get the job done and don’t want to let each other down.

“We are the main guys on the ground now, because the infantry are in Forward Operating Bases.

“That’s why there has been a lot less causalities recently – the Taliban don’t want to mess with a Mastiff. We do get pot shots but the boys have got bigger answers on these.

“We have had a few contacts where they have fired at us, otherwise they’ve put in IEDs (improvised explosive devices) knowing we’re going back that way.

“In Nad Ali (a district in Helmand province) there is always small arms fire, and we have had threats of suicide IEDs.”

Cpl Price, who is originally from Blackwood in South Wales, has a wife, Nikki, and four children, Shauna, 13, Ellie, 10, Kayden, six, and Rose, one.

He said: “It gets hard, to be honest with you. I miss them a lot, I really do. When you come out to places like this it makes you think what you have really got back home and what life really means. I have got R&R (rest and recuperation) in two weeks and I can’t wait.

“We have just had the garden done at home and I’m going to sit in the garden and play with the kids, and then take Rose to the beach for the first time.”

But Cpl Price said he planned to stay in the Army for another nine years and, when asked if he ever felt like leaving, said: “This is what I know. I joined up at 16 and it’s all I have ever done.”

Private Daniel Beesley, 20, joined the Army to make his father proud and is now a driver and gunner for 3 CSLR in Mastiffs or Ridgebacks.

He said: “It’s very difficult at times, especially when you’re driving these at night, because the visibility is not very good.

“The roads in Afghanistan are not like what they are in the UK.”

He said that during his first operation his vehicle almost ended up in the river after the back wheel skidded on mud as he tried to pass over a gap.

He said: “We were near on 45 degrees. We were looking towards the river alongside us and thinking that was a bit sketchy.”

But Pte Beesley said he felt safe within the vehicle, adding: “As long as you’re in the vehicle and in your kit and seatbelt, nine times out of 10 you will be okay.

“They might blow up the vehicle but everyone inside should be okay.

“We’ve been shot at before and the rounds hit the vehicle but they don’t penetrate it.”

He added: “I appreciate if people haven’t been out here before they don’t know what it is like and don’t understand it, but it’s one of those things.

“We don’t live in fear, we just go about our daily business.”

Pte Beesley, who is originally from Yorkshire, joined the Army four years ago, aged 16.

Asked why he had signed up, he said: “My old man. He was a police officer for about 15 years.

“My brother went into the police, one of my sisters went into the Navy, and my dad, ever since I was young, thought I would suit the Army. It was his call.”

Asked if he had joined to make his father proud, he said: “Yes.”

Lance Corporal Ian Hughes, 31, dedicates his time in the UK to fostering children with his wife, but in Afghanistan he commands the third vehicle leading the 3 CSLR convoys.

He described the operations as “chatting sessions” of talking, taking the mickey out of each other and pulling pranks such as gluing money to the footwells of the vehicles. But he said during an incident the mood would change, adding:

“Everyone gets serious then. For instance, last time when we went out, we saw an IED planted. We went out and blew it up – that’s what we’re trained to do.”

He said the convoys were most frequently attacked by groups of young children throwing stones.

He said: “These guys are extremely accurate. The kid looks seven years old but he can chuck it right into the turret.

“I think they think it’s a game. It makes a loud noise and they think it’s funny as hell. If you’re sat in the wagon you are laughing as well, but if you’re on top cover you’re ducking and diving.

“But it’s better that than them not being there. If they disappear, you tense up.

“If there’s no-one around the village or it’s quiet, that’s when you know something is planned or going to happen.”

L Cpl Hughes, who is originally from South Africa, has been fostering children with his wife, Fleur Hughes, in Abingdon for the past two years.

He said: “It’s my contribution to living in the UK, but it has stopped for six months, because I’m out here and she’s doing a music therapy degree.

“It’s rewarding to look after them and it takes your mind away from working. When I get back we are going for long-term placement so we can start building that relationship. If it goes well, then adoption might become available as well.”

Padre swaps his home church pulpit for the God quad

Padre Giles Allen, 43, is attached to Saints Peter and Paul’s Church in Wantage in the UK, but in Afghanistan he is the chaplain for 3 CSLR.

He said: “The most important thing a padre does is pray for the troops.

“We still have our priestly discipline, morning and evening prayers every day and duties in the chapel, but on a nice, quiet week we spend most of our time visiting troops.

“At the moment it seems to be mostly family issues – there are a number of people whose wives are pregnant so they are coping with that – but at the beginning of the tour it was bereavement, people whose grandparents or parents had died.”

Padre Allen, who has been in the Territorial Army (TA) for five years and became a regular in October last year, volunteered to join troops in Afghanistan.

He said: “If you had seen me when I was 20 years old I wouldn’t have dreamed I would be sitting here in uniform. I thought I would be a parish priest for the rest of my life.

“But I sincerely believe it’s divine intervention and inspiration. We think we are living in our comfortable little world, doing what God wants us to do, and then something comes into your mind and won’t go away.

“I really do think God has taken me out of my comfort zone.”

He added: “It is a great privilege to be here. When you are in the barracks you are with soldiers Monday to Friday, 8am until 5pm, but out here you are living with them, eating with them, working with them. You see them in the highs and the lows.

“I suppose I do feel a bit responsible for them – I love them, I care for them.
“Like any person, they make you worried and you despair sometimes, but you are always concerned and thinking of them.”

Padre Allen, like other padres in theatre, has a quad bike to get around Camp Bastion – dubbed a God Quad – and hands out sweets donated by the Wantage congregation to the troops.

“It is amazing how a simple little sweet will put a smile on faces.”

Padre Allen lives in Didcot when he is in the UK with his wife, Fiona, and their two children, Joe, 13, and Martha, four.