Bomb Hunters by Rayment Sean

Author:Rayment, Sean [Rayment, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Collins
Published: 2011-01-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6: The Lonely Walk

‘I was almost killed the other day.’

Staff Sergeant Gareth Wood, ATO, 11 EOD Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps, serving with JFEOD Group

‘If you’re lucky, and I mean really lucky, you will leave Helmand with your team intact – no one killed or injured, no amputees. But you know you are going to get blown up, you know you are going to get shot at. You will have close shaves and you just have to hope that luck is on your side. But there are only so many rolls of the dice you can have before you get a double six. We all know that, but we train ourselves not to dwell on what might happen. I suppose you could say that we are living in denial but I don’t think there is any other way of getting through Afghan other than to have that sort of mentality.’

Woody and I are chatting over a cup of Army tea in one of the two steel-reinforced bunkers that serve as the canteen for the 150 soldiers operating from FOB Shawqat, the main headquarters of the Grenadier Guards battlegroup, to which Woody and his team are currently attached. It’s around 8 p.m. and the soldiers have finished their evening meal, a chicken curry followed by semi-frozen Black Forest Gateau, all washed down with an orange-coloured, sickly sweet squash. Curry is an Army staple – back in Camp Bastion the food halls where the soldiers eat offer it as a menu choice every day – but in Shawqat curry is a rarity and always a crowd-puller. It’s comfort food, it reminds the soldiers of home.

The bunker is lit by a series of low-hanging fluorescent lights emitting a dull-greenish hue. On one wall is an electric fly-catcher which periodically spits out a series of cracks every time a fly is zapped. The previous evening soldiers were betting on how many flies would be killed in one, five and ten minutes.

A 50-in. flat-screen TV fills a wall at one end of the building where three young soldiers sit engrossed in The Hurt Locker. It’s one of the many oddities of life in Helmand that many soldiers appear to relax by watching war films or playing violent computer games.

Woody looks over his shoulder and stares at the TV for a few seconds. Then he turns to me and a wide, toothy grin creeps across his face. ‘Hollywood,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘You just knew they weren’t going to get it right. You wouldn’t last five minutes if you behaved like that out here.’

I’ve now been with Woody and his team for over a week. I’ve seen him pull bombs from the ground after hours of toil. I’ve seen him tense, frustrated, angry and relieved, and I’ve listened to him talk longingly of his wife and 3-year-old twin daughters. But with so much to live for and so much to lose, I still can’t quite understand why Woody is a bomb hunter. Helmand province, the largest in Afghanistan, is without doubt currently the most dangerous place on the planet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.