Saving Private Sarbi by Sandra Lee

Author:Sandra Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS027170, BIO000000
ISBN: 9781742694047
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2011-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH

Sergeant D and Sarbi rotated out of Sydney with Special Operations Task Group 7 (SOTG7) on 24 June 2008. He was 32 years old, unattached, as fit as he’d ever been, physically and mentally, and at his peak in command of the Explosive Detection Dog Section in Uruzgan. He had spent the previous six months in a series of exacting pre-deployment exercises in Sydney, practising ways to minimise battlefield risks and improve operational effectiveness. He was ready for the hardcore work with the Commandos and SAS.

The new rotation was heading back to Afghanistan at the height of the the fighting season. Their task, and the message to the enemy, was clear. As the head of Special Operations in Afghanistan Major General Tim McOwan said: ‘We will find you. We will hunt you down. Your time is limited. Leave now and go back to a normal life without violence.’

Australian newspaper headlines in recent days had painted a picture of an Afghanistan riddled by endemic government corruption amid a failing NATO campaign to win the hearts and minds of the locals. In a story headlined ‘Afghanistan’s deadly double whammy’, Fairfax journalist Tom Hyland wrote that Afghans were caught between a vicious insurgency and a deeply corrupt state. In another, headlined ‘Hearts and minds not won’, Hyland quoted a report by European aid agencies that claimed Afghans believed reconstruction efforts were ‘misplaced and even counterproductive’ until the government was free of corruption and security had been established.

‘It was measurably more dangerous than the first time I was there,’ Sergeant D says now. ‘Our role was totally different to the previous ones. We were doing a lot more compound searches and clearances getting to and from places. We were basically trying to get the local populace to follow the government rather than the Taliban and to do this we were trying to capture Taliban commanders, and have shuras with the local elders to see what they needed from us.’

By then, Australia had suffered four more fatalities in Uruzgan Province and the wounded numbered almost 40. On 27 April 2008, Lance Corporal Jason Marks, a commando with 4RAR and a father of two, died from a single shot to the back of his head. Twenty to 30 insurgent fighters attacked his vehicle-borne force element with small arms and RPGs as the Australians prepared for a targeted assault. Marks, a respected and commended soldier, was leading his platoon when he went down. Four other commandos were wounded in the three-hour pitched battle, one seriously as he heroically tried to help his leader.

On 23 November 2007, Private Luke James Worsley died in a buzz-saw of fire from a PKM heavy machine-gun as he stormed a known Taliban bomb-making compound 30 kilometres away from Camp Russell. His warning to his mates behind him saved their lives. They repaid him by fighting for hours to reclaim his body and carry him back over rugged terrain to their forward operating base. Not a single enemy survived the firefight.

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