Fifteen Years on the Frontline

October 30, 2009

By Stephen Dupont

Diary Entry – September 30, 2005

AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells is blaring out of a loudspeaker above my head as I rumble out of Kandahar Air force Base. I’m nervous, excited and crammed inside a Humvee. After six weeks of missions with American soldiers in Afghanistan, the flak jacket and helmet I’m wearing are starting to feel very much a part of my body. I’m travelling with the PSYOP unit in a large convoy of American paratroopers, Afghan and French Special Forces.

Music is playing as we drive north, Johnny Cash, Rage Against The Machine, the theme to Star Wars, even Fleetwood Mac; it’s a soundtrack to war. John says he plays the music because it pisses of the Taliban (they banned music when they were in power), and announces to the enemy the Americans are coming! ‘It’s the only way we can find the Taliban,’ John says. ‘If they attack us first, then we can fight back.’ Otherwise you just don’t see them. One marine described it perfectly to me: ‘It’s like chasing ghosts – these shadows pop out of caves and attack you, and then they drop their guns and run away.’

Diary Entry – October 1, 2005

I’ve just woken up in a rocky dry riverbed. I arrived last night with Legion Company, the unit I’m embedded with. I’m eating MREs [meals ready to eat] looking out at a beautiful sunrise over dusty moonlike mountains. I’m digesting the drive up here and last night’s patrol inside the village. Yesterday another platoon ahead of us was ambushed a few hundred meters away, one American and one Afghan soldier were killed, and two insurgents were also killed in the battle. Some wounded locals are coming toward us. John, who is also a trained trauma nurse, heads over to investigate. It’s a biblical scene with four men carrying the wounded man on a homemade stretcher above the river bed. A young boy who is also wounded is walking beside them. The man says the Americans shot him. It’s impossible to know, but they were both injured during yesterday’s fight. John and another medic attend the wounds and prepare them to be evacuated by US helicopter back to Kandahar.

I go out on a patrol with Lft. Nelson and his platoon, along with Afghan Special Forces and their two French advisors. We spend the morning searching all the houses in the village for weapons or any Taliban that might still be hiding out. The local villagers are incredibly frightened and after a full morning of eyes and ears, nothing much is achieved. I ask Nelson for permission to see the two dead insurgents up on the hill directly above us. He gives me two escorts and we walk up the rocky slope. As we approach the crest I see a group of American soldiers and I notice one soldier lighting something. As I move closer I see that he has just set fire to two corpses. I film video and shoot pictures quickly so I don’t miss anything. I talk to the soldiers about the battle they’d just been in and the scene before us. I can hear broadcasts in Pashto, which I know are coming from the PSYOP guys. It‘s all very surreal! A soldier tells me they’re burning the bodies for hygiene purposes.