My Son's in Afghanistan: Cooling Water in his Socks

Finally our soldier's Mum Mandy gets the longed-for phone call from Afghanistan

“Hello mum! It’s me!”

Oh my god! Finally, after nearly two weeks of crucifying silence I hear from Ross. I sit down on the dog, spilling my coffee.

“Still blistering in the heat though, but we’re all ok.  We trampled a field, but paid the farmer for the damage done… and the poor guy was later killed… probably because the Taliban thought he had sold information to us... another blew himself up planting a bomb. We all saw the explosion in the distance, which was captured on thermal imaging filmed by intelligence…. but they wouldn’t attack us outright, no matter what we did… they just weren’t having it...”

Tessa (I’ll jump under a bus for Tony) Jowell should, I feel, really be counting her blessings over the gypsy encampment at the foot of her £1million country pile. It could be a whole lot worse.

“…so, back at Bastion…yeah! I’m good. The sat phones went down and new ones were delivered after we were away down from the mountains. We’ve been protecting a village for five or six days, spread out all over and because we were in the Green Zone not much happened. It’s all good.”

I can’t believe how well he sounds. The line is so clear, he could be upstairs phoning down for his breakfast. Oh how I wish he was! Five minutes ago I was scrambling eggs, thinking about getting Tom up for school and pondering how to postpone the days Tesco’s dash.

“Now” he says, “I’m back to lying in a pool of sweat all day. I’ve had to tape myself up to stop the old body armour from rubbing my new skinny hips!” He’s lost a lot of weight through the heat, but they have been issued complementary rations to counteract the effect.  “The drinking water is refreshingly hot! Mind you, we’ve got it sorted.” 

Seemingly, they soak their socks, hang them in the shade and pop their bottles of water inside them. Another soldier writes how his ‘unders’ have more holes than Swiss cheese and how he’s bartered an agreement for a case of Speckled Hen with an American Marine. Not for new unders I hasten to add, but to replace his exploded laptop battery.  Guess I’ll be sending out some replacement kit this week.

Both talk about the ‘Hearts and Minds’ policy that I have never really believed existed. Not when you read of all the atrocities and corruption crippling this land.  Ross tells me that the Afghan police set off in open trucks, trash the poppy fields and are getting shot to pieces by the Taliban. And to maintain the very delicate balance that they strive for with the locals, the army cannot be seen to interfere with this. “The children,” writes the soldier, “still approach us with huge smiles and stick their thumbs up, even though they are homeless and have suffered more devastation than we will ever know.”

Meanwhile, our leaders are otherwise engaged. Fighting their own battles, regrouping and re-establishing pecking order positions at the trough. Like who cares anymore?

Comments

[Mike]

Been there 3 tours never saw a green zone tho, Dont you mean in Iraq?

[Anonymous]

The green zone is the area around the river Helmand in Afghanistan.