Posted on 09/10/2006 12:26:29 PM PDT by Clive
PANJWAII, Afghanistan (CP) - Warrant Officer Jim Murnaghan's quick wisecracks and reassuring smile disappear with the distant pop of the Taliban rocket ignition.
When the rocket-propelled grenade roars in from an insurgent fighter, Murnaghan's eyes become two gaping saucers. His soft laugh switches to a growl, but he doesn't have to yell twice to get attention from his boys or the reporter who has been his shadow for several days on the frontlines of Operation Medusa.
"Get down!" he yells, and we get down instantly.
The hiss becomes a whistle and then a scream just a few feet overhead.
"Under the bridge, under the bridge, under the bridge," he shouts, and his charges, mainly in their 20s, slither under the bridge through feces and broken glass.
They find safety as the deadly projectile thuds into the sand behind them.
Nobody is killed. Nobody is hurt, except for a cut finger from a broken bottle.
"If you ever hear artillery that sounds like a train coming into the station, run," he advises. He then turns to his civilian shadow to lighten the situation.
"You got under here faster than anyone! Did you record that? As long as you keep getting under bridges like that, Buds, you'll be OK."
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Twenty-four hours earlier, the Nomads sat on the edge of the desert hoping their exodus would finally end.
Five Platoon of Bravo Company from the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, was in position for nearly a week, waiting to launch their part of Operation Medusa, the NATO struggle to take back a series of villages in the Panjwaii district just west of Kandahar.
Instead, the battle would come to the Nomdads.
Someone jokes the company gained their 'Nomad' nickname for all the time they've spent wandering the desert in Afghanistan.
After days parked in sand, waiting to launch their part of the offensive, the Nomads are suddenly ordered to move in six minutes. Soldiers swear, bundle up their kits, praying not to leave anything behind in the mayhem of their sudden launch into battle.
It's just after 3 p.m. and the soldiers are packed like sardines into the light armoured vehicle (LAV) commanded by Cpl. Steve Vukic from Port-au-Choix, N.L. It's stinking hot. The boat, as some soldiers call it, is packed to the rafters with mortars and rations and troops.
The LAV rolls a short distance to a treeline that is the northern front in the battle to retake Panjwaii from hundreds of Taliban insurgents.
The soldiers dismount, weapons cocked, and begin their sweep of a series of grape and watermelon fields, family compounds and a canal that are perfect hiding spots for Taliban defence.
They use shotguns to open locked doors. The find no insurgents but plenty of signs of war. One soldier nearly pukes after finding a bloated dead cow in a room. Around a corner is a fresh grave. In another compound, a massive unexploded bomb. Several houses are now craters. A child's shoe sits on a collapsed rafter.
The Nomads expect resistance but in these early hours they find none. They have quickly established a bridgehead into a former no-go zone for the coalition.
They set up along a canal wall for a long moonlit vigil over new territory, away from the warmth and big canon of their beloved LAV, at the tip of the spear of this Canadian advance.
They take a break, swiping a couple of watermelons from a field. The sticky juice pours out as the soldiers dig into their first fresh fruit in ages. It seems like all the water in dusty Afghanistan is held in these small green melons.
Someone notes how quiet the evening has become.
"It's too quiet, Tonto," jokes platoon medic Cpl. Darren Dyer. Just like in war movies, everyone calls him Doc.
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Dawn breaks, and the soldiers are shocked by the quiet night they've passed. Then they make an eerie discovery.
Soldiers had set up trip flares to warn them of advancing Taliban. Someone cut the wires on their flares and stole some.
"Why would they steal our trip flares?" asks Lt. Jeff Bell, the platoon commander. "To use against us?"
Warrant Officer Murnahan answers: "Just to show us they still can."
The front line remains quiet well into the afternoon until the rocket screams overhead. All around Five Platoon, all hell breaks loose. Small groups of Taliban are testing Canadian resolve. Dozens of smashed Taliban bodies litter the battlefield after a three-hour series of fights across the lines. NATO claims hundreds have died, figures strongly disputed by the Taliban.
Somehow only one NATO soldier, an American, dies in a rocket attack in these opening days of the advance.
The red streak of tracer bullets from machine-guns fly overhead and big bombs send shockwaves that strike the chest in a breathtaking punch. It is the biggest battle Canadian troops have waged in decades, but the Nomads have yet to fire a shot in anger.
There's something extra-disquieting about those rockets. The Nomads have the added pain of recent experience.
A few days earlier, as they milled around the desert waiting for their big move, a series of rockets and mortars blew up near one of their boats, wounding four soldiers, several seriously enough to send them home. Only two emerged unscathed.
Vukic's nearby crew and others blasted away in return, killing at least one Taliban.
In the days since, they constantly share updates on the condition of their friends who have concussions and have been peppered by shrapnel from head to toe. There's talk of head wounds and a medically induced coma. One soldier took a jagged piece of shrapnel near the groin.
Beneath the bridge, a soldier mimics the sound of an incoming rocket. Ryan W. Hunt, a 21-year-old private who escaped the earlier barrage, flinches. He tells the whistler to shut up in saltier, soldierly language. The blond-haired six-footer from Burlington, Ont., takes off.
"Remember guys, he went through some shit a few days ago," said Cpl. Mike Opatovsky of Crystal Beach, Ont.
The others nod and later the whistler apologizes to Hunt.
A few hours pass and Warrant Officer Murnaghan and his shadow emerge from the bridge for another reassuring tour among the troops on the line.
He cracks jokes to set everyone at ease. He cajoles and scolds as needed. He's part big brother, part dad, part high school principal, confessor, probation officer and military adviser.
"Hey Buds, how's it goin'?" the warrant says several times, using a patented Petawawa military base substitute for "dude" or "man."
He is the platoon elder at 36.
Another rocket falls in the sand among some LAVs, less than a hundred metres from the warrant and his shadow. There's no bridge to hide under, so they scurry to a boat instead.
When they return to the warrant officer's unit, a message is passed along from headquarters: Taliban are targeting people hanging around LAVs.
Hunt, whose entire LAV crew was taken out several days earlier hanging around an armoured vehicle, yells at the radio: "Tell us something we don't know." His good humour has returned. He laughs and the rest of the platoon cracks up.
For the rest of the evening, the firing doesn't stop around Five Platoon. But by now, U.S. soldiers and a company from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry based in Shilo, Man., have taken up the advance. Five Platoon is now part of the rear guard, left to search through compounds and grape fields while their colleagues push ahead.
They are back to killing time until their next step forward.
"We're clearing the garden of Hell," said Brad (Killer) Kilcup, a 25-year-old hopeless romantic from Sault-Ste-Marie, Ont.
Five minutes after the rockets fall, there's an eruption of small talk.
During his leave later this fall, Killer plans to marry his sweetheart and take her on a honeymoon to Niagara Falls.
Killer looks for hotel advice for the umpteenth time. He exchanges notes on wedding rings with other hopeless romantics in the platoon.
Warrant Murnaghan laughs out loud at the suggestion that with his moustache and manner of speech, he resembles Ricky, the lovable loser in one of his favourite shows, The Trailer Park Boys.
The soldiers relax for a few moments beneath a tree before returning to their posts and waiting for the next thing.
As the Warrant says, "There's always something going on around here, Buds."
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If true, this is not good. No watch?
Please send me a FReepmail to get on or off this Canada ping list.
A 100 years ago US troops were chasing Poncho Villa and his "taliban" around in much the same way, history tends to repeat itself...
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