Ground Truth: 3 Para Return to Afghanistan. Patrick Bishop

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СКАЧАТЬ the 1942 Bruneval raid, an operation full of all the dash and daring that the regiment relished. A small airborne force had parachuted on to a clifftop near Le Havre, attacked a strongly defended German radar base, captured a top-secret new electronic detection device and escaped by boat.

      During his career Williams had served in 3 Para as a platoon commander, intelligence officer, commander of ‘B’ Company and as the battalion’s second-in-command. Commanding a battalion on operations is regarded as the most challenging and stimulating job an officer can do. He is out with his men on the ground, putting his and their capabilities to the test. It is the peak of active soldiering and the promotions, if they come thereafter, will take him farther and farther away from the real action. Having served as number two was no guarantee that he would eventually take over as boss. Williams regarded his promotion as ‘a dream job…not just being made CO but the fact that I was going to get to spend another two years in the battalion’.

      His deputy was Major John Boyd, a tall, thoughtful Ulsterman, who uncomplainingly accepted the role of enabler. ‘I’m the oil that makes the machine work,’ he said. ‘I take the burden off the CO and let him go out and command.’ He had grown up on a reading diet of ‘Commando magazine, War Picture Library, the Victor. I used to wait every Friday for the comics to come in. At the age of five I just knew I was going to join the army one day’

      Many in 3 Para talk about a feeling of vocation when they examine their reasons for joining up. The army seemed to offer an identity and a sense of community that the civilian world could not provide. Boyd had grown up on the Loyalist streets of East Belfast. The Troubles were at their height and many of those around him had served with the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. ‘My first platoon sergeant was a Catholic from Belfast and in those days we would never have socialised,’ he said. ‘But we’ve gone on to become very firm, good friends. I thought it was amazing that one of the few places where Irishmen could sit together without trying to stab each other or shoot each other was the British Army. I love the army and I love the regiment.’

      Boyd had been posted away from the battalion during Herrick 4 but there were many senior figures among the officers and NCOs to provide continuity. Two of the 2006 company commanders remained, though they were to move before the end of the tour. Major Jamie Loden, who had taken over ‘A’ Company when it was under constant attack from the Taliban in the district centre at Sangin, was still in-post. So too was Major Adam Jowett, who commanded the hard-pressed defenders of the outpost at Musa Qaleh. Paul ‘Paddy’ Blair, who had commanded ‘C’ Company, had gone off to lead the Red Devils, the Parachute Regiment skydiving team, and Giles Timms, who commanded ‘B’ Company, had moved on to another role outside the regiment.

      Timms was replaced by Major Stuart McDonald, a pale, shaven-headed Scotsman, whose aggressive tactical approach was to make him stand out even within the Paras. He was to win a Military Cross for his courage and leadership. Stu McDonald had light blue eyes that sparkled with what some interpreted as a quasi-mystical light. They had inspired a visiting German journalist to compare him to Jesus Christ, which provided the battalion with many laughs.

      He had become a soldier, almost on a whim, at the time of the 1991 Gulf War. ‘My friend and I were sat on the train one day and had this great romantic notion that we would join the Territorial Army and be sent out to the Gulf to fight,’ he remembered. ‘At the time I was incredibly ignorant. I knew nothing about the army…’

      The idea took hold. He did some basic training with the TA. Then his parents showed him a newspaper ad seeking recruits for the Paras’ territorial battalion. He had seen a documentary describing the rigours of ‘P’ Company, the brutal physical and mental selection process through which all Parachute Regiment recruits have to pass, and decided that this was for him.

      He joined the Para reserves before going to Edinburgh University to study commerce. ‘I had asked originally to join as an officer and was advised to spend a year as a private,’ he said. ‘At the end of that year I was offered promotion to lance corporal, which I took, and spent the next three years as a junior NCO. I absolutely loved it.’

      At the end of the course he decided against a business career and that it was ‘definitely army all the way, or rather more specifically the Parachute Regiment’. He went through Sandhurst then joined 1 Para. Over the next dozen years he moved around the regiment, serving in Northern Ireland, Macedonia and Iraq. There had been moments of excitement and satisfaction but no real exposure to full-on fighting. He regarded his command of ‘B’ Company as the high point of his career and the opportunity to get his ‘first experience of the sharp end’.

      The battalion started the tour with the same regimental sergeant major who had shepherded it through some of its darkest hours in 2006. John Hardy was everything an RSM was supposed to be. He was tough but just, and the sternness that went with the job overlaid a paternal temperament. Hardy had the unusual distinction of serving in two successive operational tours with 3 Para in the post but was commissioned halfway through the tour, which obliged him to return home. He was replaced by Morgan ‘Moggy’ Bridge, who was good-natured, shrewd and funny.

      The old and bold of 2006 were well represented throughout the battalion. Several of the senior NCOs had added a stripe to their sleeves and were now staff and colour sergeants and company sergeant majors, and the Toms of Herrick 4 had also moved up the ladder to become lance corporals and corporals.

      There were many new faces among the CO’s staff. Williams was lucky in having as his operations officer one of the stars of the last show, Captain Mark Swann, who had led the Patrols Platoon through many alarms and adventures with skill and good humour. Among the staff officers was a man who had been a background presence in the ops room in 2006. In this tour, though, he was to play a far more significant role, and his opinion would be sought on virtually everything the battalion was engaged in.

      Captain Steve Boardman did not fit the popular image of a soldier. He wore glasses, seemed shy and spoke with a soft Northern accent. At forty-nine years of age he was, in military terms, almost a geriatric. Boardman had been involved in civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) affairs in 2006, charged with coordinating reconstruction efforts. As it had turned out, there was very little of this work for him to do. The Paras were more engaged in smashing things down than building them up, and after the first few weeks there was no call for his expertise. Instead Boardman took the drudge job of head watchkeeper, spending long hours on duty in the ops room, overseeing all the incoming and outgoing communications.

      He had begun his military career in the Royal Artillery, then left the army but maintained strong links by joining 4 Para, the regiment’s territorial unit. He founded a business specialising in print, design and reprographics. His work had taken him to India and the Far East and he had set up a joint venture in Sri Lanka. Visiting these places, he felt, ‘gave me a good insight into the process of how people operate in this part of the world, how they think, what their values are. It exposed me to massive cultural differences from what we are used to in the UK.’

      Boardman managed to keep his business running while spending long periods in Iraq and Afghanistan attached to 3 Para. Stuart Tootal had asked him to stay on after the previous Afghan tour. His CIMIC background and his regional knowledge made him the obvious candidate for the role of ‘influence officer’ when the Paras went back. It was, he said with characteristic self-deprecation, ‘better for me to be doing the job than forcing a young captain in his mid to late twenties to do it, who would rather be out on the front line’. In fact Boardman spent as much time on the front line as anyone, taking part in almost every operation of the tour and tabbing out on scores of tense, dangerous and exhausting patrols, alongside men who were less than half his age.

      Steve and his assistants formed the NKET, the non-kinetic effects team, or ‘Team Pink’ as they were known. They acted essentially as diplomats, representing the Paras to the tricky tribal leaders and mistrustful peasants СКАЧАТЬ