Page 474 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
CHAPTER 29
Afghanistan RAVC: Leading a Way to Safety
“...never in history have we rolled out a force so specifically taut for a purpose... We came out of it with a modernised force.”
[Chief of General Staff: 2013]
On the morning of Tuesday 11th September 2001: Al-Qaeda terrorists executed their plan to fly two hijacked commercial airliners into the Twin Tow- ers of the World Trade Center in New York. It was a devastating blow to humanity, that changed the world forever.
Almost from the moment of impact NATO and the Allied forces moved to intervene in the ongoing Afghan civil war with the aim of dismantling Al-Qaeda and preventing it having a safe base of operation in Afghanistan. This was to be achieved by removing the Taliban from power.1
RAVC personnel and Military Working Dogs were in Afghanistan from the start with Op FINGAL and to the point where the last British boots left the sand with Op PITTING. And in between – Operation HERRICK 1 to 20 – in it for the long haul – from military operation to war.
This chapter is constructed from a series of articles, letters, reports, personal accounts and military documents to create a candid experience of the war in Afghanistan through those who were fortunate enough to survive it.
Background: The following brief overview of op- erations in Afghanistan, by Colonel Ian Tinsley, is taken from the Op HERRICK Campaign Study and provides context for all that follows:
Following the attacks of ‘9/11’ and the collapse of the Taliban-led regime in Afghanistan, British conventional forces, as part of a coalition, entered Afghanistan in 2001 under Operation VERITAS. The initial intervention centred on a stability
operation in and around the capital, Kabul (Operation FINGAL)2 and a counter-terrorism task force (Operational JACANA).34
Operation HERRICK was the operational codename under which all British operations in Afghanistan have been conducted since 2002. In April 2004 the orientation of British ground-based operations switched to delivery of the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) based around Mazar- e-Sharif in the north of the country and was generated though four six-month roulements by the Afghanistan Roulement Infantry Battalion (ARIB). From 19th March 2003 British forces were committed at medium scale on operations in Iraq (Operation TELIC) and any subsequent analysis of operations in Afghanistan must be conducted with the Iraq commitment, until the UK withdrawal in 2009, very much to the forefront.
The decision to switch British attention to Helmand in 2006 turned the UK’s commitment to Afghanistan from a ‘military operation’ into a ‘war’.5 The challenge of understanding what kind of war the British military was now in became the priority, set against a backdrop of depictions of small groups of British soldiers fighting off an increasingly determined and capable adversary; a dysfunc- tional command structure and increasing casualty levels. Arguably it took until 2009-2010 before the situation fully stabilised, coinciding with Operation ENTIRETY,6 the surge of thirty thousand USMC7 personnel into Helmand, British forces reached a high watermark of ten thousand and the re-sub- ordination of Task Force Helmand to a 2* Regional
1 Readers should note much of this Chapter was written before the resurgence of Taliban rule 15th August 2021.
2 The NATO (initially British led) International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
3 A 1700 strong 3 Cdo Bde based force as part of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), which ended in mid-2002.
4 Historically this was the fourth occasion British forces had intervened in Afghanistan. The three other occasions were the First Anglo-Afghan War (also
known as ‘Auckland’s Folly’ 1839 – 42; the Second Anglo-Afghan War 1878 – 80; and the Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919).
5 Clarke, Michael (Ed); The Afghan Papers: Committing Britain to War in Helmand, 2005 -2006, RUSI Whitehall Paper 77/201.
6 Putting the Army on a campaign footing.
7 United States Marine Corps (USMC).
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