Page 483 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
in Afghan has to be one Saturday morning when I was returning to the kennels and a medic stopped me in my tracks. He asked me if I was team medic trained and if so to report to the Med Centre. I had completed my team medic training in Northern Ireland, so I quickly did as I was asked. I was offered latex gloves, FFDs and given a brief; a civilian C-130 had crashed into a village on landing. A local Afghan man had driven onto the runway just as the plane touched down, giving the pilot the impossible task of trying to evade. Sadly, he lost control and crashed – four people were dead and at least 20 seriously wounded and sent to Lash’ for emergency treatment.
A tense mood prevailed; everyone was visibly appre- hensive, and I was restless. All the training in the world could never prepare you for actually having to try and save someone’s life and what would happen if I made a mistake or didn’t carry out a procedure correctly. The doctor in the background was shouting: “remember guys, keep them breathing and stop the bleeding.” Easy for him to say, he had a medical degree! My duties were about to be re-directed: Intelligence indicated that the threat of SVBIED had gone/escalated, to imminent. My place was then back with Sadie to prepare.
When British Forces finally took over respon- sibility for Helmand Province the dog handlers were heavily involved in planned operations. One operation included a search for IEDs along a road where two French SF vehicles had been ambushed overnight. The MWD teams were tasked to search the road – to allow the bodies and sensitive materials to be recovered. As the teams started to land, they were involved in heavy contact with intense small arms fire; it took the arrival of an Apache was to destroy the enemy firing point so the recovery job could be completed.
Op HERRICK 4
“A few weeks later I received confirmation that I would be leaving theatre on 1st June 2006 and my replacement was to be Lance Corporal Charlie Bates. Charlie’s AES dog ‘Bonney’ would be with him, and he was down to take over VS Dog ‘Jamie’ too.” Sadly, for Steve Hood, the highly un-pre- dictable flight scheduling in Helmand Province, meant there he was unlikely to have time for a decent handover so he prepared notes on what Charlie could expect and jotted down the names of personalities the in-coming handler should meet.
However, as Steve recalls, Lady luck had other ideas: “On the day of my departure from Lashkar Gah, I was told that I would be getting on the flight that LCpl Bates was getting off! There was
just time to manage a speedy handover which consisted of us shaking hands, asking how each other was, and me saying: ‘Don’t worry Charlie, nice and quiet here mate!” At that, Charlie and his dog, with head down, ran up the ramp to the fuselage of the Chinook.”
At that time in Lashkar Gah the sole RAVC handler had two MWDs; one AES and one VS. The handler worked VS in the mornings and evenings on the camp Main Entry Point (MEP) and then supported the Provisional Reconstruction Team (PRT) on out of camp operations for the remainder of the day in the Lashkar Gah AO.
During the early summer of 2006, WO2 Iain Carnegie and Cpl Craig Tait were very much the driving force in Helmand Province – the most volatile region of Afghanistan. In the new Camp Bastion, the two RAVC stalwarts strived hard to ensure that the best facilities were being set up for the influx of the Corps’ dogs. They, like everyone else in the RAVC had no idea how the situation would unfold and expand.
Initially the dog compound at Bastion was quite small, but it did have a concrete hard standing which made it only one of three locations in the whole camp. The others were the LAD and the cookhouse with further plans to erect a fence around the kennels.
Pte Chris ‘Minty’ McKenzie and Pte Rob Ardis also deployed on Op HERRICK 4 (March/April until September 2006.) Upon arrival into Camp Bastion – then known as ‘Hesco’ Bastion – during a sandstorm, they recall it being all hands-on deck to fill as many sandbags as possible and arrange miles of cam netting to cover the little unit, before they had to deploy out to FOBs with their dogs. Their job? To assist in the daily search of vehicles coming into Lashkar Gah, searching eight hours a day, every day. “How it made the time fly!”
The first time MWDs were actively involved in a major operation deep in the Green Zone of Helmand Province was on Op AUGUSTUS in mid-July 2006. Op HERRICK 4 was well underway when a Search dog team, consisting of LCpl Charlie Bates and Pte Rob Ardis were deployed initially from Lashkar Gah and Camp Bastion, respectively, to support the PARA led AUGUSTUS. The courageous Op, to attack several compounds close to Sangin that were under the control of a Taliban leader, was handled with great honesty and respect in the book 3 Para, by the highly acclaimed author Patrick Bishop.
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