After the Blast Read online

  Published by Black Inc.,

  an imprint of Schwartz Publishing Pty Ltd

  37–39 Langridge Street

  Collingwood VIC 3066 Australia

  [email protected]

  www.blackincbooks.com

  Copyright © Garth Callender 2015

  Garth Callender asserts his right to be known as the author of this work.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Callender, Garth, author.

  After the blast : An Australian officer in Iraq and Afghanistan / Garth Callender.

  9781863957380 (paperback)

  9781925203301 (ebook)

  Callender, Garth.

  Soldiers – Australia – Biography.

  Iraq War, 2003–2011 – Personal narratives, Australian.

  Iraq War, 2003–2011 – Participation, Australian.

  Afghan War, 2001 – Personal narratives, Australian.

  Afghan War, 2001 – Participation, Australian.

  355.0092

  Cover and text design by Peter Long

  Cover image: Garth Callender

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE: THE BLAST, 25 OCTOBER 2004

  PART I: IRAQ 2004

  1WAITING TO DEPLOY

  2TO IRAQ

  3FIRST TASK

  4DAY-TO-DAY BAGHDAD

  5US AND THEM

  6TASK TO AL KASIK

  7THE ATTACK

  8BLACK HAWK TO BALAD

  PART II: IRAQ 2006

  9GOING BACK

  10BACK IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  11A JOURNEY AND A BOXING MATCH

  12DEATH BY MISADVENTURE

  13SOLDIER 17

  14ESCALATION OF FORCE

  15AFTERMATH

  PART III: AFGHANISTAN 2009-10

  16A JOB I COULDN’T SAY NO TO

  17TARIN KOWT

  18THE LAB

  19WORKING WITH COALITION FORCES

  20A DEATH–AND SOME NEAR MISSES

  21A SUICIDE BOMBER, A HOLIDAY AND A NEW COMPONENT

  22SEEING THE BIG PICTURE

  PICTURE SECTION

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Map A: Iraq

  Map B: Baghdad, 2004

  Map C: Uruzgan province, Afghanistan

  PROLOGUE

  THE BLAST

  25 OCTOBER 2004

  WE CAME OUT OF THE ROUNDABOUT AND accelerated hard on the road leading north to the checkpoint into the International Zone. I was in the second of two armoured vehicles in convoy, standing up in the turret. The buildings to our right had been noted several times by our intelligence guys as a trouble spot. This morning nothing seemed out of the ordinary. We had no indication that some time earlier an insurgent had parked a car with a cargo of artillery rounds wired to a remote control. There was no sign that, as my vehicle passed it, the device would be triggered by someone overlooking the road.

  Of the explosion I remember nothing. I have no recollection of the blast that tore off my helmet and goggles – nothing of how my vehicle lost control and careered into, and uprooted, a tree in the median strip.

  I must have been unconscious for only a few seconds. I came to with the thought that I had been shot in the head … I was confused, and pissed off, and everything hurt.

  I instinctively reached for my head. Although alarmed to find no helmet, I was a little comforted by the fact that I didn’t find the gaping hole I’d expected. But I knew I was in trouble, as I couldn’t breathe or see and had a terrible pain in my legs. I couldn’t get any air into my lungs, and I tried to yell. Nothing came out.

  On the second attempt, I managed to let out a whimper, and, though very winded, managed to keep drawing painful breaths after that. I fumbled through the blood and damaged flesh that constituted my eyebrows and the bridge of my nose, and for a second managed to prise open my eyes and look down at the dusty floor of the turret …

  PART I:

  IRAQ

  2004

  1

  WAITING TO DEPLOY

  IN MY LAST SIX MONTHS AT MILITARY COLLEGE, planes hit the World Trade Center towers.

  A year and a half later, with the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003, the job of protecting the Australian embassy in Iraq fell to the Australian army. As a new troop leader in the 2nd Cavalry Regiment based in Darwin, I looked on with envy as the first troop to deploy packed and left in a flurry of activity and repressed excitement. While most of us knew what was going on, there was a security requirement to keep our mouths shut, so the troop left under a cover of quasi-secrecy.

  Seventeen months later I would get my chance to deploy.

  *

  Even though I had served for almost eight years, my military career up until deployment had been unexceptional. I had joined as a directionless nineteen-year-old looking for adventure. The boy who joined in 1996 as an infantry rifleman never expected to end up in Iraq or Afghanistan as an officer.

  I joined a peacetime army where the opportunities for real operational experience were extremely rare. A few years after joining, I somehow impressed my commanding officer during a field training exercise and was recommended for officer training at the Royal Military College, Duntroon.

  I started at Duntroon with the naive belief that I could live the same lifestyle I had as a soldier and somehow coast through the eighteen-month course. So the only really exceptional thing about my early career was the extensive conduct record I accumulated during officer training. Drinking when on the dry, sleeping through parade, turning in work that wasn’t my own – ten charges in total. These charges saw me spend far too much of my time marching around the parade ground on misty mornings and bitter, cold Canberra evenings. With the later offences, the prosecutor would make a point of dropping my conduct record on the desk of the officer hearing the charge so that the house-brick thick document would make a dramatic thud as it landed.

  Luckily, I got serious about my career about the same time the world got serious for my generation. It wasn’t just 9/11; a lot of things focused and shaped my new attitude. I applied to be allocated to armoured corps, specifically cavalry, as I had a gut feeling I could achieve the most commanding a troop of vehicles and soldiers. Such teams had, by that time, already done well in East Timor, and had a proud history, from the Boer War through to Vietnam. So, with new-found drive and motivation, I focused on military studies at the college and ended up graduating in the top 15 per cent of the class, and was given my preference of corps and posting.

  After graduating from Duntroon as a young lieutenant, I was posted to the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, then the only unit that had ASLAVs (Australian Light Armoured Vehicles). I spent my first year bouncing around the country completing courses so I could do my job commanding thirty soldiers and six vehicles: six months vehicle training in Puckapunyal, Victoria, and range qualifications in Singleton, New South Wales. This was followed by numerous field-training exercises throughout the Northern Territory and Queensland to further learn all I could about the very technically and tactically challenging job of being a cavalry troop leader.

  In the middle of it all I almost got sent to sea for four months to help the navy with illegal immigrant ships – luckily I was saved at the last minute by my commanding officer, who thought I could be better employed.

  *

  My first deployment to Baghdad was with the fifth rotation of the Australian Security Detachment to Iraq. Colloquially known as SECDET V, it was a group of about 110 soldiers
commanded by an infantry major. We would leave Australia in early September 2004 for a four-month rotation. In the first two months we would protect the embassy, so that the staff there could carry out their diplomatic work as safely as possible. We would spend the second two months in northern Iraq, providing protection to Australians who were helping train an Iraqi army brigade.

  We trained specifically for Iraq for four months, all through the Darwin wet season. Four months training for a four-month deployment – there was something a little ‘over-cooked’ about our approach.

  Training for Baghdad in northern Australia was problematic. We drove armoured vehicles fast around the barracks in the middle of the night, practising our formations and trying to replicate scenarios we might encounter; we sat on rooftops in the rain to replicate what it might be like if an angry mob attacked us; we got sprayed with capsicum spray so we would understand its effect if we ever needed to use it; we watched videos of insurgents beheading kidnap victims in an effort to understand the environment and the people; we turned Darwin into Baghdad and trained like we were there.

  The rest of the army did a lot to support us. During parts of the training, hundreds of soldiers role-played local Iraqis, foreign military and embassy officials. Occasionally you’d get a wink from a ‘local Iraqi’ truck driver you recognised.

  The army bought new equipment, including spending millions of dollars on remote-controlled machine-gun mounts. These mounts had a thumb-operated controller, just like on a video-game console. From the crew commander’s cupola (the small hatch that opens next to the engine deck), you watched a screen at thigh level as you spun the gun quickly onto targets. These mounts were highly accurate, but very difficult to master. They had been purchased after the blokes already in Iraq complained the vehicle set-up had the crew commander standing behind the .50 calibre machine gun while the vehicle was in motion. This meant he was driving through the streets of Baghdad almost totally exposed – ‘balls up’.

  With the new remote system, the commander could crouch in his cupola and operate the gun. But what the new design and technology didn’t take into account was that a lot of the time you really needed to be standing out the top of the vehicle – directing traffic out of the way, or showing your pistol to stop drivers cutting you off. You couldn’t do that from within the vehicle. We did scratch our heads a little as to why the government insisted on spending millions on these systems, but it was new, shiny technology, and we were happy to accept it.

  We were also trained to use automatic grenade launchers, until then only used by Special Forces. These fit on the remote system and were thought to be useful as counter-ambush weapons in the open areas up in northern Iraq. A Special Air Service Regiment warrant officer instructed us on how to operate them: how to reload, how to fix stoppages, and how to use the tool for getting out a grenade wedged in the barrel after firing too many rounds. We learnt all this without knowing whether we could actually fire the weapon, as the only ammunition we could get was ‘environmentally stressed’ – apparently it had been sitting in a shipping container in the Kuwaiti sun for a year.

  The Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, had to sign off personally before we could fire these rounds. He came to view our training just after we had been through a particularly rigorous period, during which I had slept a handful of hours over a few days. I was tired and pissed off as he instructed me on the precautions my troop needed to take before we could fire the ammunition. He directed that everyone had to wear body armour and ballistic goggles, and everyone not firing should be behind cover in an armoured vehicle or in a bunker. He started lecturing me, quite rightly, on all of this.

  When he started talking about the danger of a grenade being caught in the barrel, I disagreed with him on some point and said something arrogant like, ‘No, sir, that is a known design feature of the weapon and we have been trained how to fix the stoppage.’

  I saw my commanding officer behind him grimace.

  General Leahy looked at me and said, ‘If you don’t follow all these safety precautions, firstly I’ll sack you’ – he turned to point at my brigade commander, John Cantwell, standing just to his right – ‘and then I’ll sack him.’

  I was shocked. I suddenly realised how concerned General Leahy was about using this stressed ammunition and that I should shut my mouth. I politely agreed to do everything he said, then left, resolving not to upset generals and jeopardise brigadiers’ careers.

  Through these months of training, we were also trying to spend time with our families and lead normal lives. I was in charge of twenty-seven blokes, which generated a lot of administration: deployment order details, wills in case the worst occurred, power-of-attorney forms, official passport applications, immunisations, dog tags – all needed to be checked and re-checked.

  I attended my sergeant’s wedding, held social functions with my troop, said goodbye to family who visited me in Darwin before I left, wrote letters to my troop’s next of kin telling them as much as I could, and made a clumsy proposal to my girlfriend. By the time we were ready to go, I was tired of training, happy to be engaged and ready to get on with the job.

  *

  Crystal and I had been together only a year when I left for Baghdad the first time.

  We had a classic romance. Love at first sight. She moved from the Gold Coast to Darwin after knowing me for only a matter of weeks. We just knew it was right, from the first night we met. Her airy, giggly way added a vibrancy to my life I had never known.

  We loved spending all our free time together. We’d go out dancing in the bars on Mitchell Street, or talk till all hours of the night, or just lie on the couch watching movies. I loved everything about her. She had a way of disarming people and getting them to like her. Under an unassuming demeanour, she was a talented theatre nurse who received praise from even the most indifferent surgeons. She vacuumed the house in a bikini, laughed at all my stupid jokes, and, to my surprise and good fortune, was just as in love with me as I was with her.

  During our first year together, we watched other lieutenants deploy to Iraq, and Crystal knew I would probably go too at some stage. She also knew how much I wanted to go. Maybe I was naive, but like all my peers I was desperate to do the job for real. She knew how much it meant to me.

  Crystal did a good job of keeping it together, but when I left her at the airport she went home miserable. She planned to stay at home for a few weeks before travelling to London to see friends. This holiday would be her way of passing time while we were apart. I was travelling and having adventures, so why shouldn’t she? Friends were coming to mind the house and look after my dog while we were away.

  The day I left, Crystal sat on the steps of our house in Darwin crying, worried about my safety and uncertain how she would cope with our being apart for four months. It was then that my old dog, Girlie, a Labrador–Kelpie cross, did something strange.

  I had had Girlie since I was in high school. She had followed me around the country and had witnessed so much of my life. She must have moved house twenty times or more throughout her life. As Crystal sat on the stairs, Girlie sat next to her and leaned back on her hind legs, putting both paws up on Crystal’s shoulders, something I had never known her to do before. It was as if she were giving Crystal a hug.

  I had always felt that Girlie was very in tune with people’s emotions, but perhaps this was more than that. Some might claim that Girlie had a sixth sense. Perhaps she knew something was going to happen. Perhaps she was trying to tell Crystal that I was going to get hurt, but not to worry because in the end it would be OK.

  Or maybe Girlie just hadn’t been walked in a few days. Poor neglected mutt.

  2

  TO IRAQ

  WE WENT TO WAR LIKE SO MANY SOLDIERS of my generation – by commercial air travel.

  My introduction to the Middle East was a ten-hour stopover in the Emirates business lounge at Dubai International. Nervous about what lay ahead, I passed the hours on the leather couc
hes in glass smoking rooms, puffing through an endless chain of cigarettes and watching the waves of travellers go by.

  The wide marble halls and cavernous domed ceilings of the airport were not what I had expected. The high-end boutiques, the elegant women in tailored full black-silk niqabs, swaying their hips as they walked to their departure gates, the shiny dark-skinned men with their matching shiny jewellery and sweat-stained shirts – no-one had explained this was part of going to Iraq.

  I was in a group of about twenty officers and senior soldiers, an advance party who would commence the handover with our counterparts in Baghdad before our ninety companions arrived. We sat around awkwardly in our shorts and collared shirts, with recently cropped hair, trying to look inconspicuous. Our camouflage backpacks didn’t help.

  A short flight to Kuwait International and we were getting closer. Sweltering heat and steamy dirty hallways with green lino floors, dotted with surly guards; being herded through baggage claim and immigration with badly photocopied letters of introduction that somehow made our arrival without visas legitimate; the hour-and-a-half wait for lost baggage to be found – it wasn’t war, but I was already on edge.

  Then followed a few days in the sweltering Kuwaiti heat doing final training before heading into Iraq. We drove in coaches out to rifle ranges pegged out of patches of desert. The heat was intense. One of the older warrant officers passed out, having been off the air-conditioned bus no longer than five minutes. As we helped him back onto the bus, I wondered how we would be able to work in this climate. Our body armour and helmets seemed to trap the heat and keep us constantly moist with sweat.

  We were introduced to a new bandage that set hard when it came in contact with blood. It was designed to save your life if your arm or leg was torn off in a bomb blast – they called this explosive amputation. Apparently, since the first improvised explosive devices (IEDs) emerged mid-way through the previous year, it had become a common way for soldiers to die. IEDs had quickly become the insurgents’ weapons of choice. So you needed a bandage that would solidify quickly over your bloodied stump before you died of blood loss. We had to sign a consent form, because it was not approved for use in Australia – apparently the doctors had to do a lot of damage to get the solid bandage off once you made it to hospital.