Villagers were seen fleeing from compounds as more bullets cracked from heavy guns and recoilless rifles. A RPG went screaming between two Marine MRAP’s and exploded on the hill behind us. The compound of the base of operations that the Marines had set up in was under serious attack and from a hundred yards away I stood in the back of the 7-ton truck and filmed Marines ducking and running as the Taliban bullets kicked up dust around their feet.

The worst thing is that you realize in a few minutes we would both be having to do the run ourselves from truck to compound, not a happy thought as I could see from my viewfinder what was going down.

On the rooftop a line of Marines could be seen and the noise from the gunfire echoed around the valley and village. I needed to get there and get the action as soon as possible, the smell of cordite is a lure to a cameraman that is hard to avoid. And knowing that it is safer to be at the front rather than stuck in a truck exposed also weighed on my mind.

When it came time to disembark, my mind switched off from the scenes I had been filming minutes before and it was a fast crouching weaving run across the 30 yards to the sanctuary of the compound.

“Where is the rooftop?” was my first question panting and dripping from sweat. Greg was to get the equipment into the compound I was to get to the roof and start filming. Climbing thru a hole blown between compound walls I raced thru the building and up onto the roof.

8 Marines were stationed behind a three-foot wall on the roof; the floor of the roof was littered with spent ammunition. And every few seconds another volley was spewed into the village. Keeping low I dashed across the roof to the wall and took cover next to the Marines. Bathed in sweat and dirt they looked happy this was the action that every one of them craved.

One Marine stood up with binoculars exposed and started calling directions for fire, at that moment a Taliban bullet hit the wall inches from him and flew up, missing him by inches. Another volley from there machine guns bought a few minutes of silence from the Taliban.

And so for the next hour or so it was volley, counter volley. I crawled up and down the line trying to anticipate the salvo. Greg joined me on the roof next to the wall; keeping low we filmed a couple of on cameras and talked with the Marines as they improvised ways of trying to keep their ammunition out of the dirt.

By now the sun was a furnace above us, and Marines poured water down there backs trying to keep cool, none of them wanted to be relieved as this was were the action was going down. I realized that soon Greg and I would start getting heatstroke if we did not get off the roof soon and crouching low we ran to the stairwell and down.

It was now past noon and I needed to get the footage to New York, the incredible thing is that with todays technology we carry a small satellite dish about the size of a briefcase that gives us a direct uplink and hooked up to a computer, I can edit, compress and send the files direct to New York.

The room we found in the compound had been stormed earlier and the dirt floor was covered in broken glass, window frames hang loosely, old rags and a frayed piece of rug were the only things in the room. And old tin box became my workspace out of the wreckage that existed.

First footage sent in and a live shot from the safety of the garden outside, every few minutes another volley of gunfire echoed around, to a bizarre extent you can become immune to the noise, as if it were just the norm.

The next phase for us was to edit a feature length piece for the Evening Primetime broadcast, and sitting in the shell of the room we were piecing together a spot, when all of a sudden there was a loud scream around the compound.

“Fire in the Hold”

What the f…! . Every single person suddenly ducks down into a fetal position and puts their fingers in their ears. You close your eyes not sure of what are about to happen.

Boom !!!!

A explosion blasts thru every single nerve in your body, it shakes every organ and the room simply disappeared in a barrage of dirt, dust, rubble and even pieces of window frame exploded and shattered around us. The computer was blown almost to the ground and the dish outside was now in a new position.

A wall had been blasted to allow more movement round the compound.

Picking ourselves back up Greg took a photo of the aftermath.

You cannot dwell on what has happened, the explosion had blown the computer around so much that I lost half the work I had done and had to start again. Brushing the debris off it. I started again. Five minutes later…

“Fire in the Hold,” screamed from room to room. Grasping a bit of rag I covered what I could in the few seconds. Computer on the ground this time. Running for the door we ducked down and covering our ears waited for the explosion again.

Kaboom !!!!

The building shook around us as dirt and dust once again engulfed us. Like Pig Pen from a Peanuts cartoon we stood up and looked back into our room half expecting that everything would have been destroyed.

But as the dust cleared the computer and camera gear came into sight, looking the worse for wear yet still working. Daylight was fading fast and I told Greg “ Forget the next live shot to New York”, we were basically trying to stay alive.

With no power the computer and little satellite transmitter were running on battery and it was a race against time. As I started the file transfer to New York the computer low battery warning came on, as did the satellite battery. It was a race against time and as darkness fell the story made it to New York, and a minute later the sat dish went dead.

As we lay down amongst the rubble and broken glass for the night, drinking a hot bottle of water, the gunfire continued from the roof above us. Exhaustion swept over us and in clothes crusted with salt from sweat I slipped into a sleep on the floor. Sharing the space with a company of young Marines we all had just enough room to stretch out.

Dawn was a few hours away and for a few brief hours we both slept. Tomorrow we knew was when we would begin foot patrols around the village to clear out the Taliban compound by compound.

Villagers were seen fleeing from compounds as more bullets cracked from heavy guns and recoilless rifles. A RPG went screaming between two Marine MRAP’s and exploded on the hill behind us. The compound of the base of operations that the Marines had set up in was under serious attack and from a hundred yards away I stood in the back of the 7-ton truck and filmed Marines ducking and running as the Taliban bullets kicked up dust around their feet.

The worst thing is that you realize in a few minutes we would both be having to do the run ourselves from truck to compound, not a happy thought as I could see from my viewfinder what was going down.

On the rooftop a line of Marines could be seen and the noise from the gunfire echoed around the valley and village. I needed to get there and get the action as soon as possible, the smell of cordite is a lure to a cameraman that is hard to avoid. And knowing that it is safer to be at the front rather than stuck in a truck exposed also weighed on my mind.

When it came time to disembark, my mind switched off from the scenes I had been filming minutes before and it was a fast crouching weaving run across the 30 yards to the sanctuary of the compound.

“Where is the rooftop?” was my first question panting and dripping from sweat. Greg was to get the equipment into the compound I was to get to the roof and start filming. Climbing thru a hole blown between compound walls I raced thru the building and up onto the roof.

8 Marines were stationed behind a three-foot wall on the roof; the floor of the roof was littered with spent ammunition. And every few seconds another volley was spewed into the village. Keeping low I dashed across the roof to the wall and took cover next to the Marines. Bathed in sweat and dirt they looked happy this was the action that every one of them craved.

One Marine stood up with binoculars exposed and started calling directions for fire, at that moment a Taliban bullet hit the wall inches from him and flew up, missing him by inches. Another volley from there machine guns bought a few minutes of silence from the Taliban.

And so for the next hour or so it was volley, counter volley. I crawled up and down the line trying to anticipate the salvo. Greg joined me on the roof next to the wall; keeping low we filmed a couple of on cameras and talked with the Marines as they improvised ways of trying to keep their ammunition out of the dirt.

By now the sun was a furnace above us, and Marines poured water down there backs trying to keep cool, none of them wanted to be relieved as this was were the action was going down. I realized that soon Greg and I would start getting heatstroke if we did not get off the roof soon and crouching low we ran to the stairwell and down.

It was now past noon and I needed to get the footage to New York, the incredible thing is that with todays technology we carry a small satellite dish about the size of a briefcase that gives us a direct uplink and hooked up to a computer, I can edit, compress and send the files direct to New York.

The room we found in the compound had been stormed earlier and the dirt floor was covered in broken glass, window frames hang loosely, old rags and a frayed piece of rug were the only things in the room. And old tin box became my workspace out of the wreckage that existed.

First footage sent in and a live shot from the safety of the garden outside, every few minutes another volley of gunfire echoed around, to a bizarre extent you can become immune to the noise, as if it were just the norm.

The next phase for us was to edit a feature length piece for the Evening Primetime broadcast, and sitting in the shell of the room we were piecing together a spot, when all of a sudden there was a loud scream around the compound.

“Fire in the Hold”

What the f…! . Every single person suddenly ducks down into a fetal position and puts their fingers in their ears. You close your eyes not sure of what are about to happen.

Boom !!!!

A explosion blasts thru every single nerve in your body, it shakes every organ and the room simply disappeared in a barrage of dirt, dust, rubble and even pieces of window frame exploded and shattered around us. The computer was blown almost to the ground and the dish outside was now in a new position.

A wall had been blasted to allow more movement round the compound.

Picking ourselves back up Greg took a photo of the aftermath.

You cannot dwell on what has happened, the explosion had blown the computer around so much that I lost half the work I had done and had to start again. Brushing the debris off it. I started again. Five minutes later…

“Fire in the Hold,” screamed from room to room. Grasping a bit of rag I covered what I could in the few seconds. Computer on the ground this time. Running for the door we ducked down and covering our ears waited for the explosion again.

Kaboom !!!!

The building shook around us as dirt and dust once again engulfed us. Like Pig Pen from a Peanuts cartoon we stood up and looked back into our room half expecting that everything would have been destroyed.

But as the dust cleared the computer and camera gear came into sight, looking the worse for wear yet still working. Daylight was fading fast and I told Greg “ Forget the next live shot to New York”, we were basically trying to stay alive.

With no power the computer and little satellite transmitter were running on battery and it was a race against time. As I started the file transfer to New York the computer low battery warning came on, as did the satellite battery. It was a race against time and as darkness fell the story made it to New York, and a minute later the sat dish went dead.

As we lay down amongst the rubble and broken glass for the night, drinking a hot bottle of water, the gunfire continued from the roof above us. Exhaustion swept over us and in clothes crusted with salt from sweat I slipped into a sleep on the floor. Sharing the space with a company of young Marines we all had just enough room to stretch out.

Dawn was a few hours away and for a few brief hours we both slept. Tomorrow we knew was when we would begin foot patrols around the village to clear out the Taliban compound by compound.

The second was of a kid soldier barely looking sixteen years old who somehow was a member of the ANA, we nicknamed him Rambo, because like many here, they like to strap ammunition around themselves in a bandoleer fashion from a spaghetti western. As he took up a watch position with a gun as big as himself, without the slightest care in the world or concern for the bullets coming from the Taliban in the mountains above, he took out a small pink plastic mirror and for the next two minutes preened and checked his hair. Not once did he look around the battlefield, his hair was far more important.

It is easy to be cynical and there is no doubt that some elements of the Afghanistan Army are trying, but from what I have seen and heard they are truly a work in progress and the timeline for there success is not promising.

The second was of a kid soldier barely looking sixteen years old who somehow was a member of the ANA, we nicknamed him Rambo, because like many here, they like to strap ammunition around themselves in a bandoleer fashion from a spaghetti western. As he took up a watch position with a gun as big as himself, without the slightest care in the world or concern for the bullets coming from the Taliban in the mountains above, he took out a small pink plastic mirror and for the next two minutes preened and checked his hair. Not once did he look around the battlefield, his hair was far more important.

It is easy to be cynical and there is no doubt that some elements of the Afghanistan Army are trying, but from what I have seen and heard they are truly a work in progress and the timeline for there success is not promising.

Forward Operating Base: Now Zad
Northern Helmand Province
Afghanistan

At all bases the Marines operate in there is an expression they use “River City” to describe what happens when a Marine is killed or injured. All contact with the outside world ceases to be available all phone lines and Internet connections are cut until the next of kin are notified.

At Forward Operating Base Now Zad, it is almost the norm, rather than the exception. Life continues for the Marines, another day passes and it is one day closer to going home. The majority of the Marines I talked with “going home,” meant safe and still intact, whilst they all grieve for fallen comrades there is also an acceptance that what they do entails risk.

Whilst they may be Rambo one minute, the next minute reflection replaces reality. When we arrived at Now Zad, 2/3 Marines Golf Company had already lost 2 Marines and a further 7 had been wounded in action, including 3 double amputations. All had been killed or injured as a result of IED’s. Any foot patrol was forbidden as the risk was to high to quote Captain Martin of Golf Company, “We will not walk in the area”.

Now Zad is a ghost town, not a soul lives there, or has done for the past couple of years, where once approx 15,000 Afghans once lived, not a soul is there. The British and Estonians have held ground there and the Marines are now on their third rotation there. With a casual ease Marines would point to a spot 100 yards away and say there is a high possibility that the Taliban are there now and watching us. What separates the two is often just a minefield of IED’s. They are so randomly set and spread out that even the Taliban to a degree now will not enter certain areas.

And so in temperatures that destroy any remaining part of your soul, a stand off exists in Now Zad. As if it was the 1st World War, a no mans land of death separates the adversaries. The only thing that moves between the two sides apart from bullets, mortars and rockets are the wasps. For some reason Now Zad has a plague of them. Any water or liquid and you are surrounded by them, and for someone like me who has a certified terror of bee’s let alone wasps, this was no happy place.

Showers and the basic laundry facility was closed between 11am and 2 pm, not to conserve water but to minimize wasp attacks. Hesco barriers and concrete walls may stop Taliban attacks but not wasps.

Unlike large bases back at Leatherneck and Bastion or even in the capital Kabul, FOB Now Zad has no luxuries, most rooms are plywood boxes with no air conditioning, and the temperature inside the rooms can easily reach 42 degrees Celsius close to 108 degrees Fahrenheit. There is no dining facilty for meals apart from some netting on poles, two meals a day are served out of trays, miss the meal time and it is MRE’s. I saw the trays of food just lying around in the dust like discarded waste next to a dumpster, no doubt tomorrows meal.

Water is measured in degrees of bath water, and tepid is something you actually crave. There were fridges around, but they were closely guarded secrets and rarely if ever would anyone ever offer Greg and I a cold drink, they were just too precious, I did not begrudge them this as it made me realize how hard it actually is for them. And how pathetically easy Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen have it at the bigger bases, where 24 hour meals are available and signs on the fridges ask you to limit yourself to two cold cans of soda a meal, but no one ever counts.

And yet not one Marine at FOB Now Zad wanted to be anywhere else but there, at the frontline in the fight against the Taliban. In adversity they become a true “Band of Brothers”, and to be honest you never hear a word of despair or frustration from them.

The only thing they do not like is “River City” because it means one of there own has fallen.

Forward Operating Base: Now Zad
Northern Helmand Province
Afghanistan

At all bases the Marines operate in there is an expression they use “River City” to describe what happens when a Marine is killed or injured. All contact with the outside world ceases to be available all phone lines and Internet connections are cut until the next of kin are notified.

At Forward Operating Base Now Zad, it is almost the norm, rather than the exception. Life continues for the Marines, another day passes and it is one day closer to going home. The majority of the Marines I talked with “going home,” meant safe and still intact, whilst they all grieve for fallen comrades there is also an acceptance that what they do entails risk.

Whilst they may be Rambo one minute, the next minute reflection replaces reality. When we arrived at Now Zad, 2/3 Marines Golf Company had already lost 2 Marines and a further 7 had been wounded in action, including 3 double amputations. All had been killed or injured as a result of IED’s. Any foot patrol was forbidden as the risk was to high to quote Captain Martin of Golf Company, “We will not walk in the area”.

Now Zad is a ghost town, not a soul lives there, or has done for the past couple of years, where once approx 15,000 Afghans once lived, not a soul is there. The British and Estonians have held ground there and the Marines are now on their third rotation there. With a casual ease Marines would point to a spot 100 yards away and say there is a high possibility that the Taliban are there now and watching us. What separates the two is often just a minefield of IED’s. They are so randomly set and spread out that even the Taliban to a degree now will not enter certain areas.

And so in temperatures that destroy any remaining part of your soul, a stand off exists in Now Zad. As if it was the 1st World War, a no mans land of death separates the adversaries. The only thing that moves between the two sides apart from bullets, mortars and rockets are the wasps. For some reason Now Zad has a plague of them. Any water or liquid and you are surrounded by them, and for someone like me who has a certified terror of bee’s let alone wasps, this was no happy place.

Showers and the basic laundry facility was closed between 11am and 2 pm, not to conserve water but to minimize wasp attacks. Hesco barriers and concrete walls may stop Taliban attacks but not wasps.

Unlike large bases back at Leatherneck and Bastion or even in the capital Kabul, FOB Now Zad has no luxuries, most rooms are plywood boxes with no air conditioning, and the temperature inside the rooms can easily reach 42 degrees Celsius close to 108 degrees Fahrenheit. There is no dining facilty for meals apart from some netting on poles, two meals a day are served out of trays, miss the meal time and it is MRE’s. I saw the trays of food just lying around in the dust like discarded waste next to a dumpster, no doubt tomorrows meal.

Water is measured in degrees of bath water, and tepid is something you actually crave. There were fridges around, but they were closely guarded secrets and rarely if ever would anyone ever offer Greg and I a cold drink, they were just too precious, I did not begrudge them this as it made me realize how hard it actually is for them. And how pathetically easy Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen have it at the bigger bases, where 24 hour meals are available and signs on the fridges ask you to limit yourself to two cold cans of soda a meal, but no one ever counts.

And yet not one Marine at FOB Now Zad wanted to be anywhere else but there, at the frontline in the fight against the Taliban. In adversity they become a true “Band of Brothers”, and to be honest you never hear a word of despair or frustration from them.

The only thing they do not like is “River City” because it means one of there own has fallen.