There had been little activity for a few days and, personally, I had all but forgotten the sensation of coming under fire as we had climbed The Travellator on 28th May. As I said in part 1 of this story, we simply didn’t expect casualties on routine patrols in our safe bubble; several of them went out each day without mishap. So, it was an enormous shock when the ops room runner approached me as I headed for the cookhouse on the evening of 1st June to tell me that a Guardsman had been shot and was being brought back to the Patrol Base.
A few minutes later the casualty arrived on a stretcher clipped to the trailer of the Company Sergeant Major’s quadbike. He had been hit by a single well aimed shot that had passed through his right bicep. Moments before he had been hit, a white Taliban flag had gone up above a building in the village. This was not just a symbol of Taliban defiance, it suggested that whoever had arrived in the area was using the flag to help judge wind direction and speed. We had a well trained sniper in our midst.
The presence of a sniper team in our safe bubble was very bad news and threatened our grip on the security of the area. A few days later, another patrol started receiving single, aimed shots in the same area that the Guardsman had been shot. The ops room requested a helicopter and scoured the area with the surveillance assets to find the shooter so that the helicopter could hit him. But at that point the local Afghan police commander arrived with a loud speaker and started shouting insults at the Taliban. His men then started firing wildly in the direction of the danger. The helicopter was called off and our patrol withdrew from the chaos and this time, without doubt, they took further fire as they climbed The Travellator.
The next day the sniper was picked up by the surveillance cameras. An Exactor rocket - a precision, remote controlled rocket with a camera in its nose - was lined up to take him out but was almost immediately stood down as the chain of command felt that it would cause too much collateral damage. It was a feature of this period of the war that the British aimed for zero-zero collateral damage: no damage to either people or property. The discipline of our soldiers at this time was incredible. In a daily struggle for life and death, the odds were tipped against them by rules of engagement that forced them to stay their hands when their enemy never would.
The Grenadier Guards Recce Platoon had joined the PB by this point, arriving to help re-establish security in the area. Their commander chafed to get out at the sniper now that he had been seen, but it was felt to be too risky without proper planning.
Two days later the Recce Platoon were out on the ground, assisting the Grenadier Guards’ Queen’s Company on an operation, when they came under fire from the sniper. Two men were hit, one in the shoulder and the other in the helmet. The young medic attached to the Recce Platoon dragged the two men into a ditch and tended to their wounds. Both walked away from the incident.
This was the last event that prompted the fatal operation of the 13th June. The snipers had to be taken out and so a plan was hatched.
Adam Staten is the author of the novel Steadfast: Band of Brothers based on his time serving as a medical officer in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
