HD video of danish soldiers, Helmand, Afghan... From last year; but still worth seing.
VIDAR COY ISAF 7
And now for something completely different:
This is a rough translation of a Danish language officers blog from April 2009 - yeah I know its old, but still.
How everyone should deal with IED facilitators and their helpers when the chance occurs!
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It was already half past four. It would soon be dark. IEDD Team (Improvised Explosive Device Disposal Team) of British engineers who specialize in removing IEDs, could only come by helicopter the morning after. I thought if we couldn't just blow it and then call it an accident. Instead we decided to put a group in ambush position in the poppy field. And wait.
I was left with the eight other soldiers and platoon commander. There were no civilians around. I started to get worried.
We hid ourselves in the [poppy field. Down among the roots, it was another world. There clambered beetles around, and only the humming of the insects reached here. The platoon moved away, a few less now. I could not see them, but their steps sounded like small bangs, when they crushed some poppy shells. First I thought it was a fire fight far away. I started to hear the fire fight in many places now. The sound disappeared and the platoon was in hiding a few hundred meters behind us - as a reserve.
I was tired. The poppy field was pleasant and soft, and we took the helmets off to be able to listen better. Sleep came on me as a big soft teddybear. I fought against the quiet, and concentrated, but was about to doze away. Then I heard the sound of a motorcycle. It couldn't be big. It drove somewhere in front of us and disappeared. On the group's internal radio the platoon commander whispered, struggling between remaining hidden and keeping the IED in view.
The motorcycle had traveled to the IED, stopped and drove on. I was about to reach for my helmet when I began to hear voices. They spoke Pashto. It was reported again that five to six men began to gather around the IED. They had elongated bundle in their shirts. Not knowing where they came from. They had two children by the hand. My adrenaline was slowly, by surely, rising. Typical Taliban tactics. Another whispered announcement. The men had sent the children away and was now around the IED and talking, laughing. One had a radio to his ear and pointed around as if he directed.
THE FOLLOWING, I heard made me an executioner. My ears signed their death sentence. I could clearly hear it. First, a name coming out of a crackling radio. Then a man who replied through the radio, where are you, yes. we are there, o.k.
Taliban. They had sent the children away because they had not discovered us and are no longer needed them as shields. The man on the motorcycle had been a digger. I reported that I heard the voice of the Taliban radio, which I had done many times before. Only difference was that I no longer sat several kilometers away from them, but instead a stonethrow away. The radio crackled merrily ahead with messages and orders, and the man directed his people. Our platoon commander made his decision. "Ok, open fire on my command, we open from left to right. The countdown from three, and then we get up and open up. "
My heart pumped, but actually less hard than I expected. I was focused, anxiety. Tense. I can not describe the feeling.
"Three, two, one '
I got up, we all came up together. In front of me I saw five or six very surprised Afghans. Can not remember switching of the safety on my rifle, can not remember me focus through the optics. But I can still see them fall. It is running on repeat in my brain when I smoke cigarettes or eat.
It was not a battle. They were completely surprised. After the first salvo we moved in teams, one team supported the other team jumping ahead. The machine gunner on the extreme left looked like a chaotic war god while he sprayed death from the hip in long salvos at across the area where the Taliban had been.
Cries and commands, garbage and smoke. We arrived at the road and threw a grenade over the compound wall in front of us. Up the road was put supporting fire. It all alternatingly crazy, and a fantastic sight. Repeated, extreme sensations made the memory a mosaic of brown, green, red, fire and earth, shout and salvos.
The fight subsided quickly. If there had been any, and not just a trip to the shooting range. Besides the IED was a very dead man.
The blood still flowed from under his Kamis, and he did not have the tinge of wax yet. First I thought it was parts of his head which was in spots beside him.
When I got closer, I saw it was red flowers, which he perhaps had in his hand? A little further away was the fateful radio. But otherwise only abandoned clothes and silence. A person can indeed go a long way on adrenaline, if he does not suffer a fatal injury instantly. But where were the rest, asked the soldiers.
'Ghosts', I said suddenly. 'Ghosts. Dukher. That was what the Russians called them '.
I confiscated the radio and his cell phone. If you can confiscate a dead man's belongings.
It was an excellent radio. You could switch to the FM band, which I did when I was secure, while others took pictures and collected for the report. I found a local station. Slow Ghazal forward with a deep, sorrowful voice, accompanied by dhool-drums. I imagined it was what an opium high must be like.
The I spotted the man from earlier, the man in white with the Pakistani beard. To the south. The only figure in a Green Zone devoid of people. He stood several hundred meters away and cried, with his back towards us. He cried Allah. Several times. Shortly after each other. First deeply, then shrieking. God, God, God. It was their leader. God was not with him today. Maybe God had instead, in irony, made the opium fields become his men's downfall.
It was twilight. We left the dead beside his IED. Perhaps his leader would take him back. We slid away through the fields again in the growing darkness. It was full moon, so I didn't turn on my night vision equipment. Everything was shrouded in silver. We clambered silently over walls and through the rivers, frogs croaked and dogs barked somewhere far away. Otherwise, only the sound of wind. Now we were ghosts.
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