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visit our website thisisnorthdevon.co.uk NDJ-E01-S2 The Journal Thursday August 4, 2011

Victory is close, but we must maintain focus

A SAPPER servingC h ive n o r s engineer regsays Afghanistan is totally ferent to what he expected.

Sapper Dean Lockey, 25, Newcastle, said he had come under contact once tour, while embedded witCombat Logistic Patrol.

He said he feels safer thaever thought he would.

He said: I missed ttour and I hear it s comdifferent from then.

It seems much safer andhave been so looked after wall the kit we ve been gi

Sapper Lockey, part oCommando, is finding it haway from his family, fianand his 21-month-old son.

He said: I miss my famI miss my own space. Obviouyou get sick of the lads too. wake up, go to sleep, workeat, all with the same people,six months straight.

But you ve just got towith it. It s one big pusuntil the end.

By STEPH COCKROFTc o c kro f t @ c - d m . c o .u k

A CHIVENOR commander says vic-ory is imminent in an area of Afgh-

anistan previously dominated bynsurg ents.

Lieutenant Joe Robinson, troopcommander of Condor Troop, part of 24 Commando Engineer Regiment,claims mission success has almostbeen achieved in Nad-e Ali South, theargest area of operation in Helmand

prov i n ce.It is the area in which the 30-strong

Condor Troop is responsible for allhe engineering, which includes

building roads, bridges and newb a s e s.

But the 26-year-old Army officer,who grew up in Barnstaple and wento West Buckland School, said any-hing could change in this environ-

ment and the troops must remainoc u s s e d .

He said: The story in Nad-e AliSouth is that we are close to victory.We have just got a few runs to make in

the last over. That is not to say therea re n t threats, we just have to main-tain our focus.

Lieutenant Robinson, who lives atChivenor, is serving in Afghanistanfor the first time and said he wassurprised at how much hope thereseemed to be in the country.

He said: Mission success in Afgh-anistan I never thought we wouldsay it but we are really close in thisarea. Being a part of that is somethingI will remember for the rest of myl i f e.

We have hit the insurgents belowthe water line and they are finding ithard to do a regain.

Lieutenant Robinson s role in-volves everything from managingmulti-million pound building pro-

jects, to carrying out recces alongroutes where there could be impro-vised explosive devices (IEDs).

He said: It is hugely rewarding tobe part of the transition. We are hold-ing off the f ight ing season downh e re.

That is a great deal owed to my

blokes and the impact they ve madeby developing built protection into ana re a .

As soon as there is a permanentmarker, the intimidation from theinsurgents goes away.

Lieutenant Robinson compared thearea now with February 2010, whenOperation Moshtarak, which pushedsouth from Forward Operating BaseShawqat, claimed the life of scores of ISAF and Afghan troops.

He said: All the way down it wasvery kinetic with lots of insurgents, ahostile population and checkpointsset up hastily.

Two years on and we can patrolout of the back gate here (FOBShawqat) in our berets. We can talk topeople going about on their motor-bikes. The change is so easy to re-co gnise.

Lieutenant Robinson said the mostsignificant change in the area was theintroduction of the Afghan Local Po-lice, locals who have volunteered tolook after communities instead of being ruled by the Taliban.

The engineers have been busybuilding checkpoints from which thepolice can work, a covert operationwhich must be completed with theutmost discretion.

But there are still areas of Nad-e AliSouth, where the battlegroup is 45Commando, which need to be pen-etrated, mainly in the deep south of the area, which borders with the USMarine Corps area of operation.

He said: There are always going tobe areas where the enemy have aregroup after retracting.

At the moment, we can t patrolinto that area because we don t haveenough manpower. But there areplans to push forward into that areato create a local police presence.

Lieutenant Robinson also warnedthey could not become complacent.

He said there had been shots firedtwo days earlier 500m away from FOBShawqat, where Condor Troop isbased.

He said: It s changing. You cannotlose your concentration for a second.That is why it is so complex.

Engineers keep thingsgoing round the clock

THE soldier in charge of train-ng Chivenor sappers says lifes harder for those left behindn the UK while loved ones are

on deployment.Warrant Officer Class Two

Clive Robertson, who is part of 54 Commando, ensures the sol-diers from 24 Commando areup to scratch in all theirweaponry skills.

The training is particularlypertinent when troops returnrom their two-week break at

home, or as focus starts de-creasing as the end-of-tour dateo o m s.

He said: Some people havenot been out to theatre beforeso we need to keep them on theball. We need to keep them

e f re s h e d . It is training them for allpossibilities because someguys do get contact.

We hope they do not getcontact, but if they do, they llbe experts. We are constantlypushing them to the limit.

WO2 Robertson is married toMichelle Robertson, fromRoundswell, a former PiltonCommunity College student,who now works at TorridgeTraining Services.

He said: No one wants toeave the family behind and it

d o e s n t get any easier. But I think it is harder for

hem as suddenly there s a biggap in their normal life. Theyare the ones who have to plodon.

By STEPH COCKROFTs c o c k ro f t @ c - d m . c o . u k

THE role of the Chivenor engineers inAfghanistan is much broader than that of a typical engineer in the UK.

With each soldier having their owntrade or skill, the eclectic bunch from 24Commando Engineer Regiment covereverything from route clearance, to mech-anics, to welders, as well as those whoorganise and ferry all the equipment fromp l a c e - t o - p l a c e.

While many of the regiment are spreadaround Helmand province in the forwardbases, there is a hardcore of engineers leftback at Camp Bastion, to keep operationsrunning smoothly.

The Royal Electrical Mechanical En-gineers (REME), part of 24 Commando,look after the fleet of 260 vehicles for theengineer task group.

At REME s base in Bastion, there are6,000 bits of kit waiting to be called intou s e.

Warrant Officer First Class Mark Gil-bert said the job had become toughersince the vehicles had become armouredand equipped with electrical devices andair conditioning.

He said: As more things are added tothe vehicle, there is more for us to do andmaintain. Without these vehicles being intop-notch condition, the bridges, roadsand bases won t get built.

We are a pool of manpower and work

very hard. You never know what is going to be

needed, where and when. No two hoursare the same.

C h ive n o r s Corporal Dan Patricksonwas back at Bastion after being embeddedwith troops at Forward Operating BaseShahzad.

He said: The kit is being run into theground because it is being used so much,so I was there as the first point of contact,providing intimate support to the squad-

ro n . How well looked after the vehicles are

depends a lot on the experience of theo p e r at or.

Engineers are also working in Bastionin an onsite workshop, which makeseverything from ballistic glass frames ton o t ic e boa rd s.

The workshop has been set up this yearfor the first time and has been inundatedwith work.

It mainly carries out urgent projectswhich would take too long to arrive fromthe UK.

Sapper Tom Matthews, who is a welderat the workshop, lives at Chivenor withhis wife, Jenna, and son, Tommy, who isnearly two.

The 22-year-old said the work they doensured there was no limbo period forthose on the ground, while awaiting anessential item.

He said he had also been makingwhatever was the craze at the bases atthat time.

He said: If stuff needs to get out ontothe ground, we can do it a lot better andquicker, because of the facilities we haveh ere.

Part of 24 Commando is also the re-sources troop, which is responsible forabout 1,500 shipping containers full of essential engineering material.

It is their role to ensure it is sentforward to the bases, or sent back to theUK if it is no longer needed.

A FIRST-TIME soldier says lifein Afghanistan has given himperspective on his own life.

Corporal Rick Hornsey saidhe had been moved by sceneshe had seen while serving inHelmand province, includingwitnessing a nine-year-old loc-al boy being treated after losingthree limbs after stepping on am i n e.

He said: It was horrible andit puts your own life into per-spective, as well as what you redoing out here.

I do not kid myself that it s aregular occurrence, but it hap-pens enough. If something like

that happened in the UK, every-one would be in uproar.

But i t is a completely dif-ferent world out here. Oneminute you see a kid using amobile phone but the nextminute they re washing in as t re a m .

He said he had found it hardto face children who beg foritems from the soldiers as theydrive from base-to-base.

They try and get stuff off thevehicles, which we know theyc a n t do, but we feel sorry forthem, he said.

They have never seen any-thing like i t and they have

nothing. Just a little bit of ourfood is a week s worth of foodfor them.

When they are begging, itpulls on your heartstrings.

Lance Corporal Hornsey,part of 54 Commando, missedout on the last Chivenor tour of Afghanistan and was desperateto deploy.

But he said the first fourmonths had been different tohis expectations.

He said: We ve had a variedtime and it s been non-stop.

But, from speaking to thelads who have been out before,it has been a much quieter tour.

Last time, my mates came backwith all these stories but it isnothing like they described.

There is much less one-on-one contact. I honestly don tthink we ll have chance of con-tact in this tour. The nature of the conflict has changed.

With us being on the road,we are obviously at high riskfor being struck by explosives,but we seem to be finding mostof them.

It seems to be a sign we aregetting on top of it.

Chivenor troops in Afghanistan

I LIEUTENANT JOE ROBINSON:commander of Condor Troop, 24Commando Engineer Regiment.

Loved onesin UK canfind it tough

TRAINING: WO2 CliveRobertson on the ranges atCamp Bastion.

An injured child puts your life in perspective

I LANCE CORPORAL: RickHor nsey.

One big pushto the end

I SAPPER: Dean Lockey.

I SAPPER: Tom Matthews.