period between August 2009 and March 2010 was one of the bloodiest in the British Army’s history of bomb disposal. It wasn’t just the British ATOs who had taken casualties either. Both US and Canadian ATOs have also been killed in southern Afghanistan. An SAS sergeant told me that he was in awe of the bomb-disposal units. He went on to describe an incident in which a US bomb-disposal officer was killed while taking part in a mission. ‘We were going into a compound and we had a US ATO with us. He got to the compound and he said, “I’ll go in first and clear it. You guys wait here.” He went in with his mine detector on his own, and about a minute later there was this huge bang. We followed up and he had been blown in half by the bomb. His bottom half had been completely separated. You’re like, “What the fuck?” Thankfully he had been killed instantly. We all owe our lives to him – if we had gone in the bomb would have taken out an entire SAS team.
‘These guys are incredible – people think our job is risky but it’s nothing compared to what these guys do. We always have plenty of intelligence, more often than not we know exactly what will be waiting for us. But these guys have to go in on their own. It’s incredible. The incident happened just before Christmas in December 2009. And his wife and two children buried him the day before Christmas Eve. Whatever way you cut it, that’s just shit.’
A few days after Oz Schmid was killed, Dave Markland and Badger, lying on their beds in the FOB, made a pact. They promised each other that if either of them was killed – blown to pieces by an IED – nothing would be left behind. For the one event which terrifies ATOs and everyone in the world of bomb disposal is the prospect of their body parts being left on the battlefield after an attack. The size of the bombs being used by the Taliban in Helmand can literally blow a human to pieces. Everyone involved in bomb hunting accepts such a fate as a fact of life, and many take comfort from the fact that, if their number is up, they will know very little of it.
While chatting about nothing in particular, Badger turned to Dave and said, ‘Oz, Dan Shepherd and Gaz O’Donnell were all at the top of their game, Dave, you know that. They were as good or better than me. So let’s make a pact. If I get blown up, I get blown out of the safe lane and we are under fire and taking casualties, promise me that you won’t leave me behind. You’ve got to promise me that.’ Badger was now sitting up and staring at Dave, who nodded and replied, ‘The same goes for me, Badger, mate. Now, enough morose talk. Let’s go and get a brew and check on the lads.’
Badger and Dave had hoped to work together for the rest of their six-month tour. The two soldiers had developed a very special working relationship during the ten weeks they had spent together. But that plan was interrupted by their R&R after Christmas. Badger took his leave first and when he returned Dave departed. The planning for Operation Moshtarak, a military drive intended to clear the Taliban from central Helmand, was already underway and bomb hunters were urgently required for the so-called ‘shaping operations’ which took place a few weeks before the main event – the large-scale thrust into the heart of Taliban territory. Both men were due to take part in a shaping operation together but Dave’s return from R&R was delayed and Badger deployed with another search team.
Dave arrived a few days later, but with little to do he quickly became bored and frustrated and was soon asking to be sent out on an operation. An officer recalled how Dave was ‘bouncing off the walls’. ‘He kept going up to Major Gould saying, “Boss, you’ve got to put me out on the ground – I’m doing my nut here.” Eventually a task came up and he was told he was going out – he was delighted. I remember him going up to Gould and shaking his hand before he went out. Major Gould looked him in the eye and wished him good luck – these things are important in our world.’
The two bomb hunters were deployed to Battlegroup Centre South, in the Nad-e’Ali area of central Helmand, Badger to the north and Dave to the south. Both search teams were involved in a series of straightforward routine search and clearance operations. On 8 February Dave’s search team was dispatched to clear a route where a suspected device had been uncovered. It was a routine operation, the ICP was cleared by the searchers and the mission was going according to plan. But a mistake had been made. A pressure-plate IED which had been missed was detonated by Dave as he moved across to one side of the ICP. The blast was huge and devastating, killing Dave instantly. Badger was a few kilometres away, conducting a similar route-clearance operation, when he learned the dreadful news.
Badger recalled, ‘I kind of found out by accident that Dave had been killed; no one officially told us. We heard a “nine-liner” saying that someone had been injured from a Brimstone team. We enquired and the Royal Anglian’s operations room told us that there had been an incident with a Brimstone callsign. At that point your heart starts racing and you are just praying that whoever has been injured is going to make it. We looked on the J Chat and I knew straight away that it was Dave.’ Seeing Dave’s Zap number, they realized straight away whose it was.
‘Dave was working with six Gurkhas,’ Badger continued, ‘so I immediately knew that he was the casualty. The J Chat said he was KIA. My heart sunk and I felt sick. I immediately got in touch with the ops room to try and find out what had happened and I was hoping against hope that a mistake had been made. It shouldn’t happen but it’s not unheard of for people to get Zap numbers wrong. But they confirmed that Dave was dead.
‘I never got the full details, just that he had been taken out by an IED and that it was quick – that’s all you can hope for really. It’s a small comfort and you just have to crack on. I was on my own when it was actually confirmed for definite that he was dead. I gave myself five minutes, had a little cry, and then you just have to man-up and go and tell the boys. I called the team together – we had all worked with Dave too and we were all very close. Everyone was gutted but we all had to remember that there was a job to do and we would be back out on the ground in the morning. As hard as it sounds, we couldn’t let ourselves be distracted by Dave’s death because we all knew that we could be the next to be killed.
‘Obviously you think about it when you are on your own or lying in bed at night but you have to trust your drills and assure yourself that providing you do your drills correctly you should be OK. But Dave did nothing wrong.’
With tragic irony Dave’s name was added to the memorial which he designed and built and which still stands in the quiet corner of the compound where the JFEOD Group is based. When the mission is over and the troops come home, the memorial will come with them.
After a few weeks’ leave Badger will return to his unit where he will be given a pager and will command one of the many teams which provide IED coverage over the whole of the UK. Even back in the UK Badger will be called out two or three times a week to deal with devices ranging from a Second World War grenade found in a granny’s cabbage patch to a suspicious package left on a train.
‘It has been a gruelling six months,’ he says. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping on floors and I’m not getting any younger. You are working most days and it’s the sheer number of tasks you are asked to do which slowly grinds you down, and at the back of your mind you know you can’t make a mistake. It’s going to take time to settle into home life again – for the last six months I’ve been making life-and-death decisions, now it’s a case of shopping in Tesco’s and deciding which cereal I want – funny how life changes.’
I say goodbye to Badger and wish him a good leave and a safe journey home. His tour is over but mine is just beginning. In a few days’ time I will once again be on the front line. I’ve only been in Camp Bastion for less than a week but already I feel it’s too long. I want to get out into bandit country again but this time will be different. This time I will be with the bomb hunters searching for IEDs. The promises I made to my wife and myself after Rupert’s death are already beginning to evaporate. Rather than finding reasons not to go into the danger zones, I’m doing the opposite.
Chapter 3: Bomb Makers
‘A
