In no time at all it was Christmas, I’d got home from my tour in the May after spending the last in Afghanistan and was really just looking forward to a quiet family affair. In mid-December we at 6 RIFLES held a choir service at the small church in Topsham and I’d been asked to talk about what it was like to spend Christmas in Afghanistan. All through the tour I was an avid diary keeper, well diary is the wrong word really, journal would be a better choice. So after re-reading my entries from that period I wrote the following, little knowing that afterwards it would be read out by an army Padre on Christmas day, on the BBC. Leading up to Christmas this year I found myself reading the passage again and felt it would be good to share it with you.

Christmas day in Afghanistan 2009

04.00 Christmas morning I stand in the rain with the others, waiting to go on patrol, “Happy Christmas” is heard in the dark, no one feels like answering. Slowly we file out of the FOB, sticking to the irrigation ditches, waist deep in water. I try to adjust the body amour that, as always, is starting to get uncomfortable, everything is wet and I start to shiver. Daylight brings a break in the rain and slowly the sun starts to dry out my clothes. By afternoon sweat has replaced the rain and we begin the slow move back to the FOB. Muscles ache and every chance to take a knee is welcomed, just to take the weight off our backs for a second.

In the FOB I collapse on my kit, with a brew in my hand I can’t help but smile as I see Sjt ‘Dinger’ dressed as Santa with one of the youngest Rifleman on his knee. I look around to admire the Christmas decorations put up in the FOB, some sent over and many hand made. Tangye, one of the FOB dogs, runs past with a set of antlers gaffer tapped to his head. I can smell the Christmas dinner coming from the cookhouse, the officers all with silly hats on serve the lads, no one is allowed in without a hat, and no one gets out without Brussels sprouts. Christmas tunes and laughter can be heard from every room, back in the cookhouse not a scrap is left uneaten, and outside the dogs seem to have more of a taste for the Brussel sprouts than we do. By the Ops room lads queue to phone home, everyone trying to be as quick as they can so that as many as possible can call their families.

Night comes and on the way back to my room I pass the next lads on stag, body amour and helmets back on, routine continues. With a pile of welfare parcels in my arms, yes even I at 44 had to sit on Santa Dinger’s knee and promise him that I’d been a good boy this year. In my room I begin to open my first parcel, simply addressed to ‘Tommy Atkins’. When Tangye pokes his head around the door, antlers now askew, he’s followed by Smudge with a steaming coffee pot, home made from an old shell casing. Over coffee and mince pies we chat about our families, I ask him how many Christmases he’s spent away from his, 5, 2 of them in Afghanistan he tells me. In the first parcel is an old tin, puzzled I open it and inside is an old sock. In the sock is a miniature bottle of scotch, on the tag around its neck the message simply reads, “Happy Christmas” – “it is now!” states Smudge. Mortars crack and we both see the light of the flares creep in around the sandbags in the window. We throw on our body amour, and with helmets and weapons in hand we run to our stand to positions, Smudge turns back laughing,
“well that’s Christmas over for another year!”
In the Sanger I reply
“well not quite"
as I point to Sjt Dinger on the mortar line, helmet and body amour on, over the top of his Santa costume!

They say that the RIFLES is a family, on Christmas day in 2009 I was touched by the warmth and kindness of that family when I was so many miles away from my own.

Back to HERRICK 11 and my tour

Posted by Brent Meheux - 18/12/11 - Tags - christmas, herrick 11, afghanistan, 3 rifles

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