Spoken from the Front Read Online Free Page A

the force
provost marshal [FPM] for the UK task force. We deployed on
6 April after completing a six-month training period in the
UK. When we first deployed, although my company headquarters
was in Kandahar, I also had a detachment in Kabul
and the majority of my troops were in Helmand province. I
spent an awful lot of time on the road, so to speak, but
actually in helicopters. If I had been collecting air miles I
would have been doing very well! I was spending quite a lot
of time in Helmand but about seven weeks into the tour I was
also appointed as the SO2 ANP in addition to my company
command and FPM role – this meant I was a staff officer
responsible for the Afghan National Police, as part of a newly
formed Security Sector reform cell.
    I had never been to Afghanistan before. When you land on
    an RAF flight somewhere like that, all the lights get turned off and you have
    to put your helmet and all your body armour on whilst sitting in your seat
    on the plane; I think people who have never experienced that before feel a
    bit of trepidation landing like that – it all goes very quiet. When
    you arrive in Kandahar it's a huge, multinational camp. It was only half built
    at the time. A lot of things were still going on in terms of building but
    it had all the normal facilities that you get on a large army base whilst
    on a deployment, like little shops and cafés and stuff like that. Because
    it's an air base, it's a huge camp but you don't get to see anything of Kandahar
    itself, unless it's your job to patrol there.
    Throughout May, I spent my time going between
Kandahar, Kabul, Camp Bastion and Lashkar Gah. As
company commander, I had to make sure that the brigade
commander was getting the RMP support he needed, in the
right places and at the right time, to support his operations.
So it was just ensuring any planned operation was given
RMP support at the right level and choosing the right
characters for it, depending on what the operation was. One
of our main roles out there was getting involved in detention
issues, giving advice and guidance to commanders on the
ground when they took an Afghan detainee. We had to
ensure that that detainee was handled correctly and that
the evidence to support the arrest was gathered in the
right way. We would guide them [British soldiers] on how
best to produce that evidence and what evidence would
be needed to support the detainee being handed over to the
Afghans.
    It was a very difficult situation, bearing in mind that we
were there to support the Afghans. We were not at war with
them so any arrested locals were designated as detainees –
they were not prisoners of war. Quite often during operations
in Helmand – which involved other nationalities [such as the
Americans] – if somebody was injured, they might be flown
to the British medical facility in Camp Bastion, even if they
were suspected to be Taliban. Then, by virtue of the fact that
the British medical services were looking after them, they
became a British detainee. So trying to gather the evidence
against them was difficult because we were going up
different military chains, different national chains.
    But that was not our only role. We also acted as first
responders where we could in the case of a UK death. Our
Special Investigation Branch [SIB] colleagues are appointed
coroners' officers: they gather evidence and investigate the
death. Every UK death is treated as an alleged murder; the
SIB gather evidence for the UK coroner on his behalf. So,
as first responders to any UK death, we had to gather
any evidence we could from the scene in terms of forensic
evidence and witness statements. That is part of the RMP
role, which can be difficult depending on where the incident
has occurred and what the tactical situation is on the ground.
There were some scenes [scenes of crime] that you simply
couldn't get anywhere near because it was too dangerous.
    We also police the [British military] force. As part of