Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
There was a big media focus on the 16th Air Assault in Sangin. Why? Because that’s as far as the media were allowed to go into Afghanistan. And ITN covered it, but at exactly the same time the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was up at Now Zad where the media weren’t allowed and they fought the biggest trench engagement with bayonets since the First World War! But because the media couldn’t go there the media coverage was all about the paras in Sangin and nobody knew about Now Zad.
James Fergusson, A Million Bullets.
Fergusson was a journalist in Afghanistan with Herrick 4 – the campaign has gone on so long we’re now on about Herrick 14. Fergusson had done all the big interviews with the Defence Secretary and got all that standard block information on the war, but then he started to talk to the soldiers, asking them, ‘What do you think? Why do you think you’re here?’ John Reid was saying the operation in Afghanistan could be achieved without a single shot being fired and yet the soldiers were in the middle of this big fight. How did that happen?
He talks to the Taliban too. In the blurb they make out that it’s a big deal but actually they’re everywhere. You go to Kabul and you bump into them – it’s easy. But it is particularly interesting when he talks to the British units. There’s this Lieutenant-Colonel and he sees it as his time to make a name for his unit and win medals – the politics of the media and medals becomes important when you’re there. I’ll give you an example: there was a big media focus on the 16th Air Assault in Sangin. Why? Because that’s as far as the media were allowed to go into Afghanistan. And ITN covered it, but at exactly the same time the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was up at Now Zad where the media weren’t allowed and they fought the biggest trench engagement with bayonets since the First World War! But because the media couldn’t go there the media coverage was all about the paras in Sangin and nobody knew about Now Zad. And so you get the Battalion Command Officer and the Company Commander moaning, quite rightly, that not one of those lads in the Fusiliers got a decoration.
As far as the media was concerned, Sangin was the most dangerous place on the planet because the journalists need to be seen to be in the most dangerous place, but it wasn’t! And afterwards the National Army Museum even did a big display about the paras in Sangin. You know, you’re rattling around with the troops and the squaddies are saying: ‘That’s not dangerous! That’s why they were there – because it’s not dangerous!’ And the politics with the medals is funny since John Major brought them all together so that everyone gets the same medal, a campaign medal. People don’t like that! They say: ‘Campaign?! We were in a war!’
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Andy McNab joined the infantry in 1976 as a boy soldier. In 1984 he was badged as a member of 22 SAS Regiment. He served in B Squadron 22 SAS for ten years and worked on both covert and overt special operations worldwide, including anti-terrorist and anti-drug operations in the Middle and Far East, South and Central America and Northern Ireland. In the Gulf War, McNab commanded the famous Bravo Two Zero patrol. The patrol infiltrated Iraq in January 1991, but were soon compromised. Three of the eight were killed, four captured, one escaped. McNab was held for six weeks and tortured. Awarded both the Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military career, McNab was the British Army’s most highly decorated serving soldier when he left the SAS in February 1993. Andy McNab has written about his experiences in the SAS in two bestselling books, Bravo Two Zero (1993) and Immediate Action (1995). His latest novel War Torn, is just out.
