Territorial Army in Afghanistan???
Posted by: Tarquin Maynard - Portly on 21 December 2010
I do keep seeing comments ( not here, I hasten to add ) from seemingly knowledgable people expressing surpise that the TA have deployed soldiers on Ops in Afghanistan. The next query is ususlly to assume that they're in base jobs, admin etc and clearly they have no idea that TA soldiers are used in any other capacity.
I know a fair few TA Infantry soldiers who have deployed, and thought it might be of interest to outline recent experiences of some soldiers I know from one Company. All of the guys are aged under 25 and volunteered to serve with 2 Rifles.
Tom S was on foot patrol in Helmand when the bloke in front of him was "pink misted." What tis jolly little phrase means is that the guy in front of him trod on a pressure plate initiating an IED, which turned him into... pink mist. No remains to speak of. Tom was uninjured; his ballistic eye protection did its job and stopped shrapnel.
Frog and Flinnie where with the Mortars when their accomodation was hit by an RPG. Luckily for them, the Talib that fired it used an anti-tank round - which directs blast forward - instead of an anti-personnel round which would have killed them. Both caught shrapnel, casevaced and returned to duty.
Nik M wa also on foot patrol when his fire team came under fire. He took cover - in his words, "not well enough", and was hit by a single small-arms round. He was on one knee and the bullet went though the skin immediately above his bent right knee, travelled about an inch and exited again. It then entered his pelvic region via his penis, rattled around inside and exited via his right buttock, taking a good chunk of his gluteous maximus with it. When I saw him at Selly Oak earlier this year he was in a wheel chair but on friday night was mobile and moving around. He is astonishingly lucky as there are rather a lot of important arteries, nerves etc in that part of his body.
These are the blokes I know, and I am aware that there are plenty of other injured TA soldiers out there.
Thought some people here might be interested.
I know a fair few TA Infantry soldiers who have deployed, and thought it might be of interest to outline recent experiences of some soldiers I know from one Company. All of the guys are aged under 25 and volunteered to serve with 2 Rifles.
Tom S was on foot patrol in Helmand when the bloke in front of him was "pink misted." What tis jolly little phrase means is that the guy in front of him trod on a pressure plate initiating an IED, which turned him into... pink mist. No remains to speak of. Tom was uninjured; his ballistic eye protection did its job and stopped shrapnel.
Frog and Flinnie where with the Mortars when their accomodation was hit by an RPG. Luckily for them, the Talib that fired it used an anti-tank round - which directs blast forward - instead of an anti-personnel round which would have killed them. Both caught shrapnel, casevaced and returned to duty.
Nik M wa also on foot patrol when his fire team came under fire. He took cover - in his words, "not well enough", and was hit by a single small-arms round. He was on one knee and the bullet went though the skin immediately above his bent right knee, travelled about an inch and exited again. It then entered his pelvic region via his penis, rattled around inside and exited via his right buttock, taking a good chunk of his gluteous maximus with it. When I saw him at Selly Oak earlier this year he was in a wheel chair but on friday night was mobile and moving around. He is astonishingly lucky as there are rather a lot of important arteries, nerves etc in that part of his body.
These are the blokes I know, and I am aware that there are plenty of other injured TA soldiers out there.
Thought some people here might be interested.