The Afghanistan You Never See
Posted on Thursday 24th May 2012






The fact that it was only a partial detonation of the IED led to confusion at first with the first shout after the explosion being Contact UGL (Underslung Grenade Launcher) rather than IED. It was only when someone shouted 'IED Man Down' that it became clear what had happened. The lad involved would not and could not believe that he hadn't lost his foot until we propped him up to show him his foot was still there. This picture was taken about 10 minutes after the explosion, after the medics had started treating him and we were waiting for the MERT heliocopter to come in and pick him up. He'd asked for morphine for the pain, and it was just about starting to kick in. Because of the morphine and the fact that he'd NOT lost his leg, he was starting to be a lot more relaxed. As were we.After the MERT had taken him away I walked slowly back to the patrol multiple and stood next to where the IED had been planted. All that was availbale to be seen were two thick white wires sticking out of the ground and a small crater. The really lucky thing was that our multiple had missed the site of the IED. We'd crossed a ditch and turned left to go down a hedgeline, HIS patrol multiple had crossed the ditch and gone right over the hedge. It was going right that had meant his patrol passed the site of the IED and caused him to set on the trigger. If anyone was lucky that day, it was me and our patrol.





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