Diving for cover

Another day practising routine fire and manoeuvre on the range had everyone diving for cover as a huge explosive BOOM! was heard which was not part of the exercise. The range safety staff and practising troops were shocked as many assumed it was enemy incoming fire. As some dived for cover under the cam net (what hard cover it would have offered is anyone's guess?), and amongst cries of CONTACT, a smoke plume arose to the east of the range roughly 300 metres away. What was it? A mortar, another rocket attack, would there be Taliban coming over the tops of the ranges firing AK47's and RPG's from the hip? No. The next cries were 'Deresh' by our Sentry (Stop in Pashtu) and then cries of pain from a young Afghan boy. It turned out in the end that one of the local Afghani boys that frequent the area by the ranges, waiting for us to finish, then scavenging any uncollected brass (empty expended ammunition cartridges) had picked up a UXO (unexploded ordanance) and had been 'throwing' it around when it exploded injuring him slightly. Once the boy had been stopped and searched to ensure he wasn't a suicide bomber gone wrong, he was brought in to our first aid point and then taken back to Camp Bastion's hospital for treatment.

Completion of our in RSOI package was almost upon us and we were briefed that our platoon would be the first to move into our new home for the next 6 months 'our company lines' that evening. After packing our black grips and bergens again we headed for our new home and prepared to shadow 6 RIFLES on patrol in order to get an insight of what we would be doing for the next 6 months.

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