While other marines took cover, AJ and his sniper team would remain on the tower – searching the surrounding patchwork of terrain for any sign of the enemy.
Sometimes as many as 30 rounds would slam into the ground in a single attack. They exploited the site’s weakness to the full, hammering the base with 120mm mortars that made the ground shake. FOB Robinson had been set up on a slope, giving the Taliban concealed in the town a clear aim into its interior. Nowhere in Sangin was safe, but the tower was particularly exposed. A tower made of mud bricks stood in the centre and AJ took turns with the other snipers to man a makeshift bunker on the top, cradling their rifles and scanning the dun-coloured landscape for any sign of Taliban fighters. The marines bedded down in buildings in an inner circle nicknamed the Dust Bowl. AJ’s unit was based 4km away in an outpost known as FOB (Forward Operating Base) Robinson, where an outer ring of earth-filled wire cages formed the first line of defence. It was a Taliban stronghold, and soldiers from the Parachute Regiment had narrowly managed to hold the town centre after intense fighting a few months before. As a sniper, AJ acted as lookout for the other marines, carefully spotting enemy positions and either calling in mortar fire or counting down from three, according to his training, and pulling the trigger.Īfter the battle at Gereshk, AJ’s unit was deployed to Sangin, a small town on the Helmand river. Five years later, his unit, 45 Commando, was engaged in fierce fighting with the Taliban outside the town of Gereshk. AJ, as the former Royal Marine asked me to call him, was on his second deployment to Afghanistan.
They could not have been more than 17 years old. They had both been shot while defending their position and bled to death in the back of a trailer as AJ and a medic tried to staunch their wounds. T he faces of the two young Afghan policemen would never leave him.
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