Afghanistan: Life under canvas

BBC Newsline reporter Mervyn Jess has spent time with Northern Ireland soldiers in Afghanistan. He kept a diary of his visit.

Days five - eight

The soldiers have nicknamed the Headquarters of 19 Light Brigade in Helmand province Lash Vegas.  Why, I ask myself?

The walled camp at Lashkar Gah has some notable features but they're all lacking in extravagant neon.

The only coloured lights are the occasional flares fired off at night from the lookout sangers to light up sections of the city immediately adjacent the camp perimeter.

On reflection, however, it occurs to me that given the amount of insurgent activity in this area, it is a bit of a "gamble" being here.

Lash is where all the military chiefs plan operations throughout Helmand.

The Ops Room is a bustling centre of communications. The walls of this concrete bunker are adorned with maps depicting hot areas within the "Green Zone" where Taliban attacks are most likely.

Sleeping gets better as you become used to the constant drone of the generators and sudden clatter of helicopters Mervyn Jess In pictures: Reporting Afghanistan

Within the Ops Room there is a smaller room which is off limits to all but the most important ranks.

I'm told that this is where on-the-ground operations are constantly monitored and where orders are relayed directly to field commanders.

The man in charge of it all is Northern Ireland-born Brigadier Tim Radford. The responsibility for all the personnel within Task Force Helmand rests with him. It's a daunting prospect.

Travelling down from Camp Bastion those in the know tell me that Lashkar Gah has one of the best food kitchens in the country.

 I am not disappointed. Most of the accommodation in the camp is in large tents with army air conditioning units attached.

They're noisy but effective and the army-issue bunk beds are actually quite comfortable. However, the catering contractors deserve the medal for the food they prepared and serve up each day.

You would be hard pressed to find a better standard of food in a good hotel back home, and this is all being prepared in temperatures averaging 40 degrees celsius and above.

Add to the mix the fact that everything that's eaten is driven in by civilian lorry convoys which are targeted by Taliban insurgents and you get some idea of the complexities faced by the catering manager.

Toilet and shower blocks are pre-constructed within large metal freight containers. The camp even has a laundry and a NAFFI-style shop selling a few creature comforts and ice cold soft drinks.

That's  something else which distinguishes this Vegas from the real one - no booze! Not that you'd need it.

The thought of getting up in the morning in this climate with a fuzzy head and self inflicted dehydration is not a pleasant prospect. Nobody seems to miss it... much!

Soldiers are working in heat which is above 40 degrees celsius

Sleeping at night gets better as you become used to the constant drone of the generators running the air conditioning units and sudden clatter of helicopters swooping in low over the tent tops in the middle of the night.

I wonder what the aircraft are doing. Are they bringing in supplies? Are they picking up a night patrol for insertion in the Green Zone?

Or are they being used as emergency medical evacuation for wounded personnel caught in the latest IED (Improvised Explosive Device) attack?

When sending despatches back from a war zone as an imbedded journalist with a military unit, there are certain restrictions which are agreed to before leaving for the theatre of operations.

All written copy must be read by what the army call "military advisors".

They say they are checking the copy for anything that might be of use to the enemy, such as operational procedures or detailed descriptions of specialist equipment. The advisors assure us that they are not there to censor.

That is something the journalists and the advisors will have to agree to disagree on.

Laptops

It's a fact of life that what the journalist wants to write about and what the army would like the journalist to write about will not always tally.

It's a game of give and take and it requires the writer to think even more deeply about what he or she commits to print or broadcast.

A small red sign appears periodically outside the HQ office block. It reads - "Ops Minimize."

This is effectively a lock down on all contact with the outside world either via internet or telephone and it generally means someone has been killed or badly injured.

A lot of the soldiers have laptops with them out here and they have broadband satellite connection through the military uplinks.

Ops Minimize stops anybody inadvertently passing information home about a soldier being killed before the family's been informed officially.

To think that such a small seemingly innocuous sign can be so chilling when it appears unexpectedly.

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