Lost and Found…another cautionary tale…

The summer is coming! The summer is coming! Well almost, as I write this it’s pouring down yet again, but despite the hosepipe ban and drought orders, we can try and look forward to a summer of long, sunny days, with BBQ’s and beer gardens and days out…

And a lot of people will be visiting an air show, or maybe two, this summer. Now I am not a massive fan of air shows, party because I have spent far too many air shows WORKING them, but also because I am not a massive fan of aircraft (this previous blog refers).

But people like them, and I do like seeing the historic aircraft flying and on static display, and they are nice days out for people who I’ve taking nice pictures and for the family AND they often raise lots of money for service charities, so they are worthwhile events, and there are lots of big ones this year that look to be great days out.

But. This story comes from when I was working the RAF Cosford air show a few years ago. Our job then was to run the information tent, which also doubled up as the complaints tent, the lost and found tent and the lost children’s tent. This meant we were very busy, dealing with all sorts of odd problems that large numbers of the general public generate. Cars with flat batteries, where is the nearest cashpoint, where is my friend Barry (really!), lost children, forgotten where cars have been parked, lost keys, found keys, found cameras., found children…hectic, but generally good fun.

Some occurrences were genuinely funny, even though they WEREN’T. But it does illustrate that you need to keep your wits about you at an air show…

The air display was well and truly underway, and the Red Arrows had just finished. Into the Information Tent walks a very nice, but very posh chap.

‘I say, do your chaps deal with the Lost and Found?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I reply, ‘how can I help you?’

He looked a bit confused and said, ‘Has anyone handed in a jacket?’

I knew for a fact that no one had, so I got out a form for him to report his loss.

‘Can you describe your jacket, sir?’

‘Yes, it was a jolly nice one,’ he said with a posh plummy accent, the sort you’d hear in a London Club. He was in his early 40′s and you could imagine him to be an ex-pubic schoolboy, works somewhere in the city, doing something which involved a lot of money. ‘A leather one, dontcherknow, sheepskin lining, big collar, lots of flying patches. Only just got the bugger, cost a bomb, thought it’d look jolly nice here, you know. Sort of a flying jacket.’

‘Oh right sir,’ I said as I started to write the description on the form. ‘if you give me your details, if it’s found, we can get it back to you. Where we’re you when you last saw it?’

‘Well, funny thing, haha, the old Red Arrows had just started and everyone was looking up at them, jolly good show, those boys put on, and I remarked to the chappy standing next to me, ‘Jolly good show those boys put on’ and we got to chatting. He said to me that he liked my jacket, and he was thinking of getting one and asked me if he could try it on.

‘So of course I said of course, and let him try it on. We stood and watched the old Reds for a bit longer and then I turned to him to say something, and, well, bugger me, he’d gone! Couldn’t find him anywhere. Must have gotten himself lost in the crowd…was still wearing my jacket…’

I sat in front of him, pen in hand. Mouth slightly agape. Not sure exactly what to do or say. I gave myself an imperceptible shudder to bring myself back to the situation in front of me.

‘Sir, can I introduce you to Cpl Williams, he’s with the RAF Police, I think you might need to talk to him…’

Failure…

I do like a challenge. I do like to push myself. But there are times when I take on more than I bargained for.

I knew when I signed up for the London Marathon that it would be hard work and it’d be painful and would be difficult.

But what I didn’t anticipate was just how physically painful the whole thing would be. And sadly, it’s been too painful.

It’s been well documented on here that I have dodgy knees…indeed, I even cancelled some surgery on my left knee to allow me to go to Afghan, but sadly my dodgy knees have failed me. My body has failed me. I have failed me.

I cannot take part in the marathon. I have had to pull out. And I feel rotten and terrible and worst of all that I have let everyone down.

I have let the RAFBF down because I said that I would try and raise as much money for them as possible, and I have let you down because I promised you that I would take part in the run, and I have let down people who have already sponsored me to run (and already donated nearly £2000) by not actually being able to do what I promised, and I have let myself down for not being able to do it.

So what’s wrong? Well, I have major knee issues on my left knee – a particular thing called a Plica (it’s like a cyst) and ligament problems AND patella tendonitis. And because of the distances I am doing as part of the training that is causing a lot of pain, and the associated limping and labouring has spread the patella tendonitis to my right knee.

Initially it was manageable and I was only in a small amount of pain when running, but as the mileage increased the pain lingered and left me limping and struggling on stairs after the run. Eventually it hungover so that I was still in pain the day after the run. And limping.

This made even walking the dog round the block painful. It made it difficult at work as stairs were very painful – imagine a needle being jabbed into the bottom of your kneecap on every step up and down – and then find yourself working on the first floor of a building without a lift!

And it all came to a head last Sunday. Sunday was the day I would have my long run…and I went out ready to run a half-marathon around the leafy lanes of sunny Surrey. I plodded off after my warm up and the pain was immediately higher than I had suffered so far. And I got 2 miles into the route and found myself walking because of the pain. And after half a mile more I couldn’t run at all. I completely broke down and had to phone my wife to come and pick me up in the car.

Needless to say, I wasn’t happy. The next day I was still in pain and found it difficult to walk the dog, and had to go to see the doc.

He confirmed…patella tendonitis and referred me to the physio. And told me in no uncertain terms, given my history, ‘no running’. And to cope with the pain…Ibuprofen 600mg. Proper horse tablets. (Obviously this has had a benefit that I can have a few glasses of wine of an evening and not have to worry about a hangover in the morning!)

And so here I am. Waiting for the physio to kick in. Walking only. Not training – and when I do, not running or biking. I did try to stick some weight on my back and think about tabbing the Marathon. But the doc said this was not a good idea.

What this means is a bit deeper than just not being able to run the marathon though.

It is the first time I have failed at something I have set out to do. At times the training for going to Afghan was hard, and I thought that I wouldn’t be able to make it. There were times that actually being in Afghan was hard and I thought I wouldn’t get through the deployment, but I did. I pushed and, to be honest, in a test of me against Afghan, it was a test of me against me; mind over matter. And I won.

But this has been different, it’s a test of me against my body and my body has won. I have failed. When it comes to it, my body is weak, but it is still stronger than my mind. I just couldn’t handle the pain, and the potential of long term damage is just too much to keep me pounding the street.

But this makes me think how lucky I am.

There are people, people who I know personally, friends I made in Afghan, who have no choice. Double amputees who have to keep going on. People who are in pain 24/7.

These are very special people. It goes to show me what I knew all along. They are stronger, braver…better than me. I am a pale shadow in comparison to their shining light.

I wish I was stronger. I wish my body was stronger. And this links back to a recent blog post of mine about heroes.

A hero is someone who you aspire to be. Someone who you look to for an example. Someone who you want to be.

I can’t and don’t see myself as any of that. But those people… Those who accept the pain of life-changing injuries with good grace and humour. Who accept that they just have to get on with life after it. Who just ‘crack on’. They are heroes.

And then there are those people who the RAFBF are helping on a day to day basis. Not just young men and women who have been injured in recent conflicts. There are those people who have struggled and suffered for years – fought against disability, pain or mental health – and have done so without morning about it.

They have just cracked on. They all are heroes.

And me? What am I to do? I can’t ‘crack on’. In this case I am not strong enough to do it. Now.

But that doesn’t mean I’ll be like this forever. Well I hope not. I will get my knees sorted. I will get myself fixed.

I will do it for a couple of reasons. One – it’s important to be fit and healthy, but the most important thing is that I owe it to everyone who has been hurt, injured or affected by some sort of trauma to get better so I can be stronger, to learn and grow and to be able to do something to raise the funds that people like the RAF Benevolent Fund need to help them.

But most of all I owe it to me to be fit for me.

You have to move out…

‘Fetch it!’ And I threw the ball.

The dog sat up and watched the trajectory of the ball as it looped through the air and plopped into the irrigation ditch. It took stock, worked out all the angles, took three steps forward and leapt into the water, legs splayed, landing with a huge splash in the dirty, muddy water. It was nearly noon and the temperature out there in Afghanistan was building up. Being early May, it wasn’t yet the high summer, but certainly the heat was rising. I’d run out of water and I was jealous of the dog who was able to jump into the cool of the water and swim about.

Memphis was a specialist ‘high threat’ search dog. His job was to go into the compound we were taking over and search it for any traces of explosives or weaponry. And we were waiting under the shade of some trees, by the wide, but relatively shallow, irrigation ditch for the occupants of the buildings to leave.

What I had just done wasn’t the best part of my job on the deployment. In fact it was the worst part of my job out there. We needed to establish a new checkpoint as part of the Op (Operation) we were on and it was my job to sort out the negotiations for us taking over the compound. It had been specially selected based on its location and the amenities that it offered (such as they were) – notably a large field inside the compound wall that would serve as an easy to secure Helicopter Landing Site. The only problem was that it was occupied by a family.

And so for us to move in, they would have to move out. An operational necessity.

The lines we had to take with the family was that they would be compensated for the inconvenience of having to move out of their home. That we would make every effort to ensure that any damage to the compound buildings would be minimised. That if there was any damage caused by our occupation, we would again, compensate the family. That we would pay rent for our occupation.

I would do a full survey of the building to note down the condition and state of the buildings and any damage evident when we left, well, we would pay for it. Any changes we would make to the doors, windows, roof…we would be responsible for and would pay for.

And always a good one for the family in the long term; that we would be building a well inside the compound that would mean that once we left and they returned they would have access to clean fresh water INSIDE their property and they wouldn’t have to drink water from the dirty ditch at the edge of their field.

But this was a long way down the line and once we had left the property. All hard for the family to take. All out of the blue. Imagine a knock on your door. A ‘spaceman’ in helmet, goggles, gloves, body armour with a rifle stands there and through an interpreter says you have 30 minutes to leave the house.

Through the interpreter I told him that this occupation has been authorised by the President of Afghanistan and the Local Governor. That it was needed by the government and by the UK forces to bring peace and security to the area. That they had no choice but to go. Where they went was not our problem. But they would be compensated…

I felt terrible. The farmer explained he had a wife with a one month old baby. That he had women and children in the compound. Where would they go? What would they do?

I had no choice but to look straight ahead and say ‘I am sorry, but you have to leave…’ and repeated the same lines again. Say the same thing. Make no change. Keep to the same lines. Say the same words. Do not get drawn into a conversation. Apologise, but be firm. Be understanding of his position and the massive change this would be, but keep to the script.

I took my notebook out and asked for his name. For his family details. For where he might go once he left the compound. I told him the amounts of rent and compensation he would be entitled too. That we would build a well for his family.

He asked how long we would be there. What would we do to his buildings and his land. Obviously I couldn’t say. But I told him he would be paid well for the occupation. That he would be helping to bring peace and security to the area. That by his sacrifice others in the surrounding villages wouldn’t have the oppression of the Taliban insurgents.

He sighed. He asked again, ‘Where shall we go…?’ I returned to the script again. Round we went. You have 30 minutes. You must clear your belongings and leave this compound. He should move out now. And my final trump card. I opened my pocket and brought out a wad of cash. This is your compensation. It is an advance of your rent for the next two months. It will help you to find a new place to live.

He wasn’t happy, rightly so, but he was placated. He didn’t want to be seen taking our money outside, so we went inside the compound and I sorted the paperwork. He accepted the cash and in return he ‘signed’ the receipt for it with his fingerprint. I smiled a thin apologetic smile at him, shrugging at the same time. He didn’t smile back.

I felt terrible. I felt like some sort of sheriff from the Middle Ages or an evil character from a Dickens’ novel throwing people onto the street. I had just made a family homeless. I was the evil oppressor. The farmer opened the door for me and I left with ‘DJ’ my interpreter. The farmer followed through, walking round to the compound nearby, to ask permission from the local elder to borrow his mini-van so he could move his family and belongings out.

But it was a necessary evil. How could we bring security to the community, without being IN the community? We needed a base to show the enemy that we were here to stay. The Afghan culture is also one where people band around to support others.

We’d already spoken to the elder of the village and explained that we needed the compound and that the family would have to move out, and he was happy that we would be there bringing ISAF and the government to his village. He was on hand to offer help and support to the farmer. He proffered his keys straight away and went to console him. The Elder had already told me that there were empty compounds nearby that the family could move into.

It hadn’t made me feel any better.

But we left them to it. We went back to the shade of the trees by the ditch. We replenished our water using the ‘Lifesaver’ bottles. We had a bite to eat. We petted and played with the dog and took pictures of him and of each other standing in the ditch – cooling our feet. We bantered, we joked, we laughed.

Well the others did. I felt terrible. I tried to chat to Memphis’ handler, also an Airman – and RAF Policeman also a little out of his comfort zone here in the ‘oo-lu’, but my heart wasn’t in conversation.

I stuck my head into my note book, copying out the details onto the forms I had in my bag. Trying to work out just how much money the farmer would be getting for our occupation of his buildings, for our use of his land. It was a good sum. Not a huge amount, but would compensate for the disturbance of his family. Provide money for food.

But then I looked across and caught a glimpse of an older child leading what was probably his mother to the minivan. She was in a full light blue Burhka, but was moving very slowly, carrying her precious baby. She got in carefully and sat there as the farmer and the other children loaded up their belongings. Mostly carpets, a few boxes. No real furniture like we would have. Bundles of blankets and what I assumed to be clothes. Pots and pans. The detritus of a poor family in a poor nation scratching a poor living from the land. Not much ‘stuff’ in relation to us.

A dog on a length of rope was pulled out and thrown into the back of the van. It was scruffy, mange-y, light brown. I looked across at Memphis who took a passing interest in the other dog, but who then just laid down and closed its eyes.

I looked at my watch. The 30 minutes were up. And it was clear that the family needed a bit more time. We were all in cover, and we gave the farmer the time he needed. After 45 minutes he came out and glanced across at me. I couldn’t meet his gaze. I thought of home. Of how I’d feel. Of having to clear my belongings so quickly and move out of my house. Of carrying my daughter out to the car. It was one of the lowest moments for me out there in Afghanistan. A moment I am not proud of.

The with a slam of the van door, he drove off. The vehicle overloaded with people and belongings. The carpets and blankets balancing on the roof. Pots, pans and yellow palm oil containers banging against the side of the windows as it wobbled along the dust track that served as a road. He didn’t go far. Just down the road were a cluster of empty compounds. He stopped outside one and began unloading his family there. I guess he must have wondered why WE didn’t take the empty one. I did…but then I remembered pooring over the aeiral map in the Company HQ during the plannign of the Op. This one was ideally situated, just on the edge of the village, with all the ticks in the box for the things that we needed. Plenty of buildings for accommodation for the lads, security, a wall around it, a field inside for an HLS…

‘Right’ said the boss, shaking me out of my own thoughts. ‘Lets get that mutt in the compound so we can get it searched and we can get inside. Then I can take this bloody body armour off.’

Memphis’ ears pricked up and he set off with his handler towards the house. After he had done his work, he came back to us. I looked over to him and was cheered by his waggy tail. He came to us and I tousled the fur round his neck. I stroked his back and he sat right in front of me and offered me his paw.

At least someone was pleased to see me that terrible day.

High Roller…

I know as a ‘good Catholic’* I shouldn’t, but I do like to have a bit of a bet on the football every week.

But what I am not is a big gambler. I stick a pound on this, or a pound on that. 25p on such and such scoring first. It’s more to make games I am watching as a neutral more interesting. A high roller I am not. Occasionally I’ll get a couple of quid back, but mostly it’s part of the plan for your Airman to donate money to Bet365′s profit fund.

As I said I am not a high roller, but I once had the chance to see a real high roller in action. We were on our first trip to Las Vegas. 29(F) Sqn doing a deployment to Nellis Sir Force Base (just outside Vegas) to take part in Exercise Red Flag. This is where the aircrew take part in a daily massive ‘air war’ out in the vast dererts of Nevada and Arizona. Just about every element of air power was taking part, bombers, fighters, ECM, Recce…all the elements that make up a package in a mission – and the elements that would defend against it.

A great exercise for the aircrew – they could fly and fight in preparation for a real war somewhere, but for us ground-crew it was pretty much business-as-usual but in a hotter place. We would do our normal job of seeing the aircraft off and in, servicing them and fixing any faults that would come up…and remember 29 was flying Tornado F3′s back then, and they were not the most reliable of aircraft, we would spend a lot of time fixing the radar’s and the avionics.

An unwritten motto of squadron life is ‘work hard, play hard’ particularly on a det, so when we were not working hard, we were playing hard. Let’s just say, we took advantage of the delights that Las Vegas offered us. The Strip. The All-You-Can-Eat Buffets. The Casinos. Cheap bars. Bright lights. Fun.

And one night we were taking advantage of a particularly cheap bar in the now definct and demolished Bally’s Hotel. It’d started off as just a couple of guys having a quiet beer, but over the course of the night more and more people arrived and the ‘party’ got a bit more raucus. The bar was in the corner of the gambling hall, with tables on three sides – Blackjack, Poker, Roulette – all games that were fairly easy to understand, and then in a corner were some ‘Craps’ dice tables – incomprehensible to the novice. A couple of guys had a flutter on the Blackjack tables – the ones with a minimum stake of $1. But soon they would drift back to the bar and join the ever increasing party.

Drinking games commenced. Squadron songs began. And then I noticed a security guard appeared at the corner of the bar. And then another at the other end of the counter. Big, serious men. In suits. Not smiling. Scanning.

And then another appeared standing at on of the Blackjack tables that was just over a rail that ran around the bar. This table wasn’t a $1 minimum. This was a table with a minimum bet of $1,000 a time. And the only man sitting at the table all of a sudden had a BIG pile of gambling chips in front of him. A LOT of chip. A LOT of money. And the man gambling was clearly, very, very drunk. And the casino staff were very nervous of a big bunch of people drinking so very close to the man with a lot of money in front of him. He was still gambling and was still winning. And the staff were getting more and more nervous.

And then a lady appeared at the bar. One of the hotel managers, with more security guards on each side of her. She quietly went around just asking us to leave. Expecting trouble and expecting us to argue, she had her minders ready, with more standing by to jump in…but all she said was ‘there’s a very big winner on the table behind you, and there are too many of you in this group, so could you all please separate and leave.’ Each time she did, the lads she spoke to looked over at the winner, looked at the security guys, finished their rink and left.

She came over to me and said the same – ‘Time to leave’ – and I just asked ‘How much has he won?’

‘Sorry, sir I can’t tell you that, but lets just say he is now up to well over $1million on the table in front of him. You guys are having a great time I can tell. But the management are a bit nervous. Can you please drink up and leave.’

The security guard looked at me and narrowed his eyes.

I sunk the beer I was holding and looked across at the high-roller. ‘Fair play to him,’ I said ‘Nice to see someone is a winner when they ganble. I know I’m not. I’m certainly not in the same league as him.’

And I’m still not. I am happy with my 25p stake, and whilst it’s never going to make me a million quid (or even a million dollars!) it’s enough to keep me interested in a game.

*Note, I’m NOT a good Catholic. Sadly.

Importance…

I do try, but generally, my admin is shocking. I know you’d expect a member of the RAF and the armed forces in general to be good at admin, and to be sorted and stuff, but sadly, I think I am a little bit to ‘right brained’ for that.

My worst thing is paperwork…I try, but I lose paperwork. And the very worst for me is car paperwork – insurance documents, MOT’s that sort of thing, so that each year when the old Car Tax comes around, I have a mad panic trying to find the right bits of paper so that I can get my Tax disc…

But I know that this isn’t true for everyone, and I have a theory that the amount of paperwork you have is inversely proportional to the importance you place on it. So, there I am, with wads of paperwork…a form for this, a paper for that…and they end up all over the place. Each important paper has an important place for it…not that I can remember where each one is.

But I was shown a different way out in Afghan. The main bulk of my job was dealing face-to-face with locals, with their problems, their desires for building projects, claims for damages caused by our troops out on the ground.

And bits of paper were amazingly important to the locals. And with a piece of paper, even though the vast, vast majority of the people couldn’t read what was on the paper – be it in English or even written in Pashtu by one of the interpreters, it was the most important thing in the world.

Even when comparing it to money – it was worth more to them. It became power. It became credibility. It became a promise.

The usual case would be, for instance, a patrol would walk across a field, and a farmer would come up to them and ask if the government would help to build a well for his farm and the surrounding compounds. In the area we were, at the time, there was very little government representation and so the locals would use the British as a conduit to get information to their representatives. The Patrol Commander would give the farmer a bit of paper with the details on – exactly where the well would be, who would be building it, how many people would benefit…and so on. And then the farmer would LOOK AFTER THAT BIT OF PAPER.

And when I say LOOK AFTER, I mean guard with his life. It became more important than we would treat our passport. More important than anything. Despite it being just a scrap out of a notebook that was scrawled in tricky handwriting because writing is difficult in thick gloves, with a rifle in your hand bent on a knee in a field, it was treated like some ancient and valuable manuscript by the Afghan. The local would then keep it safe and bring it long to a ‘projects clinic’ held by me at the Check Point where I would collate all the details of potential projects, interview the local, and write a submission for the project to go off to the government so that they could make a decision about which one to build.

I often was giving out these ‘chits’ as we called them and once I had written it down the local would always treat the paper the same way, in fact the farmer would always do exactly the same thing.

After giving the chit to the man, he would always look at it, as though he was reading it. Smile broadly, and wave it a gently in the air. He would then reach inside his jacket pocket – local farmers out there always worse a single or double breasted suit type jacket over the top of their traditional ‘dish-dashes’ (even in the high summer) – and pull out a small plastic bag. Maybe like a money bag used at the bank. Or maybe like a ‘plastic pocket’ that students use at collage, maybe just a thin, clear, plastic bag. He would then take the paper and fold it just once or twice, and then place in reverently in the bag and return the bag to his jacket and pat the pocket saying ‘Manana’ (Pashtu for ‘thank you’).

And the following Monday morning at the projects clinic the man would turn up – having come straight from farming in his fields, often barefoot, most of the time with filthy hands, covered with the rich Helmandi soil, and sit down in front of me and fish out the paper and pass it to me.

I was always amazed that even though the farmers lived in very poor conditions, with very poor houses, often un-educated, that the paper would still be pristine, perfect. The paper was more important than anything.

The movement of pieces of paper was amazing, and the importance placed on them was incredible. ‘He wants a chit’ would be one of the common phrases that the interpreters would say to me, so much that I quickly learned what it was and often, when they were asking for a chit for damage (that often hadn’t actually been caused by us) to a compound or a field, then I would, without the need for a ‘terp be able to say ‘Ya! Ya chit!’ – (No! No Chit!) and go on our way.

Project chits were important to the locals, but by far the most important to them were when I had to give out a cut for genuine damage. Take, for instance, early in the tour of the Rifles lads, who were learning to drive the massive Huskey vehicles through the tiny, twist-turny streets of the villages. Occasionally the drivers would not quite make it round a bend without clipping a building and damaging it. Here the local would rightly make a claims complaint. He wall might be knocked down or his door frame damaged. And as we had caused the damage we would have to pay to put it right.

The proper procedure would be for a claims form to be raised and given to the owner of the building and he would go along to Lashkah Gar to get his money to repair. I would fill in this form, providing evidence of the damage and proof that it had been caused by us and then give this to the local. This paperwork – several pages of form (god bless bureaucracy!) would be treated with reverence folded and placed in that same small plastic bag and looked after as though lives depended upon it.

It’s a good lesson really. Maybe I should follow their lead. They never lost any paper. They always knew where to find the important paperwork. They wouldn’t spend hours searching through drawers and folders and envelopes searching for their MOT documents…to make sure that those bits of paper that are really important to me are kept safe…I should just get a small plastic bag…

Hard…

“We choose to go…not because they are easy – but because they are hard!”

John F Kennedy and his speech-writers were spot on.

It’s easy to do nothing. It’s easy to just sit here. It’s hard to get out there and do stuff. But am I tough enough. Since I started my training for the London Marathon in April, I have seriously upped my running mileage. Even in the early weeks of my training programme I have doubled my running distances and it’s already having a bit of a toll.

You see as regular blog readers will remember from ages ago, I have dodgy-knees. Like many in the Forces (and not just the RAF I noticed, during my time working with the Army) I have developed injured and painful knees. Now this MAY have been brought on by a family history of dodgy knees – my Mother, Brother and one of my Sisters have a similar problem – but it might also be due to spending the early years of my working life on my knees crawling around under Tornados.

The worst job I remember was fitting one particularly heavy box to a door panel that was as close to the centre of the underneath of the fuselage as you could get – a box weighing some 15kgs. It had to be man-handled into position whilst you were on your knees under the middle of the aircraft. And these were back in the days of very little H&S and Protective Equipment – knee pads. And after fitting the box in place there was the usual myriad of connections and wires to fit to it.

This though was fairly easy compared to the Armourers who used to have to crawl underneath fitting the Missiles to the aircraft. I pity their knees now…

But anyway, the running. Despite getting my trainers fitted correctly to match my running gait, despite replacing the insoles inside the new trainers with shock-absorbing insoles, despite wearing knee strapping…the running hurts. But it’s got to be done. I could quit. But why? A little discomfort that will go as I increase the strength in my leg muscles and my legs get used to the increased milage? It’s worthwhile.

Because I must push myself. As I said it’s easy to NOT go running. It’s the hardest thing in the world at times, when I have not been sleeping well (another issue), and I have an hours journey home to see my wife, and still have work to do in the office and have to help my wife look after my 2 year old daughter. It’s hard to get out there. It’s hard to build up the enthusiasm to get the running gear on and go. And it’s hard when you know that it hurts, and that it will hurt.

But this is where Kennedy’s quote come it. I chose to do this. Not because it will be easy, but because it is hard. I have had an easy life. It’s been fairly privileged, and I have had pretty much what I wanted when I wanted it. I’ve not really had to struggle for a lot. But whilst what I am doing appears hard. There are always people out there who have it harder.

There are carers who simply can’t just decide to stop caring for their sick, ill or injured loved one…and who get no respite, day after day, day and night. There are those who are sick themselves – facing huge struggles to try and get better; to overcome life-threatening illnesses. A struggle that they just can’t give up…or else their life will be over.

There are those who are injured. People I know, people I worked with, people I shared time with, out in Afghan who were injured out there. Double amputees who face the struggle to try and rebuild their lives. They can’t just give up. They HAVE to go on.

So whilst it appears hard to me…it’s not really. In relation to these and their struggles mine is a trifle. Just put your trainers on and get out there…and that is when I do, I am doing it to aid the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund. Please take the time to drop by my sponsorship page, because the RAFBF is helping those people I have listed here. They are helping the people who have serious, hard, sometimes insurmountable struggles.

Yeah, my knees hurt and my legs are aching, but I can still run. The feeling of being out there, in the air, the wind, the cold, the pounding on my feet on the roads, the music from my iPod in my ears…it’s not that hard…it’s fairly easy. And with a bit more training and a bit more strength work on my legs the pain will go. And if I keep running and you keep donating then maybe we can help some people let go a bit of their pain. Get some respite, get some care…get themselves a little bit better.

Beginning of (another) Great Adventure…

Life is an adventure.

I believe this quite firmly.  I think that we can either get on with life or it can just fly past us.

I didn’t always think this way. Once I was quite happy to potter on and let life happen around me.  It wasn’t an adventure, it was a meander. A gentle sway through the world.

And this is ok.  If that is you, then fine! That is what you want – good for you.  But (and this is getting a bit needlessly ‘Trainspotting-esque’ here) I chose not to think that way. I choose to live life to the full.  To do as much as possible.  To get a lot of ‘experiences’ in my bag so that (a) I can bore my grand-children to death about it and (b) hope that it might make me as better and as good a ‘me’ as I can be.

That was why I chose to go to Afghan last year.  It was a year long marathon that took me well outside my comfort zone.  It pushed me to the edge of me physically – and one rainy night on the Training Land just behind Corunna Barracks it pushed me to the edge of me mentally.  I was close to quitting that night. But I got a lot of support from the lads and lasses I was with and I had a sleep and a laugh at the situation I had gotten myself into and realised…THIS was living.  I realised that in the long run I wanted to go to Afghan to prove to help the people over there.  And if that meant it tested me to the limit, so be it.

Me Versus Afghan.  Me Versus IEDs, being shot at, living in the back of beyond with few comforts.  Me seeing things and doing things that would scare my mum (if she’d have been around to see it) and me testing myself against myself to see if I can measure up. Sort of Me  Versus Me.

And I did all that.  I found that at times I didn’t measure up to what I wanted to be, but HEY! Life is an adventure and it takes you to places. That means it’s also a bit of a journey (oh God, this is getting all ‘X-factor’ now!) and we learn things on the way. I am not at the end of my my adventure (life) and so I still have things to learn about myself…so I can do more stuff and learn more about me and embody my maxim that ‘Experience isn’t something you have – it’s something you use’.

I want to keep pushing myself and keep testing myself. And that is why I have just started another adventure.

I am running the 2012 Virgin London Marathon.  In April. The 22nd. That’s just 107 days away.

Now I am not a very fit guy. I am not a fast guy, but I like to think I have stamina.  I don’t go fast, but I plod and I get there.  And I need something to drive me – to push me on.  So running a marathon is not too crazy an idea for me.  I might not do it fast, and it might hurt me to do it, but I think it is – like going to Afghan was – an achievable aim.  It holds risks (not life-threatening obviously) and challenges, and it needs me to become more focussed, more determined, more dedicated – AND THIS IS A GOOD THING FOR ME.

And I am doing it for a charity too of course.  I am doing it for the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund – who’s aim is to support the RAF family whenever and wherever it is needed. My family has a bit of history with the RAFBF – my father received help from them in the past when he needed it.  He was still serving at the time and a family tragedy meant that he needed help and support. The RAFBF provided that help and support. So I feel we sort of owe them.

And if I can help them and that help is by running a marathon…then I will! And of course this means that you can too.  When I was in Afghan, blog readers and Twitter followers were very kind, generous and supportive.  From messages of goodwill through to sending me out ‘welfare’ and ‘goodie’ boxes (which I enjoyed eating and sharing around with my fellows at the Check Point) you all helped and supported me out there.

And once again I ask you to help and support me.  You can of course provide me with encouragement and support – and call me out when I don’t want to go for a run on a wet and windy Sunday morning – but you can also support me AND the RAF Benevolent Fund by sponsoring me to complete the run.  You can visit my charity donations web-page here - www.virginmoneygiving.com/RAFairman Please, anything that you can give would be amazing and will go a long way to help those people who are part of the RAF family who require a little help in their time of need.

And of course, as I undertake this adventure – this journey – I will be keeping you informed on here with tales of my training, and if possible stories of how the RAFBF has helped and continues to help those Airmen and Airwomen who need it.

It’s Not What’s Under The Tree…

‘It’s not whats under the tree than matters, it’s who’s around it…’

I heard that on an advert tonight as I was trying to think of a way of starting this blog. And I realised…

The tag line is right. It doesn’t matter what’s under the tree, what goodies, what loot, what gizzits you get. It’s who is there to share them with you.

I have had a hell of a year. It’s said that age brings the years on faster and they seem to go by at greater speed as you get older. Well, if that is true, I must be a hundred years old. This year has spun past me a a rate that I can hardly handle. It’s spun past ME. For other people in my family it crawled. For my girlfriend it dragged and dragged. For my eldest sister, it consisted of pretty much 6 months of constant and continuous worry and anxiety. And all this was my fault.

I was the one who was out in Afghan, or preparing for Afghan, or travelling to Afghan, to thinking about Afghan. And I was the lucky one who was there to have it first hand – in full glorious technicolour, widescreen…IMAX, with Dolby stereo and digitally enhanced surround sound. With smelly vision. IN 3D.

For me it was a blur. It went past so fast it felt like I was spinning and although I write this on the 17^th December, to me, it feels like sometime in, ohhhh, about September – a very cold September I’ll give you, but it just doesn’t feel like the end of the year. It can’t be. The time has just whoosed by me so bloody fast.

One moment I am in a field on Salisbury Plain. The next walking along a dirt track in Afghan. The next I am in a shopping centre in Woking. Bizarre.

March to July to November. The blink of an eye. And it’s odd, because even though it went so fast for me, each event seems seared onto my memory. Of meeting my first Afghan local. A man named Buykhan. He held a bird in his hand – a small Starling sized bird, with it’s wings clipped that he ckept in a cloth cowl over the end of his arm. We chatted through my interpreter and I told him my little daughter would love to see the animal and then every time in the future, up to almost the last day I was there, he kept offering me a bird to bring home.

And then there was a guy named Darro Khan; a quiet reserved elder who I had the greatest respect for. He was a retired Afghan National Police commander, who was now making his living from farming the rich Helmandi soil. He spoke to me about the school we were trying to get built – in the face of what seemed like a roadblock of opposition from the Insurgents (who see schools for what they are – a way of eductaing the people about the world and giving the children options for the future) and from many unscrupulous local contractors (who see it as an opportunity to suck money out of the rich westerners).

Darro stood there and thanked me for what I had tried to do. For continuing the work of my predicessor in keeping th ebuild going, and for passing it onto my replacement who would complete the build. He said that the school was a sign of the fact that Afghan was growing, and was developing and was changing. That people wanted the school and they wanted their children educated. He said that he had grown up in a country at war, and he didn’t want that for the next generation. He wanted peace and the only way to make sure that peace lasted was by building schools and educating the children.

He’s right, and whilst I was disappointed not to have completed the build of the school and not to have seen children being taught in there regularly, it is on it’s way to being complete and one day, you never know, a future President of Afghanistan may be eduacted in there. Or a doctor. Or an engineer. Or a nurse, or even maybe a mid-wife. People who will build and keep Afghanistan growing. That’d be something.

And here I am now at home. Sitting looking at the twinking lights of the Christmas tree. Taking a sip of a beer and listening to a bit of Jonah Lewie on my iPod. I am a lucky lad. Upstairs, my wife to be is putting my daughter to bed. I am so very lucky to have all this. Tomorrow I see my (almost) grown up kids, and the rest of my family. My brother and sisters; my nephews, nieces and my grand-nephews. We gather to fullfil a promise to my mother that we would meet, coming together from all over the country at least once a year. To be thankful that we still do have each other.

And we still do. But in this I am so very lucky. I went out there and I did some stuff with a lot of other people who were better than I, and I came home. I will gather around a tree with my family and thank all that is holy for all the blessings of a family; my worrysome eldest sister, my grumpy brother, my other sister who struggles to make ends meet. I’ll raise a glass to each one of them.

Each year, I have taken to writing a Christmas blog and it being a list of those who have died that year. This year I don’t intend to. This year I will tell you about just two.

One was a Corporal who was the 2ic of a multiple – a patrol of men – who shared a Check Point with me. He loved Spurs. He was one of the most professional soldiers I met out there, but he was also one of the funniest men I have ever met. I would often see him walk past the front of my tent to go and pour a bucket of cooling water from the well over him on the really hot days and I remember sitting next to him on the internet machines as he spent time looking for a new, bigger car for his growing family. He hit an IED, and died, whilst guiding an EOD team in to exploit a cache of weapons found by an earlier team.

The second was a Lance Corporal and was a battlefield replacement, sent out to fill the gaps caused by other injured men sent home. He was one of the Joint Fires Team and was based at a Check Point I had helped establish in May, but one I then very rarely visited. As a mortar controller, it meant he was often on patrol and he was a regular visitor down at the CP where I lived. A livewire and a chatterbox, he spoke enthusiastically to anyone who would listen. I remember chatting to him about him being one of the few who would wear gear strapped to his leg. He was shot, and died, whilst out on patrol in the North of our Area of Responsibility.

I will drink to the memory of these two lads who I had the honour to serve with. And to their families who must miss them each day, but even more at this time of year. These two were better men than I could ever hope to be. Braver, stronger, fitter. They were, as the motto of their regiment, The Rifles, says, Swift and Bold. May they rest in peace and their families gain some peace and solace.

No. It’s not what’s under the tree that matters. It’s who’s around it. And sometimes those who aren’t. Please, enjoy your Christmas with your loved ones. But remember those who have fallen, and those who continue to fight, who aren’t around their trees with their loved ones. And on Christmas Day, raise a glass to them all.

Merry Christmas.

Crosswinds…

The weather recently has been truly terrible for some. Down here in the south of England it’s not been too bad, but in the north of Britain I understand that the storms have been really bad, with very high winds – so high that even a wind turbine exploded because of it and there is a fabulous picture showing an aircraft making a landing where each wheel touched the ground one after another; left wheel, right wheel and then nose wheels…rather than the more standard main gear and then nose gear. It certainly makes for a bumpy landing, AND it certainly takes a lot of skill on the pilots behalf to do.

I saw this sort of landing for myself once, but done by a much smaller aircraft – the Tornado F3 jet. It was back in my days working on 29(F) Squadron and we were undertaking a ‘trail’ back home from a deployment out in America. I was lucky enough to be selected to be on the ‘Trail’ rather than on the main body of transport home.

The trail is the route that the aircraft take to come home, particularly if it is a long journey. It normally consists of an ‘Advance Party’ sent on a Herc C-130 or C-17, the ‘Main’ consisting of the majority of the squadron being deployed and the aircraft themselves, and then a ‘Rear’ or ‘Sweeper’ party following along. Generally the Main Party of ground crew fly straight home in one go and the Advance and Sweeper look after the aircraft on route.

I was on the Advance and we’d flown ahead of the F3′s to arrive and set up a servicing team for when they arrived at each stage of the route home. We’d been in Vegas for 6 weeks (OH! the hardship!) and the trail back was a mission. Vegas to Little Rock in Arkansas for a refuelling stop, Little Rock to Bermuda for an overnighter (It’s a tough life!) and then Bermuda to Larges in the Azores for another overnighter, with the final hop being the Azores back to the UK and the base at Coningsby.

We arrived at Larges airport and found it to be…well…the best way to describe it was as just a massive flat expanse of tarmac. The ‘pan’ was just about the biggest concrete area I had ever seen, with pretty much nothing for what seemed like miles in every direction. It was a bit…desolate. The C-130 had parked itself where it had been directed and we waited for the jets.

It was already breezy.

As the afternoon wore on and we made the preparations for the aircraft to arrive (unloading a few boxes from the pallet on the Herc containing earthing leads for the aircraft, chocks and a few tool kits) the wind slowly picked up. We then received news that not all the aircraft had taken off from Bermuda. One had gone unserviceable there due to an engine fault and was being worked on by the rear party. That would follow along with the Rear Party aircraft (which luckily was capable of air-to-air refuelling (AAR) it as it went along). The rest – 5 aircraft were inbound along with the VC-10 tanker that had done their AAR.

Well, actually given a twist of fate, the VC-10 is actually FASTER than the F3′s were. The VC-10 has a ‘Super-cruise’ that means it can fly faster and higher than an F3 when cruising long distances. It basically meant that it had done it’s job of re-fuelling the smaller jets in flight, and then had left them behind and flown on to the Azores. It landed a good hour before the F3′s were due.

But this itself, had created a problem. The wind that I had talked about had also picked up out in the Atlantic and it was a head wind. It meant that the jets were fighting against the wind and were using more fuel to make progress against it. A LOT of fuel. And it transpired that they were using more fuel than they had thought and that the only place they could make it to with the fuel load they had left was the Azores. They couldn’t divert. Which was now a real problem, as the wind on the ground at Larges airport was now dangerously strong.

And it was a cross wind. The one runway at Larges was roughly at 90 degrees to the direction of the now very strong – almost gale force winds. The storm clouds were gathering, and looking really nasty and menacing, like they were planning to do some serious storming about. We, on the ground, decided to hide inside the Herc. Whilst it wasn’t raining yet, it was clear that within a very short time it was going to rain. A LOT.

People anxiously looked at the sky. And then at their watches. They looked out towards the west to see if there was any sign of the gaggle of jets. Nothing. Then the rain began. A short sharp shower. Thankfully we stayed dry on the ‘Fat Albert’ as it pelted down, and it was just a short shower. A precursor of what was to come.

And then a vehicle turned up. It was the ‘Follow Me’ van that would direct the jets to he parking slots next to us. I asked if I could sit in (I was only a young Junior Technician back in those days) and was told I could have a ride along to bring the jets back. I could also be on hand should there be any problems with the jets between landing and taxiing their parking slot.

With the Portuguese driver and a liaison officer we drove to the end of the runway and awaited the jets. He turned to me and said that the jets had a serious problem. The air traffic control were going to shut the runway! It was considered to be too dangerous for aircraft to land given the stormy conditions and the cross wind.

The only problem was that there was no-where else for the jets still airborne to go to. They were now on the vapours of their fuel tanks and given the Azores location in, pretty much the middle of no-where in the Atlantic, they had no fuel to go anywhere else. ATC couldn’t shut the airfield. The F3′s would simply HAVE to land there. Wind or no wind.

And then there they were. Five small dots on the horizon. Getting slowly larger. They wouldn’t even have enough fuel to fly over the airport and get an idea of the conditions. They would just have to come in and land. Or try to. From my viewpoint at the end of the runway I could see how they were being buffeted by the wind and how the gusts were blowing them off their landing course.

And how the pilots were having to correct for this by flying as much into the wind as they could.

Take a look up from the screen you are reading on for a second. Imagine a straight line along the floor stretching out in front of you. That’s your 12 o’clock. That’s the runway. Stick your hand out and imagine that it’s an aircraft about to land there. Normally the aircraft glides down in the straight line on top of the runway – called a glide-path – and lands on it. An imaginary line coming out of the front of you hand (itself an imaginary aircraft) lines up with the OTHER imaginary line that is the runway.

But the wind was blowing from the side, meaning that the aircraft was being blown by the wind to the side, so the lines no longer match up. To over come this the aircraft flies into the wind to correct for being blown sideways. Still with your hand out in front of you (don’t worry people around WON’T think you are mad in the slightest) imagine that the wind is blowing from your left.

So like the aircraft did, fly your hand into the wind and turn it to the left. Now imagine that the wind is really strong…really, really strong, and you’ll have to turn your hand quite a lot to the left to overcome it.

This is what the aircraft were doing. As well as being blown sideways they were now also descending, AND being hit by gusts of wind and turbulence that also pushed them up and down.

Like on a rollercoaster they flew in and down…crabbing their way through the sky at, from my view point, what looked like about 30-45 degrees to the runway. This was now really dangerous…because this angle was too much for the runway. If they touched the ground at this angle then they runway simply wasn’t wide enough for the aircraft to be able to touch it’s main gear down and then drop the nose and then steer to the right to get back in line with the runway…they’d simply shoot off the side of the narrow strip of tarmac…and crash!

A really. bad. thing.

So as they came down, one at a time, I saw quite simply the very best bit of flying I have ever seen (well, ok second best – that belonged to a Flt Lt Lee Fox who beat up the pan at Cyprus once), but was repeated five times by five different pilots.

Each one came in like the first, crabbing through the air, buffeted and blown and battered by the wind. At what looked to be terrible angle to the runway…but just at the very last minute…hell, last second…the pilot, just as the mail wheels were about to hit the floor slung the aircraft around into line with the runway.

Quickly the nose wheel came down and the aircraft decelerated down the runway to where we were waiting.

Each jet came in and did the same, each one making the best landing possible given the atrocious conditions. I marvelled at them. It must have been a hell of a ride…but not one I would particularly like to have taken. And by the faces of the pilots who, to a man, looked completely wiped out from the experience, not one they wanted to repeat.

You can keep your Red Arrows. Flying into an airport on reserve fuel, into a crosswind, after flying for hours across the Atlantic…and landing into the beginnings of a storm. Those guys were the real deal. For once, as we carried out the servicings of the aircraft as the crews were driven off to find a beer somewhere, I didn’t begrudge them that beer whilst I was still working. They’d bloody deserved it.

Frothing…

We all try to get our healthy amount of fruit and veg – but it can be difficult at times to get all the vitamin C that we need, and so, just to make sure each day I take an Effervescent Vitamin C tablet to help boost my immune system.

And the story I want to really tell you came into my mind this morning as I took another one of those tablets. Out on patrol in Afghan, as the EOD search team were checking out and clearing a compound we were moving into, the CO’s TAC multiple – basically the Company commanders tactical ‘HQ’ team which I was generally part of when we went out – took a breather by a stream.

We’d been out for a long time that morning, leaving before sun-rise, and it was getting close towards lunch. It was, as usual horrendously hot, and we took the shade that we could to escape the burning sun under some trees. We lounged around on the floor, still wearing our body armour, but removing our helmets and daysacks, propping ourselves up against them. Everyone was thirsty and hungry, and we took the opportunity to get some water down our necks and munching on the snacks we had taken with us.

One of the lads in the team then popped open a tube and slipped a tablet into his water bottle. He explained that it was one of those Isotonic rehydration tablets that you can get. He said that it also added a nice orange taste to the water too. He shared them out and we did the same, dropping a tablet into our water bottles to get a bit more hydration going, each tablet fizzing and bubbling away in the water. Us enjoying the taste and feeling of drinking something – anything – other than ‘just’ water.

And just as he was putting the tube away the Company Sergeant Major came over to let us know that the search had finished and we would be able to move on in a few minutes. And the guy with the tablets offered the CSM one. ‘Want an Isotonic tablet?’ he asked as he offered across the tube.

‘Ohhhh that’s a big tablet’ said the CSM ‘It’s not a suppository is it?’ he added as he popped it straight into his mouth!

Everyone was speechless as he instantly bit into the tablet and his mouth filled with froth as it started it’s natural job of effervescing – using the moisture and spit in his mouth as the catalyst instead of a bottle full of water.

‘Nooooooooooo…’ cried the OC and then, like the rest of us fell about laughing as the froth got worse and filled the CSMs mouth. Looking like an end stage rabies-sufferer the CSM started to cough and he spat the tablet out, trying to also spit the froth out, and reaching for his drinking tube to get some water to clear his mouth.

Crying with laughter we explained that the tablet needed to be dropped into water and dissolved before drinking and he continued to swill his mouth spitting out small remnants of the pill and gobs of more froth.

Coughing and spluttering the CSM added ‘Good job it wasn’t a suppository then, I wouldn’t want THAT going on up my arse…’