Afghan drills vital to save lives

By Cameron Buttle
BBC Scotland

Inside the camp walls of Lashkar Gah military base in southern Afghanistan A Company of the Royal Highland Fusiliers practise their emergency drills.

BBC Scotland's Cameron Buttle with the troops in Afghanistan

They drill this again and again, every time they prepare for a patrol outside the camp walls. It has to be instinctive, no hesitation.

Sgt Davie Forrester, from Kilmarnock, is happy enough with the drills. The next day he will take the soldiers out of the camp walls on one of their first patrols in the town.

The aim is to get the drivers used to the town and the Fusiliers used to the heat, soon it will peak in the high 40s.

As the patrol heads through the streets I can hear the soldiers shouting back hellos but then their weapons swing round in the turret and the shouts are warnings to halt, to keep back from the patrol. Anyone could be a threat here.

Tough tour

Soon the patrol reaches a VP - a vulnerable point.

The threat comes from the drainage ditches at the side of the road, an easy place to hide a bomb.

I watch from the turret as some of the fusiliers dismount and begin checking the culverts slowly walking the three Land Rovers through.

Buttle accompanied the troops on patrol

It's easy to see how important the drills back at base are. If anything did happen, there would be little room for manoeuvre, few options and no time to think.

The Fusiliers' commanding officer, Lt Col Nick Borton, told me he thought his men were ready for what was going to be a tough tour.

"Although the Taleban may have declared a spring offensive we've not seen it yet and to be honest the weather has not really reached it's peak," he said. "Who knows what's going to happen?"

"Previous units have had great success against the Taleban and it may be that we've got them on the back foot.

"We have to wait and see as to whether or not they genuinely do live up to whatever they say they're going to do."

This patrol was uneventful, everyone returned unharmed and perhaps a little wiser as to what's ahead.

They'll be doing this a lot over the next six months.