My diary from Afghanistan

By Lt Col David Wakefield
Ministry of Defence

Lt Col David Wakefield is in Afghanistan for six months

Wiltshire rugby coach Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield from Upavon is spending six months in Afghanistan.

He deployed with 11 Light Brigade and arrived in the country on 1st October.

While there he is writing a diary for BBC Wiltshire about how he's getting on.

He'll also tell us how he's managing to keep in touch with his family, friends and fellow rugby enthusiasts back at Devizes Rugby Club.

You'll also be able to hear regular updates from him on-air.

Hear him next on BBC Wiltshire on Monday 23 November just after 8am on the Breakfast Show with Matthew Smith. Listen again on the BBC iplayer.

18 November

The press lunches are used to tell journalists about the important work going on in Afghanistan to build a stable future

We had one of our regular lunches with the Lashkar Gar 'Press Pack' and introduced them to the new Head of Mission in the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Ms Lindy Cameron.

Over the past two years the PRT has trained a group of Afghan journalists from Lashkar Gar, sending them to college and building them a press centre to work from.

It's a long term plan to ensure there is an independent press able to hold the government and other office-holders to account, an integral part of any balanced society.

It's one of those real success stories about progress that doesn't get much coverage in the UK media but is such an important part of the overall effort here.

11 November

'Operations here in Helmand must continue at full tempo despite it being Armistice Day.

Wherever it is safe and operationally practical to do so, our soldiers, sailors and airmen will mark the 2-minute silence and in some locations there will be small parades, but for many soldiers it will be business as usual.

In Camp Bastion the 2-minute silence will be marked by the firing of a 105mm Light Gun.'

Here in Lashkar Gar I stopped an interview I was giving with 2 Afghan journalists and they stood respectfully in silence beside me during the 2 minutes.

Courageous restraint

Also on 11 November I was really pleased to see one of our stories about soldiers from 4 RIFLES, based in Bulford, currently serving in Northern Helmand, getting picked up in the Independent.

It reflects what we mean by the "courageous restraint" we talk about in counter-insurgency.

4 RIFLES story in The Independent

The fuller version of the story with pictures can be seen on the Helmand Blog and the Army news website

'Kill when you must, not because you can'

10 November

The cake is cut!

10 November is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps.

It's a special event in their calendar wherever they are in the world.

I was one of those invited along to join them for one of the biggest cakes I have seen!

United States Marine Corp

8 November

It has been a challenging week.

The murders of 5 of our soldiers in Shin Kalay cut us all deeply but served only to steel our resolve to do justice to their memory.

If you want to know how the men of 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards took it there is an excellent piece of video which I would strongly urge anyone to watch.

Grenadier Guards Video

We had a Sky TV crew here in Lashkar Gar and the live interviews I gave them were 'pooled' so that BBC, ITV and others could use them.

The phone did not stop ringing as journalists from around the world called wanting to put additional questions or clarify points.

I also did a large number of radio interviews 'down the line'.

It is a strange moment to find yourself talking to people whose voices have been a part of your life for so long, like Caroline Quinn on the PM programme.

Dangerous place

The day after the murders, Maj Gen Nick Carter came down to Lashkar Gar from Kandahar and held a press conference, primarily for the Afghan media, which my staff and I laid on.

The British Army, the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army hold a press conference after the shooting dead of 5 soldiers

On Saturday I spent the day in Babaji with Brigadier Cowan and the teams from ITN and the Press Association.

We were down in Patrol Bases 3 and 4, right in the heart of Babaji where the Op Panchai Palang fighting took place in the summer.

It is a dangerous place still, a fire fight had finished only shortly before we got there.

The soldiers, mostly from the Coldstream Guards, are very much on the front line.

Terrible news

They live in real austerity there, largely on 10-man ration packs and on camp cots with ponchos strung above them.

It's hard living but it is also true soldiering and all the men I spoke to were resolute and positive, determined to get on with the job despite the murders in Shin Kalay.

Today was Remembrance Day.

The day began with the terrible news we had lost another comrade.

Although we could not talk about it because his next of kin were still being informed, we all knew.

Soldiers made a cross for Padre Christian out of spent shell casings

Padre Mark Christian's address to our parade here in Lashkar Gar was excellent, one of the best and most uplifting.

It touched us all.

Padre Mark Christian's address

The Press Association asked me for a quote about what Remembrance means to us.

I include it here for BBC Wiltshire because I think it's important people at home understand how what happens in Wootton Bassett is different from what happens here.

"The British Army has for generations had a way of dealing with the loss of our comrades on operations; we pause only briefly to reflect and remember our dead but we soldier on.

"This does not mean we are unfeeling or callous; nothing could be further from the truth. It is our job and our duty to soldier on; we cannot allow ourselves to be consumed with grief.

"The time for grieving comes when we get home.

So strong

"What we do is we remember our dead, not only those from recent conflicts but also those from the generations of our fathers and fore-fathers who have gone before us.

"The act of remembrance is one of the defining occasions in our military calendar; its significance to us runs extraordinarily deep."

Later in the day large groups of us watched the interview with SSgt Oz Schmid's widow on Sky.

You could have heard a pin drop.

She was magnificent, so strong and clear of purpose, she made us as soldiers so proud; there was more than one moist eye among us.

SSgt Oz Schmid's widow

1 November

My commander, Brigadier James Cowan, formally took over from Brigadier Tim Radford of 19 Light Brigade, in a simple ceremony here in Lashkar Gar on 10th October.

Lt Col David Wakefield is spokesman for Task Force Helmand

There were no journalists here with us but my team managed to get some photos and video out to the world to catch the event.

I did a number of TV interviews with Sky, Channel 4, BBC and others.

Last week I was out in Babaji with Brigadier Cowan.

Babaji is the area where Op Panther's Claw was focussed.

We went with General Mohaiyodin, the commander of the Afghan National Army brigade we work alongside in Helmand.

While we were down there Brigadier Cowan did his first interview for BFBS.

Babaji is an agricultural community and this is the time of year for harvesting the 7ft tall maize and drilling wheat or poppy seed.

Taliban intimidation

One of the big activities for us has been supporting Governor Mangal's Wheat Seed distribution programme: giving farmers heavily subsidised wheat seed and fertilizers to encourage them to grow wheat instead of poppy.

Last year the poppy harvest was reduced by 33% as a result.

Farmers in Babaji queuing for wheat seed

Despite massive Taliban intimidation the locals in Babaji turned up in large numbers, queuing through the day. As many as 2070 of them benefited from the wheat seed.

The past week has been dominated with preparations for the presidential election re-run. Our role will be supporting the Afghan Army and Police providing security around the polling centres.

There are a large number of major broadcasters coming to Lashkar Gar to see it - we are going to be busy!

8 October

I arrived in Afghanistan, courtesy of the RAF, on 1 October.

We flew in to Kandahar airfield at night with the cabin lights off, window blinds down, helmets and body armour on; an image familiar to many in the UK now as a result of Ross Kemp's and other documentaries.

After a short wait we went by C-130 Hercules to Camp Bastion, no doubt flown and crewed by men and women from RAF Lyneham although I didn't get a chance to talk with them in the darkness.

Like all the soldiers coming in to Afghanistan during this 'RIP' (the Army's acronym for a 'Relief in Place', when one unit takes over from another on operations), I then went on to the RSOI package at Bastion.

The Army loves acronyms, indeed my wife often asks for translations of them into English.

Magnificent workhorses

Generally they are helpful but one of the most clumsy has to be RSOI which stands for 'Reception, Staging and Onward Integration'.

The package we went through included several days on the ranges, lectures and a long session on C-IED (Counter Improvised Explosive Device) drills.

The training on this last area was extremely high quality and intense, as you might imagine given the threat from such bombs.

While in Bastion I was able to get on the internet to catch up on the match report from my Devizes U/13 Rugby players who had beaten Minety 48 - 7.

Having finished the RSOI we flew on down to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, by Chinook.

Lt Col David Wakefield (right) took over from Lt Col Nick Richardson (left)

There are plenty of people in Wiltshire familiar with the sight of these magnificent workhorses thumping through the Wiltshire skies, often very low following the contours of the ground.

Those pilots over Wiltshire are training for the roles the pilots who flew us into Lashkar Gah are doing for real, day in day out over here.

On the evening of Wednesday 7 October I formally took over from Lt Col Nick Richardson and he flew out from Lashkar Gah.