Boy, it's so good to be back home

THEY had courageously taken the fight direct to the Taleban in the heart of their Afghan stronghold, lost six comrades in fierce combat with the insurgents, and carried out one of the most daring rescue missions in the history of modern warfare.

But yesterday the 500 Royal Marines of RM Condor in Arbroath were simply glad to be home with their friends and families after completing an arduous six-month tour of duty in the hell of Helmand Province.

They were, according to their commander, young squaddies and veteran marines who had each been completely changed by their posting to war-torn Afghanistan.

Lieutenant-Colonel Duncan Dewar, 45 Commando's commanding officer, cradled his young son Ben, who was born ten days after his deployment to Afghanistan.

Although he missed the birth, Lt-Col Dewar was granted leave shortly after to see his new son, wife Helen and daughter Charlotte, two.

He said that the dramatic rescue mission in January had epitomised the bravery of the unit.

Two men from RM Condor were among four marines who strapped themselves to the outside of two Apache attack helicopters to recover the body of one of their fallen comrades, Lance-Corporal Mathew Ford.

Lt-Col Dewar said: "It was immensely brave and very courageous. They are marines of the highest calibre and there was no second thought about this at all. They were all there doing their job."

The marines had undoubtedly been changed by their experiences.

"You can see it on their faces," said the commander. "There are some very young men there, straight out of training, who found themselves out in the middle of some serious fire-fights and fighting.

"They are all more mature, more confident and more knowledgeable. They have that experience behind them and we need to take that through and develop it further in their careers."

He continued: "These men are soldiers of the very highest calibre and I am immensely proud of their achievements. I think, to a man, they have performed magnificently on operations and they have done the job to a very, very high standard.

"Every day, there were people undertaking incredibly brave acts and the courage of the men has been absolutely outstanding and unwavering in the face of some really fierce opposition."

Lt-Col Dewar said that six men had sacrificed their lives in helping to accomplish the mission in Afghanistan. In addition to Lance-Corporal Ford, three other marines, Gary Wright, Jonathon Wigley and Jonathan Holland, were killed during the deployment. Two soldiers from RM Condor's artillery battery, Warrant Officer Michael Smith and Lance-Bombardier James Dwyer, also lost their lives.

He said: "We mustn't forget at this time that we may be coming back together again as a unit, but we are missing some members of that unit and the families and friends of those marines killed are very much in our thoughts at this time."

Lt-Col Dewar, however, insisted that it was a war that the coalition forces were winning against a resolute and capable enemy. He said: "I think the Taleban are probably increasing in capability; the way they operate has become more sophisticated.

"But, without any shadow of doubt, we are winning. The casualties we have caused the Taleban are marked. But I don't think it is a body-count issue. It is whether we are countering the insurgency by ensuring that we set the security conditions for development - and we are doing that."

Taleban a growing threat to British troops

SERGEANT Matt Arundel, 30, a marine for almost ten years, who was operating at Gereshk in the Sangan valley said: "We were constantly getting attacked by small arms, mortar attacks and rocket attacks daily. And there was always the threat of suicide bombers."

Corporal David Wilcock, 36, also part of the Geresk unit, said: "The main role of the Taleban is to kill the British soldier. But the thing with the Taleban is that you don't know who they are because one minute they're in the fields farming and the next minute they're trying to kill you. And our main problem was distinguishing who they were."

Colour Sergeant Craig Laird, 35, from Fauldhouse and a marine for 18 years, was deployed to the Panjai Valley, south of Kandahar, to operate with Canadian and American special forces units.

"It was my second time to Afghanistan and there was a definite difference," he said. "The last time we were trying to search out the Taleban and were basically chasing them. We didn't come into contact with them very much. But this time they weren't running away."

Marine Gavin Windham, 22, a sniper and marine for four years, said: "A sniper's mission is to disrupt the enemy by day and night in all weathers. We would scan everything until we could confirm there was enemy and take the shot. You can see the bloke go down, but there were always walls and trees and so on. And I would say there is no such thing as a confirmed kill."