It’s five pm and the sun is sinking behind the mountain top, the nightly chill begins to roll in like clockwork. With his STEYR – F88S-A1C assault rifle strapped firmly to his shoulder he lights a cigarette and surveys his surrounds.
His shift is just beginning as the walls literally continue to come down around him at the Australian military base in Tarin Kot, Afghanistan.
With the official withdrawal scheduled for December 2013 it is a common belief and all too real threat that the insurgents will strike hard in the last days.
As part of the Quick Reaction Force team LAC Zachary Martin is keeping a watchful eye over the troop withdrawal at one of Australia’s main defence bases. This isn’t his first sojourn into the desert battlefield however; he first dipped his feet into the sand back in 2008.
The whirring of a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane is deafening and the powerful jet engines kick up a mini dust storm. His face is covered by a scarf, his eyes protected by goggles.
The aircraft is being loaded with various objects and crates being readied for the long journey home, and everything appears to be running smoothly. In the distance there’s a CRACK, outside of the base someone yells, CONTACT!
Tarin Kot (MNBTK) is a Multinational Base catering to the United States (U.S), British and Dutch armed forces.
The area itself is a hot and dry desert climate with reasonably cold nights and winters not dissimilar to his home town back in Australia. But unlike home, the mountains surrounding the area here are perfect cover for enemy fire and rocket attacks.
As one of Australia’s Airfield Defence Guards his position is to protect the workers and the equipment as it is being removed.
“The last few days were hectic, as shitloads of aircraft removing all the equipment were coming and going constantly.” Zac said.
Luckily this time it’s just a small band of rebels, whose efforts are quickly quashed with a couple of FGM – 148 Javelin missiles fired in their direction.
“Shit like that happens all the time; you can usually gauge the threat pretty easily and pretty quickly. Incidents like that were fairly commonplace.”
“I doubt artillery even hit anyone, they would’ve just ran ‘em off.”
Incidents in MNBTK haven’t always been taken so nonchalantly however. Tarin Kot the capital of Oruzgan Province in Southern Afghanistan is home to some of Australia’s bloodiest battles with an estimated 13 of the 40 Australian soldiers killed in the Afghanistan conflict coming from the area surrounding the base.
Along with the 40 killed there were 261 seriously wounded Australians in the Afghan conflict; this war on terror turned out to be Australia’s longest conflict in history running for 12 years as well as being the most deadly since Vietnam.
A veteran of the armed forces since 2002, Zac has served for both the RAAF as an Airfield Defence Guard and the Australian Army as a Special Forces Commando aiding in both the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts on two separate combat tours.
He has also completed several other trips operating in strictly a bodyguard capacity for foreign dignitaries.
It’s five pm and the sun is still high on what is another hot summer’s day on the Murray River. In the distance sits a familiar broad shape his feet are dangling in the water as he lifts a beer to his mouth.
Corowa is a small country town on the border of NSW and Victoria, this is also the place where Zac was born and bred. The town is a big Aussie Rules footy stronghold and Zac was a natural talent. Although he never wanted that for a career it was the camaraderie that drew him to it.
That same camaraderie was also what drew him to a position in the armed forces, that and the fact that he always knew he was destined to join. After all he was only following in his brother’s footsteps.
Todd, Zac’s brother was an aircraft engineer in the Royal Australian Air Force, he was however never able to serve abroad; he got out just months before September 11th after spending 8 years’ in service.
Todd, as any brother would be, was rather apprehensive of Zac’s trips abroad but he also understood the training Zac had gone through so he was somewhat comforted by that.
“Zac you know, Zac is Zac, and nothing anybody said was ever going to stop him from doing it, so we just had to trust that he remembered his training and that he didn’t get into any dumb shit.” Todd said.
Zac is understandably quietly reserved when it comes to speaking about his work, never one to gab about his duties or conquests; he is however extremely proud of the role he has played. We talk on many occasions mostly over a few beers, mostly by the river, for the remainder of the summer.
He prefers to talk more of the future than of the past these days; the next adventure is his desire to join the Queensland Fire Brigade. But for right now he is enjoying the present, he is home.
All he wants now is summer, mates, beer and the river, a stretch of water that has been such an integral part of his life.
While we both sit there drinking beers and listening to the second Ashes test at the WACA on the radio the conversation indelibly leads to the ‘Ghan.
Zac talks about this tour going a lot smoother than it has on previous occasions, and I notice that this is the first time I’ve seen him come back without any permanent scars.
“Thank fuck this time we didn’t have too many serious incidents.” He said.
He smiles and has a little chuckle under his breath and a mouthful of beer.
Because what the everyday man would consider a “serious incident”, soldiers in the ‘Ghan consider an everyday occurrence.
With the handover to an Afghan run military complete, Australia has only a limited amount of personnel on the ground, and Zac doesn’t hold out too much hope for the country now that the coalition forces have officially left.
“Nothing will change; the place is still a shithole. The place’s in no better shape now than when we first got there. He said.
First they want us there, and then they attack us when we try and help.”
“It’s fucked.” He said after a minute, just to drive home his statement. He cracks another stubbie and spins the bottle cap from his fingers and into the brown depths of the water.
Zac returned back to his home in Brisbane the next day.
While assisting the Australian Coast Guard and Australian Navy Zac was in Darwin attempting to stop illegal people smugglers from entering Australian waters. The smugglers coming from Indonesia are arriving by the boat load in makeshift crafts that are unfit for long distance sea journeys.
The weather is glorious and the waters are calm, word comes that there is a Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel (SIEV) in the waters nearby the Ashmore Islands, the orders are to intercept and capture.
In April 2009 47 Afghani asylum seekers and two Indonesian crewmen leave the Indonesian coast bound for Australia and the chance at a better life. The asylum seekers have been promised by the financiers of the trip that the risk was minimal, the ship was sound and the Australian border was welcoming.
“We captured the vessel but we were only a patrol ship so we couldn’t bring them all aboard, we had to call up HMAS Anzac which is a much larger ship.” Zac said.
As he began transferring the passengers one of the crewmen lit the boats engine on fire this caused an explosion that led to all who were on board to be blown into the sea.
“I don’t know what they were thinking, they probably thought we were taking them back to Indo or prison or something, fuck knows.
Anyway, the boat was destroyed and there were countless bodies in the water, most of ‘em were severely burnt.” He said.
We performed first aid on who we could, until the helo’ evac arrived to take them to Darwin.”
Zac’s back was injured in the blast and he was issued to take three months off for medical leave.
According to Zac they recovered six dead bodies with three unaccounted for. “I reckon sharks would’ve got ‘em.”
A few months later Zac is back in Corowa to celebrate his mother’s 60th birthday. The night before the party we both sit at our local, a small, unobtrusive, quiet pub that is spared the wrath of the younger crowd. On the TV it is announced that Special Forces Commando Cameron Baird will be posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest honour an Australian soldier can be awarded.
Baird is the 100th Australian recipient and the fourth from the war in Afghanistan. Zac informs me that he knew of Baird and that they served in Afghanistan at the same time but in different units, the Commandos are a tight knit group and I can tell that the news has struck him.
“It could’ve happened to any of us.” He says.
He skols the last of his beer and calls for another.
Was it worth it? His face conveys that the very question conjures up memories and contemplation.
“I can’t really answer that, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
Would you do it again?
“In a heartbeat.”
Beat the Press 