THE DUST OF URUZGAN
(Fred Smith)

In the ring they called me ‘Warlord’ my mother calls me ‘Paul’
You can call me ‘Private Warren’ when you're filing your report
As to how I came to be here, this is what I understand
In this hospital in Germany from the dust of Uruzgan

I had just turned twenty eight, just bought a new car
When you joined the first Battalion of the Big 1 RAR
We were next up for deployment into South Afghanistan
To combat the insurgence in the dust of Uruzgan

It took seven months of training just to get into the joint
There were push-ups and procedures, there was death by powerpoint
Then the RSO&I course in Ali Al Salaam
But nothing can prepare you for the dust of Uruzgan

Me and Benny sat together flying into Kandahar
Sucked back on our near beers in the Camp Baker Bar
Then up at 05:30 and on the Herc and out
In twenty flying minutes, we were in to Tarin Kowt

We shook hands as the boys ripped out from MRTF one
And pretty soon were out patrolling in the Afghan summer sun
Walking through the green zones with a Styer in my hand
Body armour chafing through the dust of Uruzgan

We started up near Chora working fourteen hours a day
Mentoring a Kandak from the Afghan 4th Brigade
Down through the Baluchi into eastern Dorafshan
Working under open skies in the dust of Uruzgan

It's a long, long way from Townsville not like any place you’ll see
Suddenly you're walking through from the fourteenth century
Women under burkhas, tribal warlords rule a land
Full of goats and huts and jingle trucks in the dust of Uruzgan

And the Education Minister can neither read nor write
And the Minister for Women runs a knock shop there at night
They've been fighting there forever over water, food and land
Murdering each other in the dust of Uruzgan

There's nothing about the province that's remotely fair or just
But worse than the corruption is the endless fucking dust
It's as fine as talcum powder on the ground and in the air
And it gets into your eyes and it gets into your hair

And it gets in to your weapon and it gets in to your boots
When bureaucrats all show up there, it gets in to their suits
It gets in the machinery, it foils every plan
There's something quite symbolic about the dust of Uruzgan

Still the people can be gracious and they’re funny and they’re smart
And when the children look into your eyes, they walk into your heart
They face each day with courage and each year without a plan
Beyond scratching for survival in the dust of Uruzgan

But the Taliban are ruthless, they keep the people terrorised
With roadside bombs and hangings and leaving letters in the night
And they have no useful vision for the children of this land
But to keep them praying on their knees in the dust of Uruzgan

It was a quiet Saturday morning when the ’2 Shop’ made a call
On a compound of interest to the east of COP Mashal
We had some information, they were building IEDs
So we cordoned and we searched it in accord with SOPs

I was on the west flank picket, propped there with Ben
There to keep a watchful eye out while the other blokes went in
We knew what to look for from the TTPs we'd learned
But the Nationals were moving back and forth without concern

We'd been standing still for hours when I took a quick step back
Kicked a small AP mine and everything went black
I woke up on a gurney, flat out on my back
I had to ask them seven times just to get the facts

I lived to tell the story through a simple twist of fate
The main charge lay ten foot away from the pressure plate
You see the mine was linked by det cord to a big charge laid by hand
Hidden under Benny by the dust of Uruzgan

I was a Queensland champ Thai Boxer now I look south on my knee
And all I see is bed sheets where my right foot use to be
Benny's dead and buried underneath Australian sand
But his spirit's out there wandering through the dust - the dust of Uruzgan

Now I'm going back to Townsville, it's the city of my birth
Some go back to Ballarat and some go back to Perth
I'll be living with my mother who's still trying to understand
Why we're spending blood and treasure in the dust - in the dust of Uruzgan

Youtube clip

Fred noted:

In July 2009, passing through the United Arab Emirates on my way into Afghanistan, I attended a memorial service for Ben Ranaudo, a young guy from Springvale, Victoria. This was the first of over a dozen memorial services and ramp ceremonies I went to in my 18 month stint working for Foreign Affairs in Uruzgan Province, Southern Afghanistan. You never really get used to them, but I had just arrived and was unprepared. In the months that followed, through conversations with staff in the headquarters of the Mentoring and Reconstruction Task Force, I developed some understanding of what happened on the morning of 18 July, 2009, when Ben was killed. I read the unclassified version of the Commission of Inquiry Report into the incident when it was released in December that year, and found myself imagining an interview between the colonel who wrote the report and one of Ben’s mates, a guy called Paul.

You can find explanations of acronyms in the glossary at this site which details Fred's Afghanistan experiences:

Click

--Stewie.