Kicking Bombs Read online

  Unfortunately many mechanical landmine disposal systems to this point have been designed by engineering students at universities. Although they mean well they don’t have a clue about explosive force and its effects. For instance, every time a machine is produced for de-mining and is blown up or constantly requires maintenance because of damage resulting from the sudden jolt of the explosion they just make it bigger. What these brainiacs don’t realise is that they are simply making it worse.

  A few of the machines in Afghanistan have even had huge, flat, steel walls built in front to save the machine from getting peppered with shrapnel. Just think of what would happen if you went into the surf with a door and tried to hold it flat against 3-metre high breaker. Well, that’s exactly the same result they were getting and yet to this very day they just keep on building them bigger and putting larger walls between the machine and the mine.

  My idea was simple. I designed my machine as small as practically possible — it can’t be blown up or damaged if the blast and shrapnel don’t have anything to hit. Mine was a car-sized, remote-controlled flail on caterpillar tracks that was shaped like a sports car at the front. That way when the machine detonated the mine the blast would force down on the front of the hull and act as ballast the same way a racing car uses wind on its front spoiler.

  Because most other machines on the market are so bloody big areas around rocks and under trees and so on still have to be cleared by hand. My machine had a boom that could fold away onto the top of the hull that could get into these tight areas. It could extend 7 metres out from the hull and get in under trees, between rocks, down into creek beds — basically everywhere that in the past needed to be cleared by hand.

  Everyone I ever spoke to who knew anything about de-mining told me how much of a great invention it was and how it would revolutionise the de-mining industry. I was told a thousand times over that it would turn me into a millionaire overnight. Well, let me tell you, a load of nights have passed and I’m still waiting.

  So much for being the ‘young inventor’. Hell, at one stage, many years before Tripe and I set up the business, I was conned by a supposed professional who promised me that if I paid him enough money he would get me investors and manufacturers. I was so gullible and I gave him everything thing I had, much to the disgust of my wife at the time. I handed it all over, just in time for him to take me and a dozen other poor bastards to the cleaners and close his business down without delivering a single one of his promises to anyone.

  Some people are so stupid. I know that I was a fool to give him all of my cash and my now ex-wife’s savings, but how stupid was he to piss off a bloke who was an expert in setting booby traps and blowing things up? Let’s look at this seriously. Everything I had hoped for went down the toilet; my wife left me and took basically everything that was left. Obviously after that I was suffering from depression and this mongrel was the main cause. All I needed was a few too many beers and it would have been too easy for him to disappear. There wouldn’t have been any of his DNA left to identify him. Don’t think it didn’t pass through my mind to do exactly that at least a million times but as usual common sense prevailed and I never saw or heard of him again. Lucky for him! So, now it was 2003. Tripe and I had been trying to make a go of it, and I’d been living in an old house near the army barracks in Enoggera, in Brisbane, that belonged to an ex-army mate of mine and although he was still renovating the place it had the feel of a great party house. I ended up getting another ex-army good mate of mine who I have lived with in the past to move in with me.

  Pete and I had it made. We were straight across the road from the train station, which proved to be the best way to get us to the casino, and was within stumbling distance from two great bottle shops. We had a choice of takeaway food joints to choose from when we did hit the grog and were too drunk to cook. Here we were in this great house, two 40-year-old bachelors with not a real lot to lose. Unfortunately for Pete that was when I got the news — the unexpected phone call. Tripe and I had been accepted by the Yanks and we were due to leave to go through something called the Conus Replacement Centre at Fort Bliss in Texas within the month and on to Baghdad from there.

  I had mixed feelings at this point. I wasn’t real happy about leaving a fresh woman behind. Although she was a Pom, Deidre showed promise right from the start. Our first date was at a sex exhibition called Sexpo where she talked me into buying a love swing. The ‘swing of love’ proved to be a real talking point when people came over to the house and saw it hanging in pride of place in the lounge-room. To add to my reluctance was the fact that my youngest daughter, Abby, and I were extremely close and I knew that a long time away from her at this point would break her heart. To make things even worse my two other daughters were pregnant and I felt as guilty as hell knowing that I wouldn’t be there when my first grandchildren were born. I put off telling Abby for as long as I could until everyone else started talking about me going in front of her. I don’t blame them one little bit. I mean, it was a talking point! I was going into a war zone specifically to blow up hundreds of thousands of tonnes of old ammunition and missiles in a place where radicals were catching innocent people and cutting their heads off every day, all of which was being plastered all over the nightly news.

  All the same, I have to admit I had a huge sense of excitement running through my body. I’d been extremely bored since being discharged from the army. I spent 22 years in the Royal Australian Regiment, 19 years in the mighty 6th Battalion, and 3 years in the 8th 9th Battalion. During that time I had been to Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore on three or four month rotations during the 1980s. I had been to the United States on exercises and had been sent to Papua New Guinea as an instructor with the Australian Army Project Training Team in 1991.

  Tripe and I did a stint in East Timor during UNTAET where I was a platoon sergeant with the 6th Battalion just before we got out and during a long service break just prior I got a job as head of security of a gold mine in the Solomon Islands. It was fairly obvious that it wouldn’t be long before I got bored out of my skull doing a normal ‘grown-up’ job on Civvy Street. And here we were mucking about in a hot, crappy office.

  So I suppose, looking back, the Iraq thing came along just at the right time; even though I knew my family and friends would be worried stupid that I could be blown up, shot or beheaded at any moment I was over there, and that my kids would be disappointed every minute of the day that I wasn’t around. Believe me; I had disappointed my kids enough during their lives already so leaving them again at this point sat very heavily in my gut.

  One good thing about going into a war zone, though, was the constant line-up of farewell parties that seemed to happen on a daily basis. Everyone wanted to have a beer with me before I went. It’s almost as if everyone wanted me to be a part of my own funeral wake. Maybe they sensed something that I didn’t. But Deidre always said that I would come home alive. She had this sixth sense that even though I would be in the thick of it at times and things got real scary I would come out of it surprisingly okay with nothing more than a heap of war stories that I could gob off about later to all of my mates while leaning up against a bar somewhere. Possibly the best night was the one at Pete’s and my place. My eldest daughter is a chef and she cooked up a huge drum of braised steak and Guinness and another mate of mine must have cooked 500 traditional Malay satay sticks. Of course, everyone got blind rotten drunk and ate everything that was thrown in front of them.

  A couple of days later we received a letter from the American company we were going to work for. It included a huge stack of medical requirements needed before we got the job and they made most of the appointments from the States. Obviously the doctors there are a lot more lenient than here in Australia — anyone would think I was attempting to become a bloody astronaut or something; it was unbelievable! Not helping was the fact that I had a dozen bruised ribs and a bruised right lung from trying to barefoot water ski two days before and one hell of a hangover from the
night before. I got onto this walking incline machine and thought I was going to die. The nurse who was operating the machine was as hot as they get and me being the mucho bastard that I pretend to be wasn’t going to let a bit of pain stop me from being an ex-army hero. (Shit, every soldier regardless of whether he’s still serving or not thinks he is some sort of hero at some time or other; Tripe reckoned Mattel should have made a superhero toy in my image).

  Tripe nailed all the tests. But at this point in time I was overweight, bald and at least twice her age. I don’t know if it was the fast pace, steadily increasing incline of the machine, my bruised lung or trying to look buff and sucking in my gut during the whole ordeal, but as soon as it was over and I walked out of the room I crashed into a seat and couldn’t move for at least 15 minutes. When I got up I instantly buckled over in pain and was escorted by the same cute nurse into the casualty department where they put me through a CAT scan and discovered that the internal bruises were far worse than I thought. They even found a few cracked ribs that I didn’t think I had. First I was a hero because I top-scored on the stress test, then I felt like a complete wimp because I had to be held up by the 22-year-old sexy-as-hell nurse. I got kudos from her, though, when she found out I had completed the test with such outstanding results and never let on that I had any injuries. My superhero ex-soldier status was reinstated. (Pain is simply a figment of the imagination and old soldiers never cry; well, not while they’re trying to impress younger members of the opposite sex anyway.)

  After a few weeks of being completely stuffed around by a group of people in many different countries, all whom seemed to not have any clue what the hell they were doing we finally got the word that we were heading to the US in a few weeks for training prior to deployment to Iraq.

  The next few weeks in Australia were a complete blur; I was constantly back on the grog with my mates and saying my final farewells to my family. Because of the many times I have been away over the years during my time in the army it almost seemed like saying goodbye was some sort of standard operating procedure. It all seemed extremely meaningless. Take it from me, after 22 years of travelling overseas, going on endless training exercises, constantly heading off for 6-week courses and a long list of what is commonly known as swan jobs, you really get over leaving home. After a while when you say, ‘See ya in three months; I’m off to Malaysia’, for example, they normally come back with nothing more than ‘Okay, see ya!’ and that’s the end of it. And then when you finally get back it’s as if you have only been away for the weekend or something because no-one could give a rat’s arse what you’ve been doing.

  Their disinterest in what happens when you’re away is quite ironic because while you’ve been to foreign countries, blowing stuff up or getting shot at, the most exciting thing they have done while you were away was watch TV and go to the pub. Regardless of what major feats you have recently achieved the conversation regarding these exploits is all over after a few short minutes and the conversation soon returns to discussing their boring-as-batshit lives exactly as they were before you left.

  Anyway, the day we left for the States for the so-called pre-deployment training was no different from any other. After washing down breakfast with a few cold beers I caught a taxi to the airport where I met up with Tripe and a few other Aussies who were also hired by the same company and away we went. No-one was at home to say goodbye and I have a feeling everyone just looked at it as if it was just another trip away for CJ.

  2

  Fort Bliss, Texas, USA

  82mm High Explosive Anti-Tank BK-881

  Made in Poland. The high explosive weapon that the Iraqis used this ammo in was the B-10 recoilless rifle — a Soviet 82 millimetre smooth bore rifle. It could be carried on the rear of an old BRT-50 — a Soviet armoured personnel carrier. This weapon entered Soviet service during 1954 and was phased out in the 1960s and replaced by an upgraded design. Obviously Saddam managed to get a heap of them at a bargain price when the Russians decided to get rid of them. But he probably had to go to Poland or some sleazy arms dealer for the ammo.

  After Tripe and I laughed our way through the convoluted bureaucratic procedures of the American Airport system at Los Angeles International we finally found our connecting flight to El Paso, Texas with the help of an airport bus stop attendant, who regardless of being grossly overweight and at least 60 years old spoke to everyone like he was some sort of US Army sergeant major straight out of A Few Good Men. I was just as amazed when some bloke came up and offered us some help and after we told him we were fine — getting on the right bus and heading to the right terminal — he started preaching the gospel to us and hit us up for $10. I swear that if I’d given him $20 he would have effected a miracle and cured me of baldness.

  We finally arrived in El Paso after a flight on an air bus, and I don’t mean an A330. This clapped-out jet had all the makings of the old Caboolture school buses that I use to travel on when I was still at high school in the early 1970s. It had it all — the stained and ripped seats, graffiti everywhere, dried bubble gum stuck under every nook and cranny and the heavy stench of vomit reeking from the carpet. However, when the hostesses discovered we were heading to Iraq they gave us free beer all the way, which was a godsend because none of us had any US currency.

  Less than 15 minutes after arriving at El Paso I was forced into instant depression when one of the boys lending a helping hand unloading my luggage dropped my backpack and smashed my 40 ounce bottle of overproof Bundy Rum. He felt as bad as I did because he’d forgotten to buy some at Brisbane and was counting on me sharing with him in the future.

  We hired a small bus and headed into Fort Bliss, a very typical US Army base, although one thing that set this place apart from the rest was its fantastic history display. They had a replica of the original old fort built from mud and straw that was incredibly realistic; unfortunately, the whole thing was ruined by a half dozen fibreglass horses they had propped up outside tied to the tie rail.

  We put up with all the crap that the US Military threw at us including more medical and dental checks, even though we had all of the documentation and reports from the same tests we completed only a week prior back in Australia.

  It was one lecture after another in a sort of a round robin. But you should never put a challenge in front of a half-dozen Aussie ex-diggers. We discovered that each lecture had a minimum of a hundred people at any one time and that the only way they had proof of you attending the lecture was due to the fact that it was mandatory for everyone to sign in at the foyer of each lecture room. We soon discovered that while we were waiting in line to be issued our equipment or standing in an even longer line waiting for the dental check we could quite easily duck away and walk over to a few of the lecture rooms and simply sign our names and walk back to the original line in plenty of time.

  All of the US supervisors were extremely impressed that all of the Australians were so well organised and we had completed all of the requirements and attended all of the lectures more than a full day earlier than everyone else.

  One of the rules at the Conus Replacement Centre was that no one was to leave Fort Bliss at any time nor was anyone allowed to consume alcohol. Idiots! That was like waving a red flag at a bull for us. I can’t remember a single night we weren’t at Hooters or someplace similar. Hell, we had our own hire car. We even ended up in some bar on the Mexican border one night that reminded us all of one of the movies where the gringo walks into a bar and the music stops, everyone looks and a real bad dude with a pool cue comes over and beats the living crap out of everyone. Anyway when we walked in everything went quiet, and everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing and turned to stare at us with nasty looks on their faces as if to say ‘Who the hell are these arseholes?’ All of us were a little stunned then suddenly one of us had the guts to come out with ‘G’day!’ Instantly they knew that we weren’t Americans and the tension began to ease a little. Then when they found out we were Australians it was as if a l
ong lost relative had walked into the bar; everyone was as friendly as you could get and we were soon buying each other beers.

  After a week of crap at the centre we were ready to leave for Iraq. The day prior we were issued with our US Department of Defence ID cards and ID Disks (dog tags). We sort of threw a spanner into the works when the clerks at each of the computers discovered that they couldn’t enter our details simply because the computer demanded our US citizen Social Security number before it would open the rest of the program. Obviously all of us from down under didn’t have one so they had to make one up for each of us that no one alive in America had. So Flash, who was first, had 000 000 001, and I was seventh in line and went to Iraq with 007 stamped on my dog tags.

  The day we left we all were herded into World War II vintage buses including a semi-trailer converted into a bus, but only after having all of our personal bags and equipment checked by sniffer dogs looking for drugs. I could have saved them the trouble — if anyone did have any drugs we would have used them all in an attempt to get over all the bullshit we had to put up with during the past week.

  The buses pulled up only a kilometre or so away at a building beside a runway with a World Airways jet parked outside. Inside the building we were moved into an auditorium that looked like it should have a basketball court built in the middle.

  For the first time that week we were confronted by a pack of senior officers who were obviously there for the possibility of getting their faces plastered on the front cover of Stars and Stripes with the brave soldiers and civvies heading off into a war zone. We sat through a series of speeches that were meant to motivate us. The Aussie contingent just sat in bewilderment as the troops all ‘hoo haa’d’ every single comment made. One of the generals, obviously a National Guardsman, commented how he was jealous of the men as they set out for a great adventure on missions to rid the world of terrorists and how he wished he was getting on the plane with us.