Pte Jamie Davis covers LCpl Adem Van Lierop, 3RAR during a night patrol of the Baghdad-based SECDET. Photo by LCpl Neil Ruskin, 1JPAU(P)

Scoping the streets

ASLAV Patrol - Baghdad
(MPEG video 3.29 MB)
Security Detachment - Baghdad
(MPEG video 3.60 MB)

It’s not everyday you find yourself in a completely different culture, it’s not everyday you go to work and are in danger of losing your life. Army’s roving reporter Cpl Damian Shovell is on the beat in Baghdad.

Urban patrolling through the streets of Baghdad by day and night is the easy bit. Staying alert after four months in country and maintaining a sense of calm situational awareness is where you find honed professionalism.

The thought of receiving orders that detail real enemy threat, being moved by armoured vehicle to begin a patrol route and going to action in one of the most dangerous cities on earth makes most soldiers reading this on any barracks or training range green. With jealousy.

But this is all part of the usual day for any one of the 3RAR SECDET sections as they leave their accommodation in a semi-constructed building – the flats – conducting patrols to carry out their mission of providing protection to the staff at the Australian Representative Office in Baghdad.

As the ramp drops at the back of the ASLAV, you realise the air-con has disguised the early summer heat still lingering in the late evening. You rush to meet it as you exit. The ASLAV crew are anxious for the section to debus as quickly as possible, the ramp starts raising even before the last member is clear, then they jockey ahead.

You’re not alone, however, high above the city on a rooftop sits a sniper team watching your every move and covering your back with a .50cal Anti-Materiel Rifle.

Long shadows linger in the narrow street as the last rays of the sun creep over the rooftops in what has become a burnt orange glow of the sun setting through the dust haze that hangs above the city.

Shaking out into formation you begin patrolling now familiar streets. Immediately your senses are assailed by foreign smells of cooking spices and the sounds of TV and radio coming from inside the two-story townhouses that border the narrow streets.

Flickering television sets with foreign news presenters speaking the distinct Arabic language and the occasional glimpse of residents eating their evening meal or smoking their ornate hookah pipes greet you as your eyes sweep through open windows.

Children accustomed to your presence run after you and need to be shooed away. Young men on street corners wave and give wry smiles and the old pay you scant attention as they walk through the centre of your patrol.

You’re in the Red Zone, outside Coalition control, but the neighbourhood the SECDET operates in enjoys the strong support of the local people.

An old man stands at the front of his house as if to greet you as you approach.

“Have you had your dinner?” he asks in accented English.

“Would you like to come in and share mine?”

Trying to seem as amiable as possible as you nod what you hope looks like your thanks and regretful declination while in full combat body armour and with your weapon covering your arcs is as futile as it sounds, but you give it your best shot.

As the last rays of the sun disappear, the glow from houses, shops and the few streetlights present steal away the darkness and make it difficult to peer beyond them or into the hidden shadows and crevices that they create.

The streets are strange collections of residential and commercial pockets that seemingly change at every corner. The neon lights on the shopfronts are a collection of Arabic and strange interpretations of English such as “Café good,” or “Mr Business,” and it’s hard not feel like a tourist as you feel the urge to want to go inside for a look.

The lead scout snaps you back into reality as you realise what’d started to happen. You’d started to relax and take in the view. But as your section patrols either side of the street with the lead scouts sweeping the torches attached to their rifles into parked cars, one has noticed an AK47 on a back seat.

The owner, a British citizen of Arab decent, quickly comes forward to the patrol commander to produce his licence and the patrol continues.

As the section snakes through its patrol route, the section commander signals a halt at an innocuous street crossing, and the patrol goes to one knee beside hedges and in driveways as he moves forward to take a look at something the lead scout has noticed.

Part of a concrete curb ahead has been damaged. The threat of Improvised Explosive Devices planted in and along roadsides is a constant threat and the two occurrences of them in the past three days in the area has everyone on their toes. But this time has been caused by a passing Bradley and the patrol resumes.

As you approach one of the main service roads in Baghdad the patrol commander signals to close up in preparation of crossing.

The people here are conditioned to obey the military, a sad reminder of Saddam’s legacy, and as soon as the lead scout steps on to the busy four lane road and puts his hand up the traffic stops to allow the patrol across.

Minutes later you meet back with the ASLAV and cram into the safety. The air conditioning feels good on the way back to the flats where the patrol commander

LCpl Adam Van Lierop debriefs his section that concludes with, “yeah, a pretty stock standard patrol”.

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