I SEE NOTHING By Waz Ando, 6 RAR, but attached to 2 RAR ND – Chora region, Afghanistan
On RTF 3, I was the platoon commander’s bushie driver. Our platoon commander was a Yank, who used to be a US Navy EOD (I think he had an Iraq tour as EOD) but he came over here and joined our Army. So we were on our first operation (Op Spin Ghar) and we were packing up one morning, getting ready to stand to. I was on top of my bushie, putting shit away. The platoon commander had a habit of doing stuff his way, and instead of clearing his weapon the way we did it, he just pulled the mag off, worked the action five times and it caught fire. BANG! Due to the cold, dust and the shit CLP oil, the round had stuck on the bolt or in the chamber for five cycles of the bolt. The round hit the ground about 100 mm from the JTAC, who was packing his stuff up. The platoon commander had COLLAPSED upon realising what he’d done, which caused the medic to freak, so he ran over, thinking he’d been hit. The JTAC was going off his nut! I saw the whole thing from above and I thought, ‘Fuck this. I’m not being a witness!’ I climbed down back in the bushie and sat in the driver’s seat. Someone in the back asked what the bang was. “I dunno,” I replied. The platoon commander had to get on the radio and inform higher what had happened.
Quote!
Whenever you drop your equipment in a firefight, your ammo and grenades always fall the furthest away, and your canteen always lands at your feet.
