Chief of the French Army Staff

The Entente Cordiale arrived in Task Force Helmand in the shape of Lieutenant Colonel Hervé Pierre of the French Marines who is about to become the Military Assistant to the Chief of the French Army Staff in Paris. Hervé came on a month long attachment to see how we are conducting operations in Afghanistan, a reflection of the growing rapport between our respective Armed Forces. I did put down a little marker for a return attachment to the Ministry of Defence in Paris to ‘understand the French approach to Media Operations’.

When I flew up to Kabul in March the Hindu Kush was covered in deep snow. This time the barren landscape, now snowless, looked just as uninhabitable except for the thin strips of green either side of a mountain stream or river. I wondered what life must be like for the people in the middle of such inhospitable and remote places as those little valleys. Maybe they’re all watching the shopping channel on satellite TV or maybe they’re hardy, independent people living a very traditional lifestyle.

Up in Kabul Wing Commander Pat O’Donnell, the Director of the Joint Media Operations Centre (JMOC) in Camp Bastion, and I were met by Wing Commander Mark Harding, the Strategic Communications Officer at the British Embassy in Kabul, along with the Embassy security detail who whisked us through the Hyde Park Corner style traffic to the relative calm of the Embassy. That afternoon we met with some of the new staff who are dealing with the media in Kabul and attended a press conference given by Mark Sedwill, the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. At 6,000ft, Kabul is twice as high as Lashkar Gah and quite a bit cooler which made a pleasant change from the 45-50 deg C that is our daily fare in Helmand during the hottest part of the summer. Never one to miss an opportunity, I had a splash in the Embassy swimming pool and then we were back at the air head for the flight back to Bastion.