Visit Barracks somedays ago

We will never forget the sacrifice made by those who didn’t return with us or those whose lives have been changed by injuries suffered on the battlefield. As a Reservist, my time is nearly up, my mid-career break is nearly over, my mid-life crisis is nearly overcome and I will shortly be heading back to ‘Civvy Street’ to look for a new job. Thank you for sharing the Herrick 14 journey with me.

We travelled via Cyprus for a day of ‘decompression’ which I spent dingy sailing, swimming, eating ice cream, and enjoying a barbeque and a Combined Services Entertainment show before flying the final leg back to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

Looking back I feel very privileged to have been the Spokesman for 6,500 Royal Marines and troops on the military mission in Afghanistan. My highlights in Helmand have been patrolling with L Company, 42 Commando in Loy Mandah Kalay, getting to know our Afghan partners in the police, Army and Government and the Lashkar Gah media, seeing many old, and making many new, friends, escorting the national media, going ‘live’ on Sky News, swimming in the British Embassy pool in Kabul, putting out the story about the Afghans’ elite counter-terrorist unit, Bost 170, walking the search dogs in the morning around our base in Lashkar Gah and, of course, Cheryl Cole.

There have also been some pretty big events which happened during our shout – the Royal Wedding, the death of Osama bin Laden, the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 – along with the seminal moment of Operation Herrick 14, that handshake on 20th July between Brig Ed Davis and Brig Gen Hakim Angar, the Provincial Chief of Police, when we crossed the bridge between gaining, holding and consolidating the security of Central Helmand, and the future that is the transition of lead security responsibility back to the Afghans, opening the door to our eventual exit from military operations in Afghanistan at the end of 2014. Our mission from now on is all about ‘less-to-none’ of us and ‘more-to-all’ of them, said the Spokesman.