It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
'Strange Meeting', Wilfred Owen
'Escape in some form or another is never far from the thoughts of a soldier
serving overseas. In
Strange Meeting, one of Wilfred Owen’s most
haunting poems, the only escape from the trenches is a dreamlike death, a
measure perhaps of the monotonous horror of the conflict in which he found
himself immersed.
In contrast to his 1914-18 predecessor, the British Tommy in Helmand— even on
the ever-shifting front line, where he occupies for the night some eerily
abandoned compound before pushing on through the green zone the next morning
— has a surprisingly wide array of technological means of keeping le
cafard at bay hidden somewhere in his backpack.
Soldiers listen to the radio wherever they can get their hands on one and BFBS
does sterling work broadcasting to troops from the Falklands to
Fallingbostel.
But, I always found it a little cruel that Friday nights, which would
otherwise have gone unremarked (as any sense of “weekend” is quickly lost on
grinding six-month tours in Iraq and Afghanistan) were given over to long
sets of commercial house and euphoric trance music that is being played in
the sort of clubs across Europe that we couldn’t have been farther from.
Moreover, with radio you’re dependent on someone else’s playlist, so you crave
something a little more personal. Gnarly Ulster veterans smile with fond
memories of the early waterproof and shockproof Sony Walkmans but in truth
these were too bulky and too battery-hungry to be ideal for anyone pushing
too far from base. With the advent of the modern MP3 player, tiny and light
with a huge memory and low battery consumption, the infantryman has an ideal
companion.
The value of being able to retreat into little white headphones during
precious downtime or — for the truly well prepared — to pump out through
tinny portable speakers something a little more upbeat for a sunny morning
in an FOB lies not just in the distraction from what otherwise might be, at
best, monotonous hard work and, at worst, the most intense and extreme
experiences of young soldiers’ lives, but beyond that in music’s therapeutic
capacity to transport us from wherever we are.
One of the most striking things I took away from my brief experiences of close
combat was how similar being ambushed, for example, felt to being in a large
nightclub — the overwhelming noise, adrenalin surge, confusion and sensory
overload.
Perfect, therefore, that the iPod my team had rigged up to our vehicle would,
almost unfailingly, be playing something suitably hardcore when a contact
flared up. Until, that is (with a sense of mischief that makes you wonder if
there’s something Apple isn’t telling us), we were engaged by the Taleban
for about the tenth day in a row and the shuffle function brilliantly
selected Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 as we started to return fire.
I found that being able to escape like this was most useful in the long
periods spent in a twilight zone of rest. Sleep comes in irregular and
ill-timed little chunks to those on operations, and it’s difficult just to
drift off out on the roof of some compound, marvelling at a clear night sky
and wondering about the enemy, probably trying just as unsuccessfully to get
some rest a few hundred metres away.
In such moments, trying to calm down after a long patrol and a big fight or,
worst of all, reflecting on comrades on their way home with injuries or
worse, the calming effect of a playlist redolent of happier times and home
cannot be overestimated.
CNN reported this week that US troops in Afghanistan are falling victim to le
cafard. Having been spoilt by the incredible welfare support structures
that existed throughout the Iraq war, they had become used to internet links
home, daily video calls to loved ones and the comfort and entertainment of a
weekly movie night (a treat we Brits were kindly invited to join whenever we
were in Camp Shorabak until we spoilt it by stealing all the popcorn).
The austerity of Helmand has taken aback some of the Americans as they
readjust to the old-fashioned two-week wait for precious “snail mail”.
But the natural ingenuity of soldiers usually means that, before long, they
can find a way to tamper with communications devices, rigging laptops so
that DVDs can be watched in short-episode bursts while sharing a single
generator point with something more important, or bypassing systems so that
signallers can play solitaire to pass the long hours on radio duty.
In the rear, the popularity of handheld games consoles and even larger systems
is obvious. Tent buddies club together to buy full-size TVs, a worthwhile
investment at the start of a long six months, with bargains to be had in the
thriving trade that goes on between incoming and outgoing formations during
any handover period. This guarantees that, for at least a couple of hours a
week, through a game or a movie, they will be briefly somewhere else.
And out on the line, the guys trying to sleep will, if they’re anything like I
was, rely on the iPod shuffle function to throw up more surprises: Girls
Aloud as flares light up the evening and the choppers thunder low across the
valley. Now that’s what I call escapism.'
How the iPod became essential infantry kit
Whether it’s hardcore songs for battle or rigging up a DVD, soldiers in Helmand choose a personal escape route from war