Another soldier has been wounded in Afghanistan (although the SMH still prefers to say "injured" rather than wounded for some weird reason. I don't know why the SMH can't get it right - if you go to the Defence website and read the press release, no mention is made of the word "injury". It's all wound and wounded.
The soldier was wounded whilst dealing with a roadside bomb. It never says how big the bomb was or why it detonated or how he was trying to deal with it, but I wouldn't want to have been in his shoes.
I have only seen one live bomb up close. This snippet by Chook glosses over what could have been a very nasty episode. We were on a two week exercise at Lancelin in the Naval Bombardment range - I don't know if the Army Reserve still uses it, but it was one of the more interesting places to spend two weeks dressed in green. So much better than Bindoon or Nannup or Northam.
I was a driver at the time, and had the job of supporting a platoon that was dug in on a hill in the middle of nowhere. I spent most of my time doing mounted patrols with a section at a time, which beat the hell out of patrolling on foot through the sand and scrub. The rest of my time was spent digging into the miserable sand and sandstone, or driving the boss to various O groups (an O group is where orders are given).
Whilst I was out on one patrol, the section that I was dug in with uncovered a 500lb bomb - as in an unexploded one. When I got back, they had uncovered most of it and were standing around taking photos of it. It was lying just under the surface, and was pretty much horizontal. I know people probably think that bombs drop straight down and would thus be impaled into the ground straight up and down, but I presume that because they "fly" after leaving the plane, they can belly flop and skip along the ground if they don't go off.
After that, some of the guys stood on the bomb and did a 'windsurfing' act (Lancelin is one of the best spots on the planet to go windsurfing, and it was a very popular sport back then, so it was an appropriate kind of thing to do).
It just so happened that my last passenger was the RSM. He took one look at the bomb, went white, and ordered everyone off the hill at the double. Not long after, I was standing on a hill about two kilometres away watching the thing explode after the EOD guys had done their stuff. It made a very impressive mushroom cloud. And a big bang. I would not want to be any closer to one of those things going off.
After seeing one go off, all I can say is that you'd need to be one brave bastard to approach one and disarm it or perform a controlled explosion. I hope this bloke isn't too banged up.
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