On the R and R – just thought, I’m owed two weeks so I’m going to ask if they can be added to my Christmas leave which means I’ll get six weeks at home. Can’t wait!
Mam, have you seen much of the baby and her mum? Let me know how that’s going will you? After this lot’s over I’ve got some career decisions to make and it’s on my mind.
One decision I have made in this life is I’m going to stop doing things for people who let me down. Well that’s my gripe out of the way! Remember I love you all. Ken xxx
12 July
Hey hello there and how are we on this ridiculously hot day in Helmand Province, Afghanistan? Only eight days until the hottest day of the year but here we are bloody boiling in the day and blasted by sandstorms at night. It’s like thick blankets of sand just hitting you in the face. We’re covered in it all the time – the guys and the dogs.
Mam do you think you could send some cordial to put in the water? It’s bloody disgusting. I thought I was getting used to it but I was wrong. It’s shit but not as shit as the tea. Could you send some proper teabags please? Aw that’d be just great. A proper cuppa. I dream about it.
Hey, I’ve got Sasha now and she’s bloody marvellous. I knew she would be. Captain Thompson brought her out to me at Inkerman and we got on right away. She’s already made friends with the guys of 2 Para. She’s got a bit of a reputation for being good at her job – just like me eh???? So we’re having some successes out here and impressing the boss no end!
She has to be the best dog out here. Got to be.
There’s a big push planned. Me and Sasha are waiting to hear what happens next but we’re used to that. Meanwhile we’re helping with the planning for the job and hopefully we will get a lot of success on this one.
The internet has been down for a few days so sorry I’ve not been sending any e-blueys. It’s not that easy here. One internet terminal and two text link terminals between 200 people doesn’t really add up. It’s different at Bastion where you can book time. It’s not like that here. There’s no booking time and with so many people waiting it’s a check your emails, reply to them and then get off so someone else can have their turn. We all need that connection with home Mam. It means so much out here. It’s a good for morale thing.
Did you manage to tape Top Gear for me? Please say you did? It’s the only programme I try to watch religiously so I’m gutted I’m not in Bastion to watch it. I’ll be catching up on all of them when I get home. Dad, what’s happening with the Grand Prix? Who’s going to come out on top?
Sorry Dad, no juicy news to tell you. I’ve been sitting in a FOB sweating my arse off. It literally is unbearable. My next holiday is going to be in Greenland in December I think. Sorry but I’m praying for rain when I’m home. So 40 days or something till my ‘original’ R and R dates. I’ll find out if that has changed when I get to Bastion. I return there on the 20th or 21st.
Any news on how the baby is doing?
All my love, as always. Ken xxx
23 July
This bluey is just in case my text link isn’t working as I sent you an email today (18th July) at around about 13.00hrs with regards to my bank card and my R and R. I need you to ask Barclays to send me my pin number. I know they won’t give it to you but they can’t send it to me by post here either. I can’t ring them from here as I don’t have enough minutes to go on hold. So when I get to Brize I won’t have any money at all, not even for a phone call.
On my R and R date: if I get R and R at all it will be from the 20th to the 3rd, meaning I arrive at Brize on the 20th. My unit will pick me up and take me to Luffenham where I can pick up my number 2s but then I will need a lift home. I know it’s a long trek that’s why Dad might be the best to come. I’ve thought of asking Uncle Martin but trying to get in touch with that guy is harder than killing all the Taliban! I will pay petrol if needed and food etc on the journey. Dad’s car would certainly be better due to diesel consumption. This needs to be resolved quickly as my R and R is fast approaching. I will let you know confirmed dates ASAP along with the timings. Let me know ASAP what’s going on please. I don’t want to be stuck anywhere.
Cheers Mam. Love you loads as always. Ken xxx
That was his last letter home.
I read it from time to time to remind me that he always intended to come home. Even if everything around him was out of his control and seemed ever so crazy, the one thing he was sure about was that he wanted to come home.
SIXTH SENSE
Out in Helmand on the morning of 24 July Ken Rowe had said to one of his colleagues, ‘I’ve got a funny feeling about today. Something’s going to happen.’ But that wasn’t an unusual experience for Ken. Like his mother, he had a sixth sense and often shared how he felt with his unit. One of his COs felt it was worth having a word with him about it.
‘Ken, you need to stop saying things like that. The “we’re all doomed” approach isn’t a good attitude to have out here and it unnerves others, too. And you do know that if you keep saying it, chances are that one day you could be right.’
That day, Ken Rowe was right.
‘I think up until 5.12pm on 24 July 2008 I had not grasped the full concept of what we and what I was doing in Afghanistan,’ remarked Frank Holmes. ‘Until that point it had been other people getting killed or injured. The flag was lowered for someone else’s son, daughter, soldier, but when I was told that Ken Rowe had died that day my attitude changed completely.
‘I asked myself, had we treated the build-up to this Operation, to this point, as a bit of a game? Just an adrenaline rush? I was gutted when Lance Corporal Craig Ide was involved in a mine strike on a patrol early in the tour. I was involved in one the very next day. Somehow many of us never thought anything would happen to us or those around us.
‘Northern Ireland as I had known it back in 1992–4 was the place to be. We were training for a purpose – to defeat terrorism – and the pace of soldiering was fast and furious. But before the close-down in 2007 it was a shadow of its former self. It was down to the few like Ken Rowe who showed that keen desire to progress his dog, himself and his career in what was still a war on terror.
‘Ken was one of our finest. And we lost him. Our standards needed to be raised and tailored to meet the new level of attack that we had to expect to meet. I tested and trained our handlers accordingly, including Liam Tasker.’
At the time when the RAVC lost Lance Corporal Ken Rowe, 2 Para were experiencing almost daily losses. They also lost a man in the same ambush. Herrick 8 was proving to be the regiment’s toughest yet. The terror threat that faced them seemed to know no bounds. In a culture where life is cheap, where terrorists entice children to strap explosives to their bodies and die for their faith, the rule book is out of the window.
As the Taliban called the tune the pressure fell on the RAVC to turn the intelligence gained on the front line into dogs and handlers ready to locate the latest enemy devices. Liam Tasker was one of the trainers given the task of bringing good dogs forward and now he had the chance to go forward himself with Operation Herrick 13.
Chapter 8
Stay safe. Love you loads, son xxxx
Alongside the bearer party at Kenneth Rowe’s funeral was a young Lance Corporal, Liam Tasker. His job that day was as hat orderly, collecting the bearers’ caps, but the occasion overwhelmed him and placed in him a need to honour the fallen dog soldier, not at home, but in the heat and dust of Afghanistan.
JANE
Liam was always up to something and if he had a bee in his bonnet God help anyone who tried to stand in his