Student swaps Uni for TA to help in Helmand

Captain Davies is deployed to Helmand province with 3 Commando Brigade. Based in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, she works for the Civil-Military Co-operation group (CIMIC), which links the military effort out on the ground to the wider provincial strategy delivering reconstruction and development.

The effort to stabilise Helmand province is led by the Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) - a multi-national, civilian and military partnership to which CIMIC contributes.

Captain Davies, aged 23, has been in the TA for six years and, although she still has a year left before completing her degree at the University of Teeside, she took a year out when the opportunity to deploy to Afghanistan with the CIMIC group arose:

"It has always been part of my plan, what with my degree and future career aspirations, to work within the CIMIC group, their work obviously fits," she said. "I have only just been promoted into this role so there is a lot of expectation on me. Just three years ago I was still a cadet, now I am a captain amongst those with much more age and experience than me, but I am relishing the challenge."

Part of that challenge has involved being based for three weeks in December 2008 at a remote Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Nad e-Ali, an area under Taliban control until British and other ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forces conducted the successful Operation, SOND CHARA. She explained her role there:

"It felt as if we were really doing something useful, something to help. We dealt with the local people on a daily basis, dealing with their problems and explaining who we were and what we are trying to do. I saw it as being an ambassador for British Forces, helping to solve their problems and give them answers.

"Operation SOND CHARA was all about extending the security into new areas; therefore, the local people were not used to the presence of British Forces. Understanding and appreciating their culture was very important to them. I had made an effort to read up on Islam and the Pashtun traditions before I came out. We all learned to speak a few words and sentences.

"With one big meeting, or shura, we collected our ration packs together, emptied out all the sweets and bottles of water and made sure we offered everyone who attended something, just a small thing like a handful of sweets made a big difference.

"We wanted to help their local governance and to promote the work of a particular elder who had taken a leadership role. We supported him as he took ownership of the digging of two new wells. We helped him to develop a schedule of work, organising work parties and planning a schedule to work through. This will help build their capacity to identify and deal with their own problems in the future."

The heavy fighting during Operation SOND CHARA had not completely subsided though and during her time in the FOB Captain Davies was sometimes under fire:

"It sounds strange to say, but it really has been part of the experience," she said. "At the time, it is just the training that takes over, you don't feel scared, you just grab your body armour, helmet, take cover and react how we are supposed to. When you look back, it is terrifying, but hugely exciting. I would have been gutted not to have had this experience; to not see action."

Areas affected by traumatic circumstances are not new to Captain Davies as she visited Sri Lanka in 2005 in the wake of the tsunami disaster, helping out at a school and living with the family of a Sri Lankan friend who she had met through the TA.

Now though, she is concentrating on her time in Afghanistan:

"Afghanistan is my first ever foreign posting. Back in the UK, as a Troop Commander, I've been on lots of training exercises and camps. I've absolutely loved the last few years being with the TA and this tour just tops it all off, giving me the best of both worlds, the excitement of an operational tour, whilst also helping with my studies.

"Ideally I would like to work for the UN or an international NGO [Non-Governmental Organisation] doing post-conflict reconstruction, delivering the stabilisation to countries struck by conflict or disaster. I am trying to get this tour to count as my year on the job training. Most students go to an office for a year, I get to come here!"

With her specific assistance to Operation SOND CHARA now complete, Captain Davies has returned to the 3 Commando Brigade HQ in Lashkar Gah where she has resumed her role as District Officer, once again out on patrols throughout the outlying areas of Lashkar Gah, helping gather information on the progress of reconstruction and development.