Chapter 02

Adult Employment

James finishes high school in October, several weeks before he turns twenty. Despite having lived in the area since he was seven he has few friends, other than those who live on the neighbouring farms. So his twentieth birthday is a very small gathering at Watt’s Here on the Sunday afternoon nearest his birthday.

While he thinks about what to do for a living James continues to work for Bob after finishing school. He can’t afford to go to university due to the living costs and having no way to pay them, and there’s no point in staying on at the farm. Two of Bob’s grandchildren are interested in the farm as a way of life; their parents aren’t, but they are. Over the years Bob’s children and grandchildren often came to visit or stay at the farm for holidays. Bob enjoyed their visits and he now really enjoys teaching two of them how to be real farmers. There’s no need for James to stay and Bob doesn’t really need the extra help, but neither wants to be first to say so. There’s a strong bond between them from all their years together.

After a few months of talking to people and researching jobs James does a lot of thinking, then he decides to join the Army. It gives him a chance to do something for the country while learning more about the world and picking up some other skills. In October he visits the Army base near Rivers and he learns how to join. One oddity is he has to drive to Canberra to sign up and then he’ll be sent papers to attend the base at Rivers for basic training, because that’s where they do it.

Army Life

James meets the rigours of Army recruit training without complaint because he sees it as an essential part of the job. While other recruits are busy complaining he’s busy studying what he has to learn to be a good soldier. His quiet assurance and willingness to just get on with what he has to do is noticed by those supervising the training and put in his file.

Like all things the training comes to an end and the recruits are sent to various units where they get more training relevant to their duties there. For some reason unknown to James his platoon Sergeant takes a personal liking to him and that, along with his good performance as a soldier, is enough to see James promoted to corporal when they have an open position for one within the platoon.

Just over two years into James’ service his unit is sent to Afghanistan. Soon after arriving there Sergeant Parson has James go with him on a visit to another base in the city they’re in. James is sent in to get the Supply Officer to come out to talk to the Sergeant waiting in the vehicle. James is a bit worried about this, until he sees who is being led to the counter to see him by the private James spoke to at the counter. The Warrant Officer stops and asks, “You want to see me, Corporal?”

James smiles as he says, “No, Sir.” The WO is turning to look at the stunned private when James adds, “My Sergeant does, Sir. He told me to come in here and, I quote ‘get that lazy supply officer to come out and speak to me here,’ end quote. He’s outside while keeping an eye on our truck.” The WO is getting real angry about this until Jim adds, “However, Sir, I think your brother is trying to set us both up.”

The Warrant Officer stops, looks at him and says, “My brother!”

“Yes, Sir, Sergeant David Parson. I don’t know why your names are different, but you look so much like him the relationship is clear.”

Warrant Office Richard Bourne laughs, “Dave isn’t my brother, we’re close first cousins. Our mothers are twins.” With a large smile he adds, “Let’s go see him,” and he walks around the end of the counter.

The two cousins meet and Richard tells Dave about the way James greeted him. They spend the next half an hour in the nearby Sergeants’ Mess catching up on news etc. After that Warrant Officer Bourne takes Parson and James over to a nearby US Army base to see a friend of his in their supply unit. James and Sergeant Parson leave the building with a new US Army issue 9 mm automatic, webbing with shoulder holster, two spare magazines, and a few boxes of ammunition each.

For the next six months James’ unit provides escorts for convoys on supply routes around the countryside without any troubles. The small convoys have two squads as guards while bigger ones have the whole platoon or a couple of platoons to guard them, it varies with the size and contents. But, like all things going well, when trouble starts it’s big.

Corporal Cowley is in charge of a squad of soldiers in the last truck in the convoy while Sergeant Parson commands the detachment from the lead vehicle with another other squad in it. Like all of their runs where the Sergeant is the one in charge he spends time checking the vehicles while unobtrusively securing a package of explosive to its underside and he hands James a radio transmitter to detonate it. Parson calls it a parting gift, if they get taken out in an attack to get the supplies this gift will see they don’t get the trucks or most of the supplies. The trip today is a regular run to villages along a safe route, so no trouble is expected by anyone. Like their company commander often says, “We’re going with the convoys because the orders have all of the convoys go with guards.”

The convoy leaves before dawn and, an hour after their lunch break, it’s almost to its first destination when the lead supply truck suddenly stops. Naturally the rest of the convoy stops behind it and the Sergeant has his vehicle turn around to come back. The driver of the stopped vehicle is out and has the bonnet up like there’s an issue with the motor.

There’s something about the way the driver keeps looking around the area that worries James so he exits his truck while saying, “Right, everyone out and set up about the vehicle. I don’t like this.” In seconds his men are out and spread out on the road around their transport. He’s on the radio informing the Sergeant about his actions and concerns when four rocket propelled grenades fly out of the rocks to the right of the road to slam into the guarding troop carriers, two per truck.

Because Sergeant Parson also has his men out and deployed most of the troops are out of the vehicles when the rockets hit, but the drivers are still in them. Three men are killed and two are wounded in the attack.

Parson is walking back toward the stopped truck to see what’s up with it when the rockets are fired. The blast behind him causes him to stagger forward. The driver of the stopped vehicle turns to run into the field beside the convoy, heading toward where the rockets came from. Parsons brings his rifle up, aims, and fires at the driver. The running man screams when the rounds rip through his lower body while tearing apart his groin and inner thighs. Parson smiles at hitting where he aimed while thinking, No paradise for that treacherous bastard!

The Australian soldiers take up the best defensive positions they can on the ground around their Land Rover troop carriers while they search for targets in the surrounding fields, firing when they find something to shoot at. Two men in the field stand up in a depression to fire two more rockets and are knocked backwards by the soldiers who see their upper bodies and shoot them. One rocket is fired downward at an angle to hit the ground several metres in front of him while the other fires when that man is falling onto his back. This rocket goes straight up until the propellant runs out, then it falls back down a little behind where the man fired from. The rocket explodes when it hits the ground and a few screams are heard from that part of the field to make the soldiers smile.

The situation soon becomes worse when a large number of armed men move across the field from boulder to boulder while shooting at the soldiers as other men shoot from cover to protect the ones moving. The return fire from the soldiers ensures many of the moving men don’t advance any further, due to the soldiers’ bullets renovating their chests.

While this is happening the other local drivers are quick to get down from their trucks and run away across the field on the other side of the convoy while they head away from the attackers. The men aren’t armed and the two damaged Land Rover Perentie series troop carriers stop them from going forwards or backwards so they’re getting away from this as quick as they can, because this is their best option in the situation.

James is careful while moving around to check his men. He moves a couple of them back into the damaged Land Rover because it gives them better cover than lying on the road and it expands their field of fire due to being about a metre higher than lying on the road.

The Land Rover transports are disabled and damaged, so are their long range radios, but the extra ammunition and supplies in them are still OK. Thus they can sustain a long combat, if they have to. One task James does is to pass ammunition from the truck to the men.

All of the Australian troops are worried because this is a small convoy on a route where there’s been no trouble before and they’re now under attack from a very large Taliban force. They know it’s a large force due to the number of enemy they’ve already killed and the number who’re still shooting at them from the field. Both NCOs are worried because the enemy has taken some heavy losses, but they’re continuing the fight.

Several minutes into the fight James is on the left side of the Land Rover loading up a bag with loaded magazines to hand out when shooting starts behind him and he’s hit in the left thigh. Turning while he falls he sees a group of half a dozen men attacking from the previously safe side. He hits the road and he switches from the three shot burst mode to full auto. Holding his rifle level with the road he swings it along the line of attackers, and he smiles because their height differences sees the men being raked across their thighs and groins with his long burst. They all scream while they drop to the ground with blood from their shot up arteries and groins flooding the ground around them.

On hearing some shots from down the road he looks that way while he hits the release to drop the expended magazine. Three attackers are standing up in a roadside ditch about fifteen metres away. Instead of trying to grab a replacement magazine and get his rifle on target James holds it in his left hand while his right hand whips up to the pistol in his shoulder holster. Three well placed shots sees the new attackers fall down with bloody holes in their chests.

The action is so fast a private in the Land Rover is just looking out when James puts his pistol back in its holster. James looks up and says, “Bill, hand out the rest of the ammo.” The private nods yes, and does so.

James rolls over to have a look at his wounded leg. After a quick check he pulls out a field dressing and he ties it down tight to stop the bleeding. When he tries to stand up James is quick to learn he can’t walk, so he’s now reduced to staying still or crawling.

He thinks about how he can continue in the fight while replacing his rifle magazine and loading a round into the breech. Grabbing one of the bags of loaded magazine he drags himself under the damaged truck. He soon sees he has a good view of most of the approaches between the tyres. Moving a bit further under to get a better view out of the sides he finds there’s a fair sized hole in the road. Realising it’s from a bomb set off here he wonders why they weren’t told about that attack. He has no answer to that, but he does move into the hole to get a bit more cover.

The hole is only a bit over a metre by a metre and a half, so he can’t lie down in it but he can curl up and lie on his left side. Because it’s almost a metre deep only his helmeted head is above ground when he sticks it up to look around. After a little moving around in the hole he can see down the road and nearly all of the left side of the road. He’s soon set up to use this impromptu foxhole as his combat point. He has his spare magazines set out ready to grab, with the radio detonator beside them.

After handing out the extra ammunition Private Peter Bill is stunned to find his corporal is missing. He almost jumps out of his skin when he hears James say, “Right, Private Bill, get back to your fire point. Keep an eye on your six, because they’ve now got us surrounded. Pass that to the Sergeant.” Bill climbs into the Land Rover and he hangs his head out to look under the vehicle, he grins on seeing how James is set up. A short talk on the radio lets Sergeant Parson know of the situation at their end and the need to watch both sides now.

For the next fifteen minutes James is firing aimed single shots to take out advancing enemy crossing the fields on the left side while the rest of his squad is doing the same on the main enemy force. James is very worried when Peter Bill mentions someone being wounded or killed. All are stunned when waves of attackers rise from the ground only ten metres from the road on both sides and charge forward.

All of the Australian troops open fire as fast as they can to kill as many attackers as they can. On seeing the large force on the left side Private Bill turns around and opens up on them, inflicting heavy casualties.

Sadly, in combat the courage, skill, and training of the troops doesn’t mean they win the fight. Often, like this time, the sheer numbers make a huge difference. One by one the Australians cease firing when they die. A long burst from the side rips along Private Bill’s body. Because he’s on a knee in the doorway and leaning forward his final muscle convulsions result in him falling forward and out of the door. He lands on the ground beside their troop carrier right in front of James to completely obstruct James’ vision and his line of fire at the enemy.

Sighing, James puts his rifle down and he takes out his pistol again. He knows anyone firing at him will now be too close for him to get the rifle on target. He replaces the magazine with a full one and he waits for them to attack him under the Land Rover. They have to have seen the flashes of his rifle while he was shooting at them.

Within seconds of Bill’s death all firing stops at this end of the column because Private Moore is killed at the same time, leaving only James alive at this end of the convoy. The sounds of combat at the other end of the convoy soon end as well, telling James the rest of the detachment is down. So he picks up the radio detonator and arms it. Holding it in his left hand he waits to press the button to set off the explosives.

Feet move around the truck. James ducks down as low as he can while still letting him see if anyone is looking under the vehicle. All he sees are the ankles and boots of people moving about the carrier, plus a few hands when the Taliban members search the dead. A voice issues orders and many of the feet move off toward the supply trucks.

A moment later there’s no sound of movement around James so he raises his upper body to look down the line of trucks. All he can see is truck wheels in a sea of feet for as much of the convoy he can see. He has a huge grin when he points the detonator toward the supply trucks and he pushes the button. Five loud explosions rip through the air at the same time as the blast shock wave bounces off the road under the trucks.

The Taliban officer leading the attack is very angry with the heavy losses inflicted on them by such a small group of soldiers and how long it took his men to kill them all. Walking in behind his men he wonders how many bullets they fired because the ground is littered with the expended cases. Reaching the men at the back of the convoy he orders them to get in and on the supply trucks so they can drive them away to their new base they’re establishing near here. He takes a moment to walk the length of the five trucks while he checks the supplies in them.

Reaching the front truck the officer orders some men to move the bodies out of the way while he opens the door to climb into the truck and leave. He has one foot up to step into the truck when he’s tossed forward and to the side by an explosion. Lying on his back he looks back along the convoy to see all five of the supply trucks are wrecks and what’s left of the supplies is spread out over a large area. Much of the food in the trucks is now destroyed by the explosions while the rest is thrown out and around. He goes to get up, but he can’t get his right foot under him. He looks down to see why, then he screams when he finds his right leg ends just below the knee and blood is pouring out. While he reaches for a field dressing he faints from the blood loss. Like a lot of his men who survived the battle and are wounded in the explosions the officer dies before anyone who’s able to help him can give him first aid.

Of the one hundred and fifty Taliban members who start the attack on the convoy about fifty of the attackers are killed in the attack with about forty wounded. Many are killed in the bomb explosions while many more are injured and bleed to death before the fit survivors can help them. The defenders and bombs leave only thirty-eight live attackers.

Ten minutes after the explosions the officer who started the day as seventh in command learns he’s now the one in charge and he’s the only properly appointed officer left. He orders the men to check everyone, to collect all of the working weapons, ammunition, and as much of the food they can carry. It takes a while for so few left to check so many dead.

Eighty-five minutes after the attack started the surviving victors walk away from the scene while heavily loaded with only a very small fraction of what they went there to collect by force of arms. They aren’t happy about leaving so many of their dead comrades behind them.

Aftermath

James can hear the enemy talking while they move about, from the tones of what they say he’s sure they aren’t happy with the trucks going bang in their faces. He’s happy because he can see so many of the enemy lying around and not moving. After some time he hears the voices moving away. Lifting up a little he peeks over the edge of his hole. He can see a group of people with heavy loads about a hundred metres into the field, and all are walking away from him. He lies back to rest while they get well away. Being very tired he soon falls asleep.

The sounds of people talking and walking around wakes James, so he rises up to look around him. He sees a group of women and children walking about the road and fields while they collect what they can of the supplies the convoy was carrying. Lying back down he goes back to sleep because he doesn’t know if he can trust them or not and he isn’t ready to take the risk.

Base

Late in the afternoon the radio operator at base realises he hasn’t had a report from the convoy, so he transmits a request for them to call in. Several minutes later the communications duty officer lists the convoy as out of contact and he sends in a request for an aerial check of their line of travel while he also lets Command know of the situation.

At five p.m. an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV: a radio controlled plane with a camera, also called a drone) is circling over the scene of the battle after flying over their travel route from the base. The televised images are being seen by a number of officers while they discuss the situation they’re viewing.

Arrangements are made for a replacement convoy to leave the base in the morning. It’ll have an extra company strength force go with it to investigate and clean up the combat site. The investigating officers going to the scene are briefed and they’re given all of the details of the convoy guards and drivers before they’re finished for the day.

Next Day

The next morning the double convoy departs on time. When they reach the combat area the supply convoy leaves the road to detour around the area by passing on the left of the road, about a hundred metres into the field, but only after it’s checked for explosive devices and other types of booby-traps.

The troops of the investigating force dismount to spread out to check the area while they set up a secure perimeter around the combat zone. With them properly deployed the two investigation specialists dismount to walk over the scene, taking photos and notes while they try to work out what happened at the site.

Being under the damaged troop carrier gives James some protection from the elements, but it was still very cold during the night. Also, in the heat of the battle he failed to properly clean out his wound before he put on the field dressing and the wound became infected by the germs in the dirt he fell on. Now, almost twenty-four hours later, he’s running a high fever and he’s not fully aware of his surroundings.

Thirty minutes into their investigation the officer signals for the troops to collect the dead soldiers and to move the dead enemy to the side so they can clear the road. A platoon doesn’t take long to place all of the convoy dead in body bags and lay them in the back of the truck brought along for this task. When they bag the dead the names of the soldiers are given to one of the investigators.

Captain Harrison checks his list of those in the convoy against the list of the dead. After double checking the lists he orders a private to count the bodies. Everything checks, except they’re short one. He turns to the other investigator to say, “George, ignoring the local drivers we expect to have ran away, we’ve accounted for all of our people except Corporal James Cowley. The soldiers and the distribution team are all here, except Cowley. Should we be concerned about him?”

Captain George Kable, Australian Army, turns to his US counterpart and replies, “I checked all of their files last night. None of our people are a risk, so we should only be concerned about what they’re doing to him, if they got him alive and took him with them.” He glances around the scene and adds, “It looks like they really paid the ferryman. But I do wonder about who blew up the trucks and why they did it. I can’t see the Taliban putting in this much effort unless they were after the trucks and supplies.”

“Yeah! I guess we’ll never know about the destruction of the trucks.”

Kable turns and signals to the troops cleaning up to get to work on clearing the road by loading the damaged vehicles onto flat-bed trucks. A wire cable is attached to the damaged Land Rover and a recovery truck winches it back down the road to load it for taking back to base. If it can’t be properly repaired it can be stripped for parts. When the truck is about three metres back down the road from its original position the hole James is in is now visible and one of the soldiers helping to guide the truck while being reeled in spots the hole and its contents.

The private calls out, “Hold it, we’ve got another one,” and everyone turns to stare at him while he walks over to where the Land Rover was and he looks down at what he’s sure is another body. The feverish James isn’t aware of his surroundings but the removal of his shade lets the hot sun beat down on his hands. His helmet is covering his face but the heat on his hands makes them uncomfortable and he twitches. The private sees the small movement of the fingers so he races closer while shouting, “Medic, he’s still alive!” Two medics and both investigating officers race to the spot to see what they have.

While the medics move James out of the hole Captain Kable is busy taking photos. Captain Harrison looks at the private who found James and orders, “Place someone on each corner of where that truck was.” He raises his camera as he gets ready to take photos while the private puts three others on the right spots and he stands on the fourth. Harrison takes many photos while he says, “Look at all of those casings and magazines, he must have been very busy while under there.”

Kable recovers James’ weapons from where they’re lying in the hole before going over to check his identity. He’s quick to learn who he is.

While still working on James one of the medics looks up and says, “We need Medivac, Sir, and we need it yesterday!“ Kable nods yes and gets on the radio to call for a medical evacuation helicopter to take James to the military hospital back at their main base in the city. The medics continue to check James over, make notes, and treat his symptoms.

James is stabilised by the time the helicopter arrives. He’s loaded up and taken off to the hospital for better treatment. Captain Harrison goes with him to get his report as soon as they can.

Hospital

Four days later James is waking up from the coma he went into on the way to hospital. The nurse watching him signals for the doctor and also notifies Captain Kable of the change in James’ status. A few minutes later she’s helping James sip ice water while the doctor is making some basic health checks. Twenty minutes later the doctor is happy his patient is alive, going to stay alive, and he hasn’t had any serious mental damage from his ordeal.

Once the doctor gives approval the two Captains sit by James’ bed and Kable asks, “Corporal Cowley, we need you to tell us what went on during your last patrol.”

After looking at the two officers and their recorders James nods yes, takes a sip of water, and gives them a full verbal report - starting just after he had breakfast that morning. It takes a while to tell it all, but they let him get it all out while they take notes, then they spend two hours asking questions to confirm all he said before and to see if they can dig out extra bits of information. They aren’t happy to learn Sergeant Parson set the charges as a routine activity, but they like the damage it did to the enemy troops and the way it denied them the supplies they wanted.

For three days James lies in the hospital while they treat him, and a long line of people visit to speak with him about the combat. At one point they have him write the formal After Action Report on the battle.

Eight days after the combat Harrison walks into his office and he sits down at his desk. Dropping a file on it he says, “Forensic confirms all but a few of the casings from under the Land Rover are from Cowley’s weapons, so it looks like it went down just like he said!” Kable simply nods yes in response because it matches his reading of the corporal.

Six weeks after the combat James is being readied for transport to Australia for rehabilitation of his injured leg. His rifle and equipment are signed in, so he doesn’t have to worry about any of it. Also, the pistol is sent back to the US Army for re-issue by them. James’ kit is brought in and he’s getting ready to put on a uniform for the first time since the fight. The nurse lays out his uniform and James is very surprised to see sergeant’s stripes on it. But it’s his uniform so he puts it on.

Going Home

James is dressed and ready to go, armed with a pair of crutches due to his left leg not being very cooperative yet. Captain Kable walks in and asks, “Ready to go, Sergeant Cowley?”

“Yes, Sir. I’m ready. But I’m not sure how my rank changed.”

“We know you did the best you could on the day, and better than many others could’ve done. But we can’t issue you a medal for it due to the political complications of recognising you using the unapproved explosives on the trucks, so this is the next best thing we can do to recognise what you did.”

“Thank you, Sir. I hope they can get me into the Sergeants’ Course as soon as I can get out of the hospital.”

Kable waves a private over to collect James’ gear while he takes a moment to gather his thought. “Sergeant Cowley, I don’t know how long you’ll be before the doctors clear you as rehabilitated and not in need of hospital or rehabilitative care, but the doctors here tell me once they get you well enough to discharge you from the hospital you’ll also be discharged from the service on medical grounds.” James’ head whips around and up to stare at Kable. “The muscle damage from both the bullets,” on seeing James’ eyes flare he adds, “Didn’t you know you got hit with two bullets in the left thigh?” A head shake is the reply. “Well, two bullet holes, damage to both major sets of thigh muscles, and the further system damage from the infection means you’ve lost too much of the power and control of the left leg. No matter how much you recover you’ll always have a limp from now on so you’re fitness is down and you won’t be passed as combat ready.”

James is very thoughtful while he this all in as he slowly nods in response and he thinks, Now what do I do for a living? Oh well, first is to get as fit as I can!

The plane back to Australia is loaded with troops going home, all of them with someone waiting for them, except Sergeant James Cowley.

For twelve months James is in hospitals and medical facilities in Sydney undergoing rehabilitative training to build up his muscles. Then back to his home unit in time to pack up all of his personal effects and to be discharged fourteen months after being shot.

James isn’t happy at being discharged from the Army after only a few years of service. He knows the Army pension will be enough to live on, but he does want to do something with his life and he now has to re-evaluate what to do for a living.