“I managed to avoid peacekeeping duties in the former
Yugoslavia. From what I have heard from people who served
there, it sounded like a truly depressing and demoralising
situation. Also, it is very common for the fighting man to have
their hands tied by the same corrupt politicians who unleash us
to do their dirty work and then change the rules mid-game.”
Steiner has encountered a number of life-threatening
situations such as a suicide bomber, who he took out with his
SAW before his bullet-pummelled human target exploded with
no effect next to an armoured vehicle. He states that he has
been in many of these situations, so will concentrate on the
one that had the deepest and most profound effect on him.
He had been working in Iraq for over a year and was a team
leader of a PSD (Protection Security Detail) team near Samarra.
As was often the case, the missions that he was convinced were
suicidal were not, whereas the routine tasks proved to “bite you
in the arse”.
He had been busy all week and preoccupied with several
IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device) and small-arms fire in a
five-day period. “On the Friday, we had a day off and decided
that we would go to a local US Army base for some “R & R”.
I remember sitting in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle
feeling content and thinking that the 10-kilometre trip back
was a foregone conclusion.” Ordering another beer, Steiner
reflects on the past as if it happened yesterday. “I wasn’t
that relaxed that I wasn’t doing my job but enough that what
happened next surprised me. I felt and heard the whoosh of an
RPG round as it impacted on the road where the right-hand tyre
made contact with the tarmac. Had the round hit my vehicle,
16
I would not be here talking to you now. The blast lifted the
rear of the vehicle into the air and this, combined with the
six-ton vehicle and the high speed that we were travelling at,
was enough to flip us. I could feel the vehicle about to go in
what felt like a slow motion moment. The horizon through the
windscreen changed and the road outside my side window got
closer and closer and then in a flash, the slow motion became
fast forwards as the SUV crashed into the ground and rolled
several times.” Steiner states that he felt as if he was in an
out of control washing machine – easy meat for the enemy.
The screeching of metal and sand that was kicked up inside
the SUV’s cabin overwhelmed his senses, leaving him numb,
dazed and shocked. Gradually, his senses returned. “I was still
in my seat and I looked around the vehicle – it was empty.
The windscreen had shattered and I crawled through the gap,
falling onto the road. The SUV had come to a halt on its side
and I could hear small-arms fire and the engine of the second
vehicle as it stopped next to me. I wanted to drift off and sleep
but I knew we had been ambushed and the RPG was just the
start of it. I had to get back in the game and I forced myself up.
I couldn’t feel it yet but I had two cracked ribs.”
Steiner recovered his SAW and successfully engaged and
destroyed the enemy that had bumped him and the unit.
The driver was found off the road about ten metres in front
of the stricken SUV where he had been hurtled through the
windscreen when the RPG exploded. “He was alive but it was
obvious to me that he wasn’t going to survive,” Steiner reflects.
“We called in a medevac and loaded him onto a chopper. We
found out later that he died on his way to the nearest camp.
While this is by no means the worst thing that I have seen, it
affected me the most.”
Looking back, he says that his service in Northern Ireland
was great, a chance to do what he was trained for; in a six-month
tour, his battalion lost one man. In the 1990s, his group enjoyed
no casualties. However, Afghanistan was the most dangerous
country that he has ever served. “I was lucky enough, if you can
use that term, to have been part of the invasion of Afghanistan
and for me that was epic. It was dangerous but what came
later in my opinion was far worse. The Afghans have done to
us what they do best. They knew they could not defeat us, so
they waited. What followed our invasion was a constant war of
attrition. To put it into context, during the thirty-eight years of
the Troubles in Northern Ireland, over 700 soldiers died. Since
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