Mirwais is a pretty small base - with only around 100 people (depending how many patrol units they have in at a time - there is always one but sometimes two).
Everyone sleeps in tents (instead of the armoured containers we sleep in here in TK) and it has a bit of a temporary feel.
The showers and washing units are portable - a sort of ready-to-use trailer unit that they just tow into place. The showers are really clever - basically plastic cubicles with a spout at the top and flaps in the wall leading to a compartment where you can keep your clothes dry while you shower (see pic below).
The eating area is simple - a big room with a “kitchen” area, and a recreation area with a TV (the guys were watching videos of a bad Dutch sitcom) and a bunch of games (it’s funny to see army guys playing Stratego!). I put the word “kitchen” in italics because it has a microwave and a kettle - but no sink or stove. Basically the guys there eat MREs - Meals Ready to Eat - pre-packaged food designed to be eaten on the road - everything comes in bags and there’s a chemical pouch that, when you add a little water, heats up to head your food! It’s not exactly gourmet… but it’s better than nothing!
Though there are a few containers used for storage or offices, as I mentioned, the guys on Mirwais all sleep in tents. The tents are pretty clever - they’re inflatable and have electricity (outlets on a cord plugged into a unit outside the tent - so you have to go outside to turn off the lights!) and heating (which had just been sent back to TK for the summer season) and airconditioning. There are strings on the inside to attach an inner tent for insulation. We slept in the guest tent (2 girls and a boy - so much for sex segregated sleeping quarters in the army)… and I think they were a little premature sending those heating units back! It was downright chilly. But there was a roof and a mattress and that’s better than nothing!
There’s not much to do on Mirwais other than tan, play board games, watch TV reruns, or work out - and the fitness area is serious with equipment! You can see that this is a priority for these guys. Maybe it’s because they’re just fit guys. Or maybe it’s because there’s no internet. Let me say that again: no internet. Yikes. And the guys can only use the phone to call home for 15 minutes a week. In that way it’s actually a lot more like the army used to be, when soldiers could go for weeks or months without contact from home. Of course, on Mirwais, most soldiers don’t stay more than 2 weeks at a time, rotating back to TK for a week or so in between. So it’s not so bad. But still… no internet…!
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- Patrol Base Mirwais - one of the watch towers
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- Boots left in the sun after a patrol
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- Soldiers playing Stratego in their free time
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- Our tent on Mirwais
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- The inside roof of the tents at Mirwais. You can see the strings where they can tie the inner insulation tent.
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- The shower unit with the outdoor sinks in front.
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- A close-up of one of the showers in the portable shower unit on Mirwais
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- Soldiers on the watch tower
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on Apr 6th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Mirwais and the wider Chora area are interesting places. I was there last year during the first ever district elections to be held in Afghanistan - the winner, Rozi Khan, was later killed by Australian special forces near Tarin Kowt in a typical case of mistaken identity. Rozi Khan’s militia fought alongside the Dutch during the ‘Battle of Chora’ in June of 2007 - the district had been overrun by about a thousand Taliban and foreign (Uzbeck, Chechen) fighters who had approached the building known as the ‘White Compound’ (near what’s now Patrol Base Mirwais) up to a few hundred yards. The Dutch rallied their entire 500-men strong Battle Group; the Australian and Dutch special forces attacked the rear of the Taliban in the Baluchi and Chora valley, there was massive air support and the howitzer based at Camp Holland hurled grenades at targets 40 kms away. In Dutch military history, the Battle of Chora is being described as the largest the Dutch fought since the Korean war - even though the actual counterattack lasted only three days. It also marked the last time the Taliban launched a conventional large attack - guess they learned the hard way that massing their own forces is not a good idea.
Even last year, being at this place it was hard to imagine there had been such fierce fighting there; I guess this will be even more so now. To get an idea of how things were back then, have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqJde4YuVjU and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9cFDd3m938&feature=related