In the ring they called me “Warlord”, my mother calls me Paul, you can call me Private Warren when you’re filing your report. As to how I came to be here, this is what I understand, in this hospital in Germany from the dust of Uruzgan.

I had just turned 28, just bought a new car when I joined the first Battalion of the big 1 RAR. We were next up for deployment into south Afghanistan to combat the insurgence in the dust of Uruzgan.

It took seven months of training just to get into the joint, there were pushups and procedures, there was death by power point. Then the RSO&I course in Ali Al Salaam, but nothing can prepare you for the dust of Uruzgan.

Me and Benny sat together flying into Kandahar.
Sucked back on our near beers in the Camp Baker Bar. Then up at 0530, and on the Herc and out in twenty flying minutes we were into Tarin Kowt.

We shook hands as the boys RIPped out from MRTF 1 and pretty soon were out patrolling in the Afghan summer sun. Walking through the green zone with a Steyr in my hand. Body armor chafing through the dust of Uruzgan.
-----------------------------
We started up near Chora working 14 hours a day
mentoring a Kandak from the Afghan 4th brigade.
Down through the Baluchi into eastern Dorafshan
working under open skies in the dust of Uruzgan
It’s a long, long way from Townsville, not like any place you’ll see – suddenly you’re walking through the 14th century. Women under burkhas, tribal warlords rule a land full of goats, and huts and jingle trucks is the dust of Uruzgan.

And the Education Minister can neither read nor write, and the Minister for Women runs a knock shop there at night. They’ve been fighting there for ever over water, food and land, murdering each other in the dust of Uruzgan.

There’s nothing about the province that’s remotely fair or just, but worse than the corruption is the endless fucking dust. Fine as talcum powder on the ground and in the air and it gets in to your eyes and it gets into your hair.

And it gets into your weapon and it gets into your boots. When the bureaucrats all show up there it gets into their suits. It gets in the machinery and foils every plan. There’s something quite symbolic about the dust of Uruzgan
Still the people can be gracious and they’re funny and they’re smart. And when the children look into your eyes they walk into your heart. They face each day with courage and each year without a plan beyond scratching for survival in the dust of Uruzgan.

But the Taliban are ruthless, they keep the people terrorized with roadside bombs and hangings and leaving letters in the night. And they have no useful vision for the children of this land, but to keep them praying on their knees in the dust of Uruzgan.
-----------------------------
It was a quiet Saturday morning when the ‘2 Shop’ made a call on a compound of interest to the east of COP Mashal. We had some information they were building IEDs so we cordoned and we searched it in accord with SOPs.

I was on the west flank picket, propped there with Ben, there to keep a watchful eye out while the other blokes went in. We looked for signs of danger from the TTPs we’d learned but the Nationals were moving back and forth without concern.

We’d been standing still for hours when I took a quick step back. Kicked a small AP mine and everything went black. I woke up on a gurney, flat out on my back. I had to ask them seven times just to get the facts.

I lived to tell the story through a simple twist of fate – the main charge lay ten feet away from the pressure plate. You see the mine was linked by det cord to a big charge laid by hand, hidden under Benny by the dust of Uruzgan.


I was a Queensland champ Thai Boxer now I look south of my knee, and all I see is bed sheets where my right foot used to be. Benny’s dead and buried underneath Australian sand, but his spirit’s out there wandering through the dust of Uruzgan.
-----------------------------
Now I’m going back to Townsville it’s the city of my birth. Some go back to Ballarat and some go back to Perth. I’ll be living with my mother who’s still trying to understand why we’re spending blood and treasure in the dust of Uruzgan.