British troops in Helmand, southern Afghanistan, paid a high price, as the Taliban are struggling with more and more deadly explosive devices. Caroline Wyatt, just back from Helmand, says it is a critical time for the coalition forces.
What would a simple seven-hour flight to Kandahar has no more.
Two days in fact, after technical problems with our aging RAF Tristar keep us on the runway at Brīze Norton for several hours.
The Trooper flight was with soldiers, sailors and pilots on the road to Helmand.
There were mutterings of discontent, like a new bug redirected us to another in the Middle East, but they were muted.
For the British armed forces, as it seems, this was not unusual.
The air-bridge and of Helmand province is under pressure, such as RAF technician overtime transportation of soldiers and women and from a battlefield thousands of miles away.
The delay gave me time to look into the next cabin. Where the first class are as a rule, was an uncomfortable reminder of the reality stipulate that for some of the young men and women, we were traveling with.
Several rows of seats were made by the stretcher beds and medical equipment, ready to evacuate the most seriously injured.
It was a thought that lingered for the rest of the journey for which they maybe.
If the Taliban was toppled from power in 2001, few could imagine that they were still back on eight years.
Not that they have learned so much of the insurgency in Iraq, for example, to build and create more and more deadly roadside bombs.
Election concern
I was relieved when we have a helicopter, Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, to the streets.
"
The mood is squaddie humor, and the letters and packages, not only from their families, but from residents in the United Kingdom
"
Our Chinook to the well-known choking mixture of sand and gravel flying into the air, as we are in the 45C heat.
Several Afghan journalists were waiting there to speak Helmand governor Gulab Mangal, the visit of the British headquarters.
As we saw, Aliyas Daee, a journalist from Helmand, told me quietly that he was worried about the presidential election, and whether the vote could be truly free and fair.
"Life is very hard here," he said. "We need security, but people are still afraid. The people want to vote in this election, but I know many who do not, because they do not feel safe enough."
He tells me, however, that the Taliban are not as strong as they once were.
"You fight like musketeers," he says - and I fend off a bizarre mental image of a bearded D'Artagnan in flowing robes Pashtuns before Aliyas goes to explain. "The Taliban come from nowhere, fire their weapons, and they run and hide."
What do people believe in Helmand the British and American forces here Nazir, a young translator from Kabul, a smile, when I ask.
"The people are still hope, because they have given us everything. In Helmand, many people are unemployed and illiterate.
These are the things we need help with Ausländerbehörde. We had a lot of war for 30 years, so we always hope for something new - the peace. And with more troops, we hope for more peace. "
But Aliyas and Nazir are not sure how long the optimism is, unless there is more visible progress.
Difficult conditions
We fly to Forward Operating Base overlooking the town Sangin, a former Taliban stronghold, where the men of the Second Battalion of the Rifles are in what looks like a crumbling Afghan fortress.
The City, I see from the search for camouflaged seems little changed since the first or second-Afghanistan war.
"Oh yes, the Afghans tell us that many," says an officer cheerfully. "They tell us," my father fought your "- it is as if it happened only yesterday, though, what they mean is our great-grandfathers and their fathers."
Life for the soldiers is of fundamental importance in the extreme, laundry hangs to dry on lines strung between the sandbags. Socks dangling incongruously beside a machine gun.
The close living quarters are still more sandbags filled in the empty window frames, which leaves little to the stifling heat.
Patrolling in these temperatures is difficult, in heavy industry body armor and the 80 pounds (36kg) of equipment or more.
"It was no easy trip," says Sergeant David Lloyd. "But we did not expect that it to be."
Several of his train were injured and flew back to the UK after a roadside bomb hit their vehicle. Several others from their unit have died.
Almost everyone I meet has seen friends killed or wounded in this campaign.
"But we can not afford to return for long," said Sergeant Lloyd. "We can talk about it - and then we get to work."
He tells me, however, that the morale is squaddie humor, and the letters and packages, not only from their families, but from residents in the United Kingdom - The attack on "A soldier in Helmand."
This week two other soldiers lost their lives in the bloody sands of Helmand - including a man called his comrades Inspirational leader, the majority of the senior officer to die on operations since the Falklands war.
Lieutenant Rupert Thorneloe and 18-year-old Trooper Joshua Hammond were killed by a bomb the street and I wondered when I heard of the death, how much more must die, try to bring peace in this country far away.
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