A Brechin mum serving on the front line in Afghanistan has successfully applied for a job that will see her going back on another tour of duty.
Captain Lisa Irwin has recovered and is working again in the field, after being injured falling down the stairs of a watchtower while on lookout.
Cpt Irwinwho has three children aged 17, 15 and nineis a TA officer working in the Nad-e-Ali district of Helmand province. Part of her job is to communicate with Afghan women to help them get their lives in order.
She took the deployment as her civilian contract as a children’s nurse was not going to be renewed due to NHS budget cuts.
“I’ve now been back in Shawqat for a couple of days,” she said. “It’s good to be back to hot showers, flushing toilets and good food but I’ve been trapped in Battle Group HQ for the two days, typing up reports.
“However, there was some good news waiting for me on my return.
“My application for a full time reserve service post as a cultural adviser was successful, so later this year I’ll begin a three-year contract.
“It means completing a 15-month Pashto (a language spoken in Afghanistan) course before yet another tour but I am looking forward to it and am so relieved that I have a job.
“I’m also looking forward to becoming semi-fluent in Pashto and coming out here again and next time being able to properly converse with the Afghans I meet.
“In the meantime, I shall just get on with the job in hand at Forward Operating Base Shawqat. Still, I anticipate not being here for too long as I’m hoping to be used as a female searcher on another, much bigger Op in the near future.”
Cpt Irwin has just gone back to the village she visited at the start of the tour as officer commanding (OC) the company covering the area and felt the village would be ready to engage with the female engagement team (FET).
“I went to a shura to promote FET to key elders, but the plan backfired slightly as none turned up,” she said. “Afghans have a tendency to come to meetings when they feel like it and also to work to ‘Afghan time’ which for UK military personnel, who always work to the “five minutes before” rule, can be incredibly frustrating.
“I was beginning to feel pessimistic about female engagement in this village as this was my third attempt at engagement with no positive result, but the Afghan National Police (ANP) officers at the police station where the shura was meant to be held were more than happy to sit and talk to me and the OC, resulting in us being there for three hours.
“The police officers were fascinated by my attempts to talk to them in their own language, and fascinated by my being female. At the end of the meeting all the police men were keen to have their photo taken with mequite disconcerting!
“I now have some idea of how it must be to be a minor celebrity.”