Gurkhas celebrate with watermelon

Corporal Mike Hubbard – video operator CCT H17

I am Corporal Mike Hubbard and I’m an Army reservist, Rifles cap badge and member of the Media Operations Group (Volunteers) (MOG(V)). As an Ex-infantier-turned-photographer I’m currently deployed on a winter tour of Afghanistan on Op Herrick 17, as the video operator for the Army Combat Camera Team (CCT), which is a three-man team consisting of a photographer, video operator and team commander. This job is a million miles from my civilian career working for BT Global Services as an Account Manager

‘Building bridges in Afghanistan’

Well we’ve been here six weeks now. And we’ve been busy bees.. In the six weeks we’ve been here we’ve been back and forth from Lashkar Gah and as a team we’ve been out to Patrol Base 2, PB4, PB5, Shawqat, PB Clifton and Main Operating Base Price to name a few.

The great thing about being on the Combat Camera Team and in the job as an Army Photographer as my Regular counterparts are, is you get to see what every unit in the Army does, normally if you’re an Infantry soldier, a medic, an engineer or any other unit in the Army you only really see what your unit does as that’s your job, you’ll see the periphery of other units but in our roll we embed with a unit and really see what goes on.

We went out to PB Clifton to see 21 Engineers as they were building a non-equipment bridge, this kind of bridge build is great for Afghanistan as the bridge itself is made from local materials and built in a way that the locals can repair and maintain the bridge easily long after ISAF forces have left Afghanistan.

Here’s a collection of images taken by Cpl Jamie Peters, Jamie is the photographer in our three-man team.

Building bridges in Afghanistan

Building bridges in Afghanistan

Building bridges in Afghanistan

Building bridges in Afghanistan

Gurkha celebrations

Straight after the PB Clifton job we were bounced out to PB2, as the Gurkha’s from 1^st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles were about to start celebrating Dashain and sacrifice some watermelons. The Dashain Festival, as celebrations in Nepal go is the equivalent of our Christmas, so it’s a big deal and a special time for family and friends. As we will see in a couple of months time with random Santa outfits, decorated patrol bases, millions of sprouts and tonnes of Turkey. It’s important to the troops to make this time as normal and happy as possible. And the Gurkhas didn’t let us down, they really did have a fantastic couple of days. Back home in Nepal and the UK, Dashain is celebrated for 14 days. But for obvious reasons they have to shrink it down here in Helmand and they settled for four days. We were only there for one day but that was the day involving Curry and entertainment so we did well. We also foot patrolled out to one of the smaller check points to visit the guys out there to see how their celebrations were going too.

Here’s a video I produced of the day, so you can get a feel for what it was all about.

Gurkhas Celebrate Dashain Hindu Festival in Helmand.

Gurkhas Celebrate Dashain Hindu Festival in Helmand.

Gurkhas Celebrate Dashain Hindu Festival in Helmand.

Gurkhas Celebrate Dashain Hindu Festival in Helmand.

Making ISO containers exciting

Here’s a photo of me taken by the boss Captain Booth and as you can see six weeks into a tour working with two photographers and he’s still chopping my feet off!

Me on patrol

Back in Bastion, we still have to carry out jobs that are equally as exciting like filming and photographing ISO containers. That’s a challenge in itself, make ISO containers exciting!

Me on top of the ISO containers

I think I’ve gone on enough now but I’ll be sure to update you again soon.

Don’t forget if you’re on Twitter you can follow our progress on a more regular basis via our Twitter feed @CombatCameraH17