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One to Watch - Royal Marines: Mission Afghanistan

“It’s as dangerous here as anywhere I have been ...it’s like going out in a car with a driver, a front seat passenger and three in the back knowing that one is going to be killed, two are going to lose their legs and two are going to be slightly injured but you don’t know who or in what order. It is not a matter of ‘if’ just ‘when’.”

One to Watch...Royal Marines: Mission Afghanistan - Deadly Underfoot (1/6) 30th January 2012, 2100, Channel 5.

Lima Company of the Royal Marines (42 Commando) is posted to Checkpoint Toki in Nad-e Ali in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. This small British outpost, nicknamed ‘Rorke’s Drift’, is right in the middle of one of the most heavily contested areas of Afghanistan– one of the most dangerous square miles in the world.

Riddled with IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and crawling with Taliban insurgents, L Company face a tough challenge. Especially as their job is to attract the enemy and draw them into battle. In short, the marines are the bait to provoke the insurgents to attack.

This is all for one purpose: to keep the enemy away from a small village to the north – Loymanda – recently cleared of insurgents by L Company itself. Most of the village population fled years ago and now the place lays deserted and in ruins. The British plan is to rebuild the village and return it to its former prosperity but first this requires the Royal Engineers to come in and rid the old bazaar of hundreds of IEDs and also for local contractors to start cleaning the place up. To do that it is essential to keep the Taliban at bay who would do all they can to disrupt the progress. That is why L Company are posted to Toki – to act as a magnet for trouble.

“It’s as dangerous here as anywhere I have been”, confides Cpl Paul Vice, a veteran of four Afghan tours. “It’s like going out in a car with a driver, a front seat passenger and three in the back knowing that one is going to be killed, two are going to lose their legs and two are going to be slightly injured but you don’t know who or in what order. It is not a matter of ‘if’ just ‘when’.”

In ‘Deadly Underfooot’ director/cameraman Chris Terrill joins the men of L Company as they hunt down a group of Taliban spies or ‘dickers’ who have been watching and reporting on the marines’ movements as well as laying IEDs. They have to be hunted down, captured or killed as soon as possible.

Producer/director
Chris Terrill
Executive producer
Christine Hall
An Uppercut Films production

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