A SOLDIER'S DIARY: Out of contact for weeks, Wicklowman Lieut Paddy Bury, sends this latest dispatch from Afghanistan.
WE MOVE into the Green Zone and take over a compound in an area riddled with Taliban. They use this area constantly to launch attacks on the Afghan National Army (ANA) checkpoints on the 611 highway, and we seek to stop them. We have chosen well. The compound we occupy is an improvised explosive device (IED) facilitation point, littered with different pieces of projectiles. At the time we don't realise it, but this is an omen of things to come.
That afternoon, the Taliban launch a brief attack and are repelled by two platoons' worth of firepower.
The locals are glad we're here and come to let us know. But in each Shura [council or consultative meeting] held to listen to the locals, there are prying Taliban eyes.
A few days later, I am with a section, clearing a track of IEDs so that our compound - Patrol Base Armagh, as we have named it - can be resupplied. With metal detectors out in front and bayonets drawn to check suspect readings, progress is painfully slow. We cover 100m (328ft) at a snail's pace. As we reach a small bridge, a Ranger behind the lead men inquisitively opens an electrical box at head height on a telegraph pole.
"Boss, I think we've got something."
We pull back and I go forward to confirm. He's damn right. As I peer at the box cautiously, I see inside a blue plastic bag which reveals a taped-up detonation device and some kind of metal object. That's enough for me. Meanwhile, the Rangers have searched around the device for detonation wires. As they cross a roof, they hear someone scamper off into the distance. Probably the firer.
We've been lucky.
The next day another IED is found right outside our base.
Again we're lucky.
On the third day, however, our luck runs out.
As a Land Rover's rear tyre rolls over some earth, it pushes down on a wooden bar toward 20kg (45lbs) of packed homemade explosives. The metal on the underside of the bar touches the metal of the battery charge. A spark completes the circuit.
BOOM! The three-tonne vehicle, bristling with weapons and crew, is hurled by an invisible wave up, into and through a three-foot-thick wall, rolling and spinning as it goes. Its occupants, including a colleague, Ranger Delaney from Dublin, are blown 10ft clear of the vehicle and land in an orchard.
Ears ring, silence, then there's shouting: "Contact! IED. Casualties. Wait out!"
The details of the casualties start to trickle into the operations room in Patrol Base Armagh. Some are serious, some are astonishingly lightly injured. A helicopter is scrambled as a Quick Reaction Force bolts down the 611 to extract the casualties back to the landing site. A multiple casualty scenario is a nightmare scenario, but it's one we are trained for.
The casualties are extracted back to Bastion and our thoughts follow them as we return to our compound. We knew this was coming.
The next day another platoon is ferrying supplies from a vehicle to the base when their commander, Lieut Franks from Kildare, spots something strange. He concurs with Sgt Maj O'Connor, another Dubliner, and both decide it's something dubious.
A report is sent up and quickly a US Marine Corps ordnance disposal team is sent to blow the IED. They do, and they have been down to Armagh so often these past few days that we now know them by first name.
"Y'all look after yourselves down here," they say before leaving.
By now, the Rangers are calling the base after the IED detection drill we use. Morale suffers. Hard questions are asked. I learn a lot about leadership.
I tell the Rangers how much they are achieving by being in Armagh. The ANA are overjoyed that they haven't been attacked since we've been here. The locals have been up to the District Centre saying how good it is we are here.
Already a large irrigation project has been planned. A new vein of intelligence has been opened.
The Rangers, once things are explained to them, quickly come round.
With the IEDs, we are caught in the middle of a technological measure and counter-measure battle where one lapse of concentration can be fatal.
Despite all the technology, our eyeballs remain our best defence.
• Lieut Paddy Bury is serving with the British army's Royal Irish Regiment.