We were told that Ross Kemp was coming to do a bit of filming for his programme: 'Ross Kemp in Afghanistan'.
At the time I was nervous but unsurprisingly, Commander Asrat (the commander of the afghan company) and his soldiers were not. They obviously weren't feeling the pressure of not wanting to be the guy that gets Grant Mitchell killed! Cameras started to roll and they all turned up looking more like Rambo than Afghan soldiers: machine guns, bandannas, body armour the lot.
He (Ross) arrived and I took him to meet the lads and the first question he asked was: 'where are the rest of em?'. There were only 12 of us and 120 Afghan National Army [ANA]. I think he was a bit taken back by the lack of British troops but hats off to the fella, he came out on patrol with us anyway. The first patrol was pretty uneventful, for a change, and so I asked him to stay as he seemed to be a good luck charm but he told me to f**k right off haha. He did come back though and true to form, he most certainly got the footage he was looking for.
Not sure if it was all his doing but Ross highlighted issues through the media after visiting, and very quickly things such as rations and equipment improved for the life of a soldier deployed on operation.
Couldn't let him leave without a pic and couldn't have a pic with a celeb without also representing our wee country, Northern Ireland.
Satellite Station North, Musa Qala, 2008.
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