Things that go crump in the the night
by Charlie Tims
I woke up at 2.30am last night and caught this on the World Service. It's an Assignment dispatch from Alistair Leithead on the front line in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. It recounts his chilling front-line experiences of 9 days fighting with the Royal Marines. At points you can literally hear the bullets whizzing past the microphone. The soldiers, the conditions they're in and the reasons they give for fighting are arrestingly real, but above all this is a testament to heroic journalism. Deserves to be heard by more than a few insomniacs.