Liz Hannan
April 23, 2012Danial Payne, wounded in a deadly attack by an Afghan officer in October, is desperate to return to combat duty, writes Liz Hannan.
PRIVATE DANIAL PAYNE was chatting with fellow Diggers after morning parade at a forward operating base in Sorkh Bed on October 29 last year when the shooting began.
The young Australian Army medic remembers the first shots but not the volley that followed as an Afghan National Army officer ''went rogue'', turning his automatic weapon on about a dozen members of Mentoring Taskforce 3. Of all the perils Australians faced in Afghanistan, this was especially shocking - a murderous attack by an ally in the relative safety of a secure base.
''I passed out and woke up and thought 'Why am I on the ground and why does my leg hurt?','' Private Payne says. ''People were screaming and crying. I pulled my leg out [from under me] and there was a big hole and I thought 'Oh, I got shot'.''
''I thought, 'The ones that are screaming, I'll stay away from them'. That's our training - they're OK. It's the people who are not conscious or screaming that you have to go for.''
Nothing could be done for Captain Bryce Duffy, 26, Corporal Ashley Birt, 22, or an Afghan interpreter. But Lance-Corporal Luke Gavin, 27, was alive. Notwithstanding the severity of his own wound, Private Payne worked to save him, to no avail.
As the most senior medic on the base that day, Private Payne helped the first aiders assess the wounded, ''to make sure we weren't leaving behind someone that was still alive, to make sure they still had a position on the helicopter''. He then boarded a helicopter to a multinational medical facility at Tarin Kowt - the first stop on the long journey home for most Diggers wounded in combat in Afghanistan.
After several hours, he was flown to a medical facility at Kandahar overnight, then the Bagram air base for several lots of surgery, then on to Landstuhl in Germany for at least half a dozen minor operations to wash out the wound and protect it against infection.
Six months after the carnage of that October day, the Herald meets Private Payne in the Enoggera Health Centre at the Gallipoli Barracks in Brisbane, where he works five days a week in the therapy pool and gymnasium to strengthen his knee and calf, which is a riot of tattoo ink and thick, dark scars.
He looks younger than his 23 years. Words and ideas tumble forth at pace. ''I loved every day of [Afghanistan], '' he says, ''even right up to where I got shot.''
The crutches are gone. A mild limp remains, but today it may be because he has just done his first two kilometre walk, unaided. He is doing amazingly well, says physiotherapist Roberta Field. And so it seems. But mentally?
''I am not anything special, trying to overcome this injury … So far I haven't had any PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I just get frustrated like anyone else would,'' he says.
He used to wonder why three mates died and he and others were spared ''but then I got over it. You have to.'' Instead he is doing everything he can to earn a second tour of duty. That ambition was all but extinguished last week when the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced Australia would withdraw from Afghanistan next year - almost a year earlier than planned.
''Hopefully I will get back to a full recovery, get back to my old job. Whether or not that happens, I want to be the best I can be,'' Private Payne says. ''Hopefully I will be back in Afghanistan but that may not be possible because of the timing. It might all be over for us.
''Before I [went to Afghanistan] I didn't have that same camaraderie or patriotism for the Australian Army but now I love it so much.''
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