The bazaar was silent, its walls riddled with bullet holes and the ground awash with fresh blood. Children darted in and out, hurling rocks at the soldiers, while adults huddled in the shadows, terrified.
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But the Australian soldiers were there to help.
''There was this really eerie feeling,'' says Major Clare O'Neill, who was a captain in the reconstruction taskforce sent in to Tarin Kowt in 2006. ''But once we got there, our training kicked in.''
O'Neill's story is featured in the Australian War Memorial's new exhibition, Afghanistan: The Australian Story, which opened in Canberra on Wednesday. The exhibition weaves the personal reflections of soldiers, civilians and their loved ones with battle footage, artefacts and commissioned photographs and imagery.
O'Neill spent two tours in Afghanistan as a combat engineer, rebuilding bridges while under fire and forging deeper links with the Afghans. Her experience at Tarin Kowt hospital was a turning point.
When the Australians arrived, the hospital had no water or electricity, and the grounds were packed with refugees sleeping rough without food or support.
''The first time we were there, many of the staff had been targeted by the Taliban and were still scared,'' O'Neill says. The Australians needed to gain their trust.
First, the soldiers asked them to list their most urgent requirements. Surprisingly, the hospital itself was not the main priority.
''The head nurse wasn't worried about the reconstruction of the hospital, [she] wanted baby packs as an incentive for women to come to hospital to have their babies,'' says O'Neill, who was the only Australian to be given access to the maternity wing.
The soldiers responded and stocked the hospital with packs of essentials for new mothers.
''It was a real turning point because they felt we had listened to what they wanted. The nurse was empowered because the packs gave the local population a reason to risk the threats coming from the Taliban to go to the hospital.''
Songwriter Fred Smith is in Afghanistan with the Department of Foreign Affairs, working closely with tribal and provincial leaders to build trust and co-operation. He believes the exhibition is important to broaden the public's knowledge of Australia's role in the conflict.
''Ministerial statements, plus maybe 30 seconds of ramp-ceremony footage on the news every time a soldier gets killed, have been all that most people have had time to digest about our involvement in Afghanistan,'' Smith says.
He believes the people in Aghanistan are thankful for Australia's involvement. ''The Afghans I speak to like dealing with Australians and are grateful for what we've achieved in making the province more secure and a little more liveable,'' he says.
Private Andrew Fox-Lane, from 6RAR, spent his tour mentoring members of the Afghan army, living in close quarters with them, and going out on patrol with them.
''They would come to us one night and play on the PlayStation, then the next night, we would go to them. We had a positive experience, and, from the start of my tour to the end, we saw improved performance and capability in the Afghan soldiers,'' he says.
Fox-Lane was involved in numerous ''contacts'' with the Taliban, recording his experiences on a helmet camera. The footage includes the Battle of Derapet, after which Corporal Daniel Keighran was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions.
Sergeant Troy Simmonds was involved in an exchange with the Taliban that resulted in the awarding of a Victoria Cross to Corporal Mark Donaldson.
Simmonds spent 22 years in the Australian Army and, as a member of the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), did six tours of Afghanistan.
Simmonds was on patrol when a small American unit asked for assistance. It ended in an ambush, with the Americans and Australian SAS trying to navigate their Humvees through a narrow valley while taking fire from machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Already wounded in the lower leg when a bullet ricocheted, Simmonds was caught by the blast
from a rocket-propelled grenade. ''I picked myself up and I couldn't feel my arm. I didn't want to check it because I thought it wouldn't be there,'' he says.
As the feeling returned to his arm, and with bullets zipping past, he went to talk to the American commander inside a Humvee when he was suddenly winded.
''I fell to the ground. I was hit three times. My guts were hurting, my weapon was hit and smashed up into my face, and another one went through the back of my hat,'' he says.
Simmonds struggled to keep going because the shot that had winded him had gone through his hips.
''There was a lot of claret,'' he says.
Eventually he climbed onto the front of the vehicle and lay between the bullbar and the radiator. Bullets continued to crack against the bullbar. ''I had no helmet so I wrapped the tow chain around my head to protect it,'' he says.
Simmonds will be taking his wife to the exhibition.
''I hope what the public will see is just what a fantastic job the Australian soldiers have done on the ground. It has been a really huge effort,'' he says.
''I have been in some pretty hairy situations and I am able to talk about it. There has been a hell of a lot of combat the general public has not been privy to. And there have been a lot who have been wounded, physically and mentally; that's the hidden cost of this war.''
