Crychan's Challenge

So we have returned, biten and beaten, and covered in shit from Brecon, and Crychan's Challenge. Crychan's is the summatative exercise of the Junior term, and really marks the end of the green bit of the term, leading into next weeks flurry of packing and Drill.  It involved 5 days and nights in Brecon, which really is the; i'd like to say heart, but its far to grim for such a romantic notion; of the Infantry and is infamous for its use by the boys with blacked out faces.  We spent the 5 days being thrashed through attack after attack, attacking through forests, out of swamps, down valleys, up valleys, at night, at dawn and during the day; all involving lots of sweating, frequent rain and sodden boots.  It was true infantry grizzle, and to be fair at times was bloody good fun. 

However despite the war film bravado of charging positions and jumping in and out of ditches like spider man, the truth is very different.  Weighed down with radios and ammunition, and suffering from an average of about 1.5 fitful hours of sleep per night, simply standing up is a major effort every time, let alone commando rolling in and out of a bushes.  The predictable joys of wet, blistered feet and 'prickly heat' as your body armour and smock provide a disgusting insulator to our sweating bodies, and everything, everything covered in a liberal coating of sheep crap as Wales's finest seem to be remarkably prolific shitters.  We are bitten day and night by the midges and every of the many scratches and cuts one picks up is predictably infected we are a pretty sorry state.

However this time the exercise at least has a purpose, and as we fight running battles with the Malyban, and ensure that the hypothetical aid convoys can continue to use Route Dog, we are now learning.  We're also told we're not too awful, which is pretty good!  Despite the odd instant of mistakenly attacking one position from all four angles and as such ensuring that we comprehensively kill the enemy but also each other, and various other bumbling antics as tiredness well and truly kicks in, i get the sense we are getting better.  There's also very welcome added realism which makes the hardships of Exercise slightly easier to bear.  The final Company scale dawn attack starts with a Great War esq countdown, hiding behind a ridge in the gloom waiting for 0500, as simulated mortar fire reigns down on the enemy position and then amongst a sea of illumination flares, muzzle flash and rain we charge over the top, its easy to get carried away.  Added realism though also involves casualties, one of which i later become as i'm 'shot' in the thigh and evacuated out of the battle on a stretcher.  It's with an odd pride, but also huge guilt that you watch your mates applying the tourniquet and writing my casualty report then heaving my sorry arse kilometre after kilmoter on the stretcher as we are bombarded with flash bangs and smoke; just to remind us that the Taliban don't give a crap if your helping a casualty they'll still shoot you in the back.

Crychan's on the whole was grim, it was wet and painful and i'm sure for 90% of the time all of us hated it.  However it served a purpose, and at least now tucked up in camp and appreciating the fact hugely that i'm not sitting in a cowpat, on a hill in the rain about to run for twenty minutes with an aching body, i can see that. If we're all brutally honest i think it also fulfilled at least slightly that little boy desire to properly soldier, to throw grenades, storm trenches and scream down the radio that you're running out of ammunition and are going to have to start throwing your spare socks at the enemy if the runner doesn't reach you soon.  It's that perhaps misguided feeling that other people don't know what this feels like, that after 112 hours of fighting and 8 of sleep you can still keep going and that somehow makes you different that i think spurs us all on.  There's a huge way to go yet but i think we're getting better, and we can now at the very least say we've done Brecon, and yes it rained, and yes it was miserable but we all survived, so screw you Wales! Here are some photos of me looking miserable alone, miserable in small groups and miserable with the rest of my Platoon, enjoy!