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| Mid Deturfing |
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| Tuesday morning the trench takes shape |
Well its done, which is wonderful! First Encounter is another one of those hurdle moments in the course and its over, it was also number 3 of the 'big six' exercises so I'm half way! I'd love to be reporting that its was great fun, and really just like being a kid, building sand castles with some mates. But it wasn't, it was at times as they would say here 'turbo shit'. In short the first 3 days were truly grim, and particularly the night times were just about as low as i can ever remember being. Fortunately the last 2 days picked up a little for reasons i will henceforth explain. On the up side the static nature of the Exercise and some weirdly cooperative Directing Staff meant much photo and film taking, so this will be a media intensive post, i hope that goes down well.
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| Snatching some sleep |
So what happened, well we deployed early, and just to ensure we arrived at where we were to start digging sweaty and miserable we had a 5km or so 'insertion TAB (tactical advance to battle)' while carrying all our kit, which we believe averaged in at about 50kg. Once our steamy, weary selves finally made it to the big field that was to be home we started digging at about midday on Monday. Save for the odd gruelling night time recce patrol, and a period of about half an hour at first and last light where we all stood guard we then dug, non stop until late on Wednesday night.
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| Wed morning and the metal's in. |
Day in day out no let up, just cadets, shovels and lots and lots of earth. I, and i think its fair to say we, went to some pretty dark places as we stubbled and grovelled through the night time hours, everything aching and our minds in absolute turmoil as to why exactly you are here doing this. We all wanted to give up with literally every inch of our being, but it says huge amounts about our sense of loyalty, not to our Country, the Queen nor even the Army but to our muckers in the Platoon and Company who were standing bleary eyed next to you, sometimes literally collapsing into heaps only to stand up again and keep passing turf for the next 40 hours. This time, truth be told there was little mindless banter and silly chit chat, we all went introspective and had to fight the battle in our minds, but we were not fighting it alone, and to a man we got through it. Yes we were late finishing our trenches but we did finish the bastards, and when we finally collapsed into their narrow confines for an hour or so snatched sleep on Wednesday night it was not with resentment, but neither was it pride.
I saw friends literally swaying and staring into the distance, completely removed from any sort of immediacy, i saw people fall out of consciousness within 30 seconds of sitting down, and experienced my own mind descending into lunacy as i saw baby dinosaurs playing in the fields and bushes morphing into BMW's as i scanned the bright sunlit grass for the enemy.What i did not see though, certainly not in abundance was giving up, arguments and the bickering predicted. There were of course fatigue induced grumbles occasionally but the remarkable propensity here to crack a smile just when you know your friend needs one, or a conciliatory pat on the back as you drop what must be the five hundreth sod of turf youve uprooted that night in a undignified heap is something i've never been pushed to experience outside the ridiculous confines of the Army.
Fortunately things turned slightly for the better once the defences were made, there were still barbed wire fences to erect, minefields to lay, night attacks to be conducted and gurkhas with gas to be repelled, but there was now brief rest bite between the periods of activity. The beautiful weather was both a blessing and a curse, stunning sunset followed beautiful dusk, and our trenches remained dry throughout. But with temperatures in the high 20s we sweated and coughed through our respirators and charcoal lined suits, and the dust infected everything.
Things ended on a crescendo of gaseous violence as we were attacked by and then counter attacked against a Gurkha dawn attack. Struggling but eventually succeeding to repel an enemy advance under the weight of our CBRN suits. Then it was back to the grind stone as our trenches had to be filled in and then re turfed, this time though a digger helped, but it was still a 6 hour slog to finish with.
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| Defending against the Gurkha attack. |
On Crychans we saw the point, we learnt to soldier, on First Encounter truth be told i did not. I learned to 'operate under conditions of stress and fatigue' but i know what it is to be knackered, and angry, Long Reach and Crychans have taught me that. Did we learn anything about defence and how to organise one against the enemy? No, i learnt i flipping hate digging and i never want to de turf anything ever again. I know we're not meant to understand at the moment, and some time in my career it will become crystal clear what that was all about, but for now i'm just glad its over. We smiled for the photos and laughed when we could, but this was very much a sense of cheerfulness in the face of adversity, which i suppose is a skill enough in itself. Its probably brought us closer though, and knowing that i can share i smelly dusty hole in Norfolk for 5 days with the likes of Gibo, Over and Vausey and never for one moment not want them about is a pretty good feeling. They wanted us to descend to hating each other, but we didn't, we dug a big fucking hole for three days, slept in it for less than 4 hours then filled it in again, and laughed at the futility of it all.
Day in day out no let up, just cadets, shovels and lots and lots of earth. I, and i think its fair to say we, went to some pretty dark places as we stubbled and grovelled through the night time hours, everything aching and our minds in absolute turmoil as to why exactly you are here doing this. We all wanted to give up with literally every inch of our being, but it says huge amounts about our sense of loyalty, not to our Country, the Queen nor even the Army but to our muckers in the Platoon and Company who were standing bleary eyed next to you, sometimes literally collapsing into heaps only to stand up again and keep passing turf for the next 40 hours. This time, truth be told there was little mindless banter and silly chit chat, we all went introspective and had to fight the battle in our minds, but we were not fighting it alone, and to a man we got through it. Yes we were late finishing our trenches but we did finish the bastards, and when we finally collapsed into their narrow confines for an hour or so snatched sleep on Wednesday night it was not with resentment, but neither was it pride. 
Fortunately things turned slightly for the better once the defences were made, there were still barbed wire fences to erect, minefields to lay, night attacks to be conducted and gurkhas with gas to be repelled, but there was now brief rest bite between the periods of activity. The beautiful weather was both a blessing and a curse, stunning sunset followed beautiful dusk, and our trenches remained dry throughout. But with temperatures in the high 20s we sweated and coughed through our respirators and charcoal lined suits, and the dust infected everything.
Things ended on a crescendo of gaseous violence as we were attacked by and then counter attacked against a Gurkha dawn attack. Struggling but eventually succeeding to repel an enemy advance under the weight of our CBRN suits. Then it was back to the grind stone as our trenches had to be filled in and then re turfed, this time though a digger helped, but it was still a 6 hour slog to finish with.
On Crychans we saw the point, we learnt to soldier, on First Encounter truth be told i did not. I learned to 'operate under conditions of stress and fatigue' but i know what it is to be knackered, and angry, Long Reach and Crychans have taught me that. Did we learn anything about defence and how to organise one against the enemy? No, i learnt i flipping hate digging and i never want to de turf anything ever again. I know we're not meant to understand at the moment, and some time in my career it will become crystal clear what that was all about, but for now i'm just glad its over. We smiled for the photos and laughed when we could, but this was very much a sense of cheerfulness in the face of adversity, which i suppose is a skill enough in itself. Its probably brought us closer though, and knowing that i can share i smelly dusty hole in Norfolk for 5 days with the likes of Gibo, Over and Vausey and never for one moment not want them about is a pretty good feeling. They wanted us to descend to hating each other, but we didn't, we dug a big fucking hole for three days, slept in it for less than 4 hours then filled it in again, and laughed at the futility of it all.
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