Deutschland!

So, i went to Germany this week, which is nice! Just getting away from Sandhurst into the real, no saluting, calling Majors their first names (i'm not even sure i remember my own first name sometimes), 7 o'clock mornings proper Field Army is a joy.  It takes trips like these i think to remind us why where all doing this in the first place, which maybe is the point.  Although the other more salient point perhaps is that it gives us a bloody good look at the Regiments we may be joining and even more so gives them a look at us! 

My visit was characterised my three things, running, looking at stuff and drinking, not always in that order and not always exclusive of each other.  I was hugely impressed by the Regiment, the Mess was massively welcoming and the soldiers some of the brightest i've come across. They did the hard sell and showed us all the 'gucci' bits of kit that the Army actually uses, rather than the Falklands spec stuff we still use at Sandhurst.  They even took me for a ride in a Scimitar (little tank) which was awesome.  As i perched in the commanders position and hurtled about doing my very best tank commander face as a big Fijian gunner explained how everything worked next to me it was blissfully easy to forget about Sandhurst, and the pile of ironing and polishing i have now been reunited with on my return.

The visit was capped off by a very civilised Black tie dinner followed by a rather less civilised drinking session in the Mess afterwards.  I suspect this is where the real test phase began for us, and our performance was most closely scrutinised.  What followed was a typically Cavalry programme of games involving setting fire to stuff, doing potentially dangerous things with champagne, narrowly avoiding ruining the priceless Oil Panting in the corner and ending with a game of Mini Flare Cricket.  We were forcibly encouraged to drink a frankly hideous amount, and then packed off to bed when we had, to the general consensus  lost control of ourselves to enough of an extent.  Drinking raw eggs and Tequila and pints of Gin has never exactly been my cup of tea but these initiations are an unavoidable if archaic part of Army life, especially amongst the more old fashioned Regiments. 

Now back at the Academy things are beginning to ramp up towards our final big exercise of the term Crychans Challenge, which is a week of thrashing in Brecon and promises to be quite a test.  After that we then have to get our Drill up to scratch before the Sovereigns Parade on the last day and begin our move to our new home in New College.  It promises to be a hectic few weeks but i will do my utmost to keep you all updated.

Dinners and Orders

Not really a weekly or even event based post here, but its been a while so thought id keep the ball rolling and let you all know what's been going on over the last week or so. 
Not hugely exciting i'm afraid as the focus is now firmly on the '7 Question Estimate' and giving Orders.  Which truth be told is a pretty tedious process, by which we all come to the decision to go right flanking with a Fire Support Section at 90 degrees in lots of different and convoluted ways.  Then go through an equally convoluted process to deliver said Order to our Platoon in a way that has graduates from good univiersities  baffled; but i'm sure will be clear as day to your average Infantry Squaddie.  Of course i jest; and we all understand why this process has to be so regulated (mainly so when we're in full idiot mode after weeks on no sleep and living in the rain we just follow said process and so don't forget anything) it's still pretty turgid stuff.  It is however the bread and butter of being an Officer so we must all simply swallow it down.

The weeks have however been punctuated by a number of mainly alcohol related festivities, which is the sort of thing we would have dreamed about towards the beginning of the course.  First up was a Platoon night in London, which was the predictable flurry of colourful trousers, overly formal shirts and champagne in one of Claphams, truth be told less classy establishments.  We may appal everyone within a tactical bound of us, but we have fun so who cares.


This is followed by our first Company Dinner Night, which i think its fair to say is a big success.  For those of you as yet unaccustomed to the Dinner Night (I will do my best to correct this for many of you soon!) its classic military fair.  Trumpet calls to dinner, silver one must never ever touch, very tight trousers, bursting for the loo but not be able to go, port drinking, marching band inside the dining hall, banging of tables and putting on our poshest voices stuff!  All of the senior Officers are there, and its a great chance for us all to let our closely cropped hair down, and converse with them as humans rather than strangely keen servants. 

Needless to say drinking goes on far longer than it should; which feels less than good the next day when one is up at 6 regardless, and being forced to run around the athletics track as we all struggle, and some fail, to maintain full control of our churning stomachs.  I suppose there's a lesson there somewhere, but by the look of the various Colonels and Majors last night its clearly one i have many years to learn yet.  As photos are frowned upon (obviously!) here are a few of our getting ready revelry.  More to come soon.

Second Attack

Another week down, and one i feel i may look back on as being rather pivotal.  It was a week more about actual soldiering than we have had before, full of rifles and running and toil, but brilliant because of it.  A number of occassions are worthy of further report, starting with our journey down the Wishing Stream.

 

  This may sound like a Lewis Carroll esq adventure, but was more Saving Private Ryan than Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.  After an afternoon of 'Tactical Command Tasks' (rescuing injured Gurkhas from landrovers stuck in minefileds while keeping watch for impending doom from the forest), we were tasked with returning via a series of tunnells, rivers, ditches etc while carrying a stretcher with a very war weary manaquin attatched, and a number of ammo boxes; all the while weighed down by our webbing, helmets, daysacs and rifles.  This soon deteriorated into a full blown charge through the mud, quite literally chest deep in water and at one point fully submerged as the Directing Staff kindly aided us on our way under a bridge with the bottoms of their boots.  Despite our best efforts to waterproof everything, there's only so much a tescos freezer bag can do against a putrid river, and cleaning out our rilfes was a rather labourious task.  I'm sure there are many of you out there thinking this sounds horrible, but i'm equally sure there are few of us in here who didn't have more fun and sport wider grins than we so far have at Sandhurst as we ruined our kit through that river.  That was more like the inspirational promo videos that had lured us in in the first place had promised and we loved it!

Things then continued along that line; we ventured onto our first day of  live firing with real bullets, and equally real carbon covering every possible inch of our weapons afterwards.  This was shortly followed by the imaginatively titled Excersise Second Attack, following neatly on from Exercise First Attack.  This time though it was an overnighter, with all the misery that usually brings, and we were doing Platoon scale attacks.  Again though it was fun; sweaty, exhausting, aching, hideous fun, but fun nonetheless.  We battled increasing numbers of Gurkhas for a whole day, as attack blended into attack, untill ammo got so low that my unfortunate section ended up assualting three depth positions in one bound, and we all gave up in an exhausted huddle.  As we have now progressed to proper radios and actual attacks it is a real thrill to look around at your mates and think shit, if i knew literally nothing about the Army i might think this lot were proper soldiers.  It's also a surreal buzz to lay 20m away from a Gurkha in a hole as he fires automatic fire at you and you return your discipled rapid rate of fire of 30 rounds per minute, and you both wonder who is going to pretend to be dead first, despite the fact that i would have been dead hours ago if these were real bullets. 

 

We are however told at the end, in a brilliantly Sandhurst esq way that we are 'achieving the required standard for this stage of the course, which i think is a compliment, but might also indicate that we're still bloody useless.  Morale is boosted though by a perfect speech from our small, angry, Scottish Company Sergant Major with whose words i shall finish; i paraphrase but i don't believe exageratte, and i apologise for the swearing!  " You men when you go home this weekend; and you're out in your f***ing bars and f***ing night clubs, i want you to look at that f***ing f***er next to you with his spiked up f***ing hair and f***ing stupid clothes and think what the f*** have you done today; because i've been learning to f***ing kill people!"  It may not be quite out of the MOD book of Political Correctness but it certainly sent us on our long weekend with a smile.

Week 7 and Old College Sunday

Hello all, that is officially the half way point of first term done; so i suppose also 1/6th of the entire course, which is excellent!  The 7th week is known to be one of being messed about and increased discipline, which is less excellent.  Without the distraction of Long Reach we have been subjected to hours of in promptu activity and increasing inspections, with punishments (usually having to parade during the evening so one has even more of a struggle getting anything done) becoming common.  Having said that so far fate has been kind to me, and I've escaped being noticed for a mis placed crease, or an idle thread.

The week has also however been characterised by an increase in tempo in the Course, and a shift away from Drill and onto the more warry bits.  Friday was Excersise First Attack, which was a lot like it sounds.  Our first foray into section level attacks, complete with Gurkha enemy and copious amounts of blanks being fired.  Its all good fun, but the fun is heavily tempered by the i'm sure necessary but equally frustrating drills and orders one has to learn.  Something as simple as fire lots, go round to the right and throw a hand grenade at someone, is a gruelling mental as well as physical task. There is a precise order to everything, and drills and seemingly endless pneumonics and acronyms all almost but not quite the same, and all accompanied by a disappointed look from the Directing Staff when you forget that this particular S stands for Searchers, not Sit Rep or Suppress or even Situation, when all you can think of starting with S is Sausage and that definitely isn't it!

The week has culminated though at an almost civilianly lethargic pace, starting with my first foray outside these hallowed grounds for a few drinks with the Platoon, and the dubious wonders of Fleet.  Our impact on that poor little town however was severely limited by our 12pm curfew.  Sunday then saw Old College Sunday, which essential provides an opportunity for one's parents to come and see what magnificent soldiers we have become.  We marched (apparently not too awfully) belted out a few hymns in chapel, then in a wonderfully chaotic gaggle, bubbled not marched around the camp looking at accommodation and other bits and bobs; noticing the paintings and artifacts that usually we simply rush on past.  On that note the week has ended, and here goes another, although its only 4 days long which is good.  But its going to be crazy busy and the weather is looking lovely and hot, which for most of you is great but for those of  us in body armour and helmets is not! 

Week 6 and Long Reach!

Well, things haven't really changed!  We are once again endowed with lap tops, mobile phones, freestyle wardrobe layouts and occasionally the odd cheeky non regulation pair of socks but the schedule remains the same.  In fact, if anything, over the days before heading to Wales the tempo has upped, with planning for the Exercise crow barred into every available minute between usual lessons.

So to the mythical Long Reach itself.  For those of you not already aware of Exercise Long Reach i shall briefly summarise.  We are told the Exercise is the most gruelling physical event on any non Special Forces Army training programme, which seems fair.  It comprises essentially 9 manned checkpoints ( Command Tasks involving mental/physical tasks of the build a bridge over a river with a rope, a smoked halibut, a jelly fish and half a packet of wet wipes ilk); and 5 unmanned checkpoints spread across the Black Mountains and located in the most irritating locations possible.  Our route comprised 72km (which probably ended up being about 80 due to navigation errors and other bumbling; climbing and descending 4 seperate mountain features; all carrying Bergan weighing 20kg (plus about another 7 when carrying the bloody radio).


Personally the Exercise went fine, my fitness held up well and despite having rather sore feet and shoulders as i write this on Saturday post Exercise, i feel pretty good.  Tiredness as ever is the main killer, as during our 36 hour time we grabbed only 2.5 hours or so of hasty kip in a forest, sometime during Thursday afternoon.  The other 33.5 hours were solid walking/command tasking.  All of us were seriously hurting at some stage but as the Csgt would say that is 'the nature of the beast', and it has to be remarked also that at times (mainly in the first few hours) we had to remind ourselves that we were being paid to walk around some beautiful hills with a group of mates!

Wales did as Wales should and threw every conceivable weather scenario at us during that time, rain, hail, thick nighttime fog, and beautiful sunny periods.  The group i think its fair to say struggled with the distance, and our time was disappointing, but we made it, which is no small feat, and this is certainly one of those seminal moments in the course.

Included are a few pictures, mainly from the opening sections of the walk, as during the latter stages batteries started to run out, weather started to get worse and moods less conducive to photo shoots.  From here it is straight back to the grind stone, no real let up i expect.  We are tentatively hoping though that gradually liberties will be stretched and at least a modicum of free time installed.  Time will tell!

Weeks 1 to 5 done and dusted!

So the first notorious 5 weeks are over.  I must first apologise for my near total dropping off the radar over the last few weeks, and my inability to update here.  Mobile phone time was severely rationed, and laptops were right out, making contact something of a challenge.  That leaves me with the unenviable task of trying to summarise what was most certainly the fullest 5 weeks of my, and I'm sure anyone else's life, without boring you all to tears.

Well to the basics, was it ridiculously busy and incomparably tiring? yes!  Was it the horrific, nightmare of a time which so many had told me it would be? No, in fact at stages i had fun. For those unacquainted with general routine it goes a little like this:  Wake up 0515, water parade (singing of the National Anthem and downing water) at 0530, breakfast 0615, lessons start 0700, (lessons encapsulates everything from physical training, to learning how to use weapon systems, voice procedure on the radio, how to dress, speak and write letters like an Officer to the organisation of the Army etc). Lessons finish 1830 (with a small gap for lunch but otherwise no let up), dinner 1900, 1930-2200 some form of compulsory cleaning activity (e.g. bulling ones boots) 2200-0000 ironing organising cleaning etc for the next day.  That has been the scheme of things day in day out for the last weeks, 5 hours sleep being a major achievement, 3/4 being more likely closer to reality.


Of all emotions exhaustion is probably the most common; the struggle to stay awake in lectures is a constant one, i have seen over the last few weeks people falling asleep in every scenario possible; standing up in full combat kit, in hallways, under trees and in my case on one occasion mid shoe polishing.

I will certainly have little patience now for whinging about tiredness though; it is amazing how one is able to function, especially physically to a fairly high standard on no sleep whatsoever.  After our first big exercise in the field where we had slept for less than 5 hours over a 96 hour period, we had an exerting 7km jog with full kit and it was perfectly doable.

The down side of the lack of sleep though is its impact on one's ability to retain information.  While packing in the entire infantry recruits basic 14 week training package into just 5 weeks, the actual content was not an issue, but the sheer scale of it and ones limited mental capacity makes remembering everything very hard. I struggled often on very basic spelling and information retention. 

There were certainly lows!  4 days of exercise on no sleep, wearing body armour helmet and rifle literally 24 hours a day, including while in the sleeping bag, stinking and exhausted and covered in more filth than i thought possible.  Being made to change 7 times a day, through every outfit in the wardrobe just so that everyone has an impossible pile of ironing in the evening!

But equally there were highs!  Storming through PT sessions, leaving the CSM with nothing to criticize while inspecting you (I've never considered silence as success before), impromptu Platoon parties in the corridor after a highly illegal sneak visit to Morrison's on the way back from Climbing, and the major miracle that was the whole Platoon passing our week 5 Drill Test known as Passing off the Square.


The Platoon is coming together strongly, and while perhaps not the best, we are the fittest, and also certainly the silliest, which suits me just fine.  From evenings spent wearing just respirators and pants, to surreal showering sessions with our rifles (because we have to be within 1m of them at all times) , to ridiculous singing on Water Parade, a silly comment or a cheeky smile abound, which really is all that keeps you going at times.  Our Colour Sgt helps, who I'm pleased to report is brilliant.  It may be just Stockholm Syndrome but we all have a real affection for him, the fact that he's a no nonsense Para definitely helps, as does the fact that i think deep down he finds us quite amusing, as well as totally inept!

While closer to being Cub Scouts than Soldiers, still we're getting there and I'm proud to be part of the group i am.  Its a cliche but you definitely do feel an inch taller marching off the parade square, or standing in chapel belting out Jerusalem with 300 other guys who you know really, really mean every word.

From this stage on we start to regain small liberties, my phone is fully mine again, as is my lap top and as such my ability to update here regularly.  I am allowed a beer with dinner, and a positively indulgent wake up time of 0600.  I'm also allowed to ball my socks in pairs rather than individually and i can stop ironing my towel.  As such i will hope to be more diligent in my keeping you all updated.  My thanks in the meantime to all those who have given words of support by text and especially through the mail, i appreciate them hugely.  Further reports will follow, in the meantime enjoy the pictures.

D Day - 1

Everything is finally ready packed and bought.  My cords have been worn in, my boots are ironed, and i have  enough painkillers and proplus to knock out and bring back round an elephant; not to mention a pair of breathtakingly tiny speedos!  Tomorrow i imagine will be a busy one, and i suspect i may not have enough time to update here for a number of days.  I will however do my best!  I'm pleased to say the apprehensiveness has passed, and i am 100% looking forward to things now; lets just hope that lasts more than a few hours into the course.

  I will leave you with a few photos, to give those not party to my frantic buying over the last few weeks a taste of the kit list, and a little evidence of the fore mentioned preparations.  Now in the words of the great Jermaine, 'Its business time!'.