An LSW gunner is starting to wonder where everyone else is
An Alternative Approach to Platoon Motivation by 2Lt J Cook
Stand up, sit down, notebooks down and listen in….
at the present time, the Platoon is in good shape to deploy to BATUS as the premier Armoured Infantry Platoon in the Battalion.
With the focus on armoured qualifications, it was easy to overlook light rôle training. To remain balanced, all remaining men went through an intensive package of ranges and began a gradual shift towards operational training. Having honed their skills to near-ninja levels under Cpl Mason’s watchful eye, 5 Platoon smashed a Platoon Attack range and a Compound Clearance course just before Easter leave. The two rôles came together in a tactical exercise on Bergen-Hohne where the new commanders could work with their crews and the new dismounts could practice sleeping in the back between their sporadic moments of extreme activity. Despite LCpl Lawrence getting bogged-in within five minutes of the exercise beginning and a string of technical faults on LCpl Rickwood’s wagon, it was a resounding success providing essential experience prior to Ex Prairie Thunder in June. Under the guidance of the JNCOs 5 Platoon is going strong. The new recruits have settled in well, some soldiers have managed to snap up German girls without even paying and the local Snowdome continues to be blessed by the podium- bashing skills from all ranks. As the training focus shifts to our forthcoming operational deployment, 5 Platoon is salivating.
“Gents, we are ten months from the biggest battle of our professional lives, Op Herrick 14. It all comes down to everyday training, and either we heal as a Platoon or we are going to crumble, inch by inch, Section attack by Section attack, until we are finished. We’re in Hell right now, gentlemen, believe me. And we can stay here, get the crap kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light. Life is a game of inches, so is training for Herrick. Because in either – life or training – the margin for error is so small, I mean, one half a bound too far or too short and you don’t quite make it. One mil too low or too high and you miss that RV. The inches we need are all around us. They are in every range day, every MATT, every CFT. In this Platoon, we fight for that inch. In this Platoon, we tear ourselves and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s the difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying! I’ll tell you this: in any fight, it’s the guy who is willing to give 100% who’s going to win that inch. Because that’s what living is - the six inches in front of your face. Now I can’t make you do it. You’ve got to look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. Now, I think you are going to see a guy willing to go that inch with you. You will see a guy willing to sacrifice himself for this Platoon because he knows when it comes down to it that you’re going to do the same for him. That’s a Platoon, gentlemen, and either we heal as a Platoon or we will die as individuals.”
An Internal Affair - 3 MERCIAN Potential JNCO Cadre
by LCpl P E King Due to a lack of Lance Corporals, the Battalion ran an internal JNCO Cadre on our arrival in Germany. It was to run for eleven weeks. We all knew it was going to be a graft from the very beginning, especially with the likes of Cpl Coates and Cpl Watts on the training team. We started with a total of sixty nine blokes on the first day of the Class 2 to 1 phase, which lasted for the first four weeks. This phase was not too bad; it was all about learning the basic skills and drills required of a soldier, not just an NCO. There were many tests such as navigation, orders, military knowledge and the usual fitness tests (CFT, ACFT 1 etc). There was an exercise phase, a teaching phase and the final test week, where it was decided who would go onto the actual JNCO cadre. It was like being back in Phase 1 training, learning all the basics from scratch but in quick time. After the Class 2 to 1 phase, we were then given a week off to recuperate which most likely undid all the hard work we had put in, destroying our bodies with alcohol and a lack of fitness.
5 Pl on compound clearane drills 64 October 2010
On our return from leave, we started the JNCO cadre itself which ended up being two weeks in camp getting thrashed and going into more detail on the previous lessons. The exercise phase, which everyone was dreading as it was four weeks long, consisted of two weeks in Haltern training area and two weeks live-firing in Sennelager. Nobody wanted to spend that long in the field, but it had to be done. Upon arriving at our first training area, we had to set up an entire FOB including barbed wire fences and low wire entanglements. Nobody knows how or why, but the Cadre OC managed to get a projector out into the field and “death by PowerPoint” continued during the day, whilst we got thrashed and were late to bed in the evenings. Morale was going down fast and a sudden lack of Haribo escalated the situation and a shortage of cigarette supplies putting a lot of the lads on edge. But the chefs we had out in the field did a cracking job and every man looked forward to cooked scoff. I can honestly say it is the best food I have ever had in the Army. Due to a lot of sleep deprivation, tempers could fly at any moment. It got that bad blokes were falling asleep on orders; one lad fell straight into the model pit. Times were getting desperate, ambushes were going wrong and blokes were beginning to lose things and struggling with the work load. There was an armoured phase and a light rôle phase but both involved a lot of digging; shell scrapes,
The Mercian Eagle
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