Page 15 - Journal Compilation

REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL LANCERS 53
Sports and Adventurous Training
Ever since I joined the Army we have told one another (prob- ably mythical) tales about the glory days of the Cold War when soldiers spent their time playing sport (country sports back then I suppose) and mountaineering in the German Alps with nothing but a stout pair of boots and a thick Harris tweed for protection. No doubt there were one or two Corps-level exer- cises, BATUS deployments and the Troubles to deal with, which must have intruded from time to time, but there certainly was not a Campaign Formation Operational Readiness Mechanism that took up every week of every year between deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. With the end of medium scale operations in Afghanistan, the status quo ante has been restored and we - nally have some time on our hands and – I am pleased to be able to report – we are making the most of it.
In the eight months since the amalgamation, the new regiment has deployed more than 200 personnel on adventurous training exercises that range from hill walking in Cumbria to mountain biking the length of Corsica and walking one of the Second
World War escape routes across the Pyrénées into Spain. I will let the expedition leaders tell their own tales in the articles that follow. We also sent an intrepid team of road cyclists into the Alps where the pain of going up at a walking pace was lost in the exhilaration coming down faster than the cars. The new regi- ment has also proved itself a force to be reckoned with in sport, bursting on to the stage with an early victory in the 4th Infantry Brigade Festival of Sport in the summer and then doing what no regiment has done for years, beating the RTR into second place at the RAC inter-regimental championships, Exercise HOD- SON’S HORSE. Talking of things the cavalry have not tried for a while, we have also entered the 2016 Army Major Units Boxing Championships; after dominating the RAC Boxing Champion- ship we feel con dent. It is, however, more than 30 years since an RAC regiment attempted this, back in the Cold War days... And so, having arrived back where I started, I will leave off so the others can tell you how it all went.
WJRR