Page 25 - Bugle No. 17 Spring 2021

3 RIFLES
Op RESCRIPT
How B Company helped Scotland
Rifleman join the army in pursuit of a challenge, after the trials of basic training, how can anyone say they didn’t want to be tested. But not a single Rifleman knew that instead of fixing swords and donning battle belts, 2020 would see them trading cam cream for facemasks.
When the Rifleman of 3 Rifles returned to Dreghorn Barracks after the February half-term leave, COVID-19 was still a mythical flu, sat
on the other side of the world. However, by Mid-March, the world had stopped and the Battalion was forced to change focus.
After 4 weeks in lockdown, and the Battalion doing its best to work from home,
48 Rifleman from A Coy were called back to Dreghorn to undergo training in order to field 4 Mobile Testing Units. With the task: “Facilitate testing in the South East of Scotland, inform members of the public if they had been infected, and to aid the Government’s effort
to track the effects of COVID-19 on the British Population.”
4 days after their training on the 20th April, 2 of the teams were deployed to Motherwell and Galashiels. After 10 days on task, B Company were called upon to relieve the first teams, in order to Exploit and expand Operation RESCRIPT.
Leaving in convoys of White Combi vans, instead of Tan Mastiffs, teams set up their sites, with the first patients entering at 1000hrs. Progress was initially slow, and the statistics disappointing as the country was still unsure of what Coronavirus meant. However, as the weeks rolled by more Mobile Testing Units
were raised, and deployed across 6 sites in the South East of Scotland.
Over the following 19 weeks, a total of 126 Rfn were deployed, amounting 47,300 hours on task, and delivering over 62,000 tests to the public. Until the task was handed over to NHS Scotland, on the 30th August.
Although this task was unexpected, and nothing that any of its participants had ever trained for, valuable lessons were still learnt;
“Interacting with the public in such a way is never something I thought I’d do as an Infanteer. Learning how they react to us, and how we can best communicate with them is something I can use for the rest of my career.” Rfn Lazare. B Company
With the ethos of a thinking Rifleman, never
turning down an opportunity to develop, the free time between stagging on car parks and processing patients was put to good use. Rifleman took this chance to develop their tactical knowledge, mostly in the form of socially distanced chess and top trumps.
This career holds challenges of all shapes and sizes, and the skill of a thinking Rifleman is seeing the value in what he has achieved before, and how he can use those skills to best effect in any situation.
Lt J. Cox
A total
of 126
Rfn were deployed, amounting 47,300 hours on task, and delivering over 62,000 tests to the public
RIFLES The Bugle 25