Page 26 - QDG Year of 2020

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1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
We caught up with the NSE Commander Capt Chris Homewood QDG who was already setting about the camp like a rottweiler
Another picture of the snow
state and getting the vehicle crews up to LFX 8A (Plt mounted live fire at night). The ranges went smoothly due in no small part to SSgt Beal QDG (again!) and Sgt Chater who led the mounted and dismounted elements. A close call occurred at the last moment as 2 Para Mortars did their best to drive into the OC and 2IC’s vehicles on the southern transit route missing them by centimetres but rolling their Land Rover and writing it off, thankfully none of them were seri- ously injured.
With pre deployment leave interrupted by the mandated COVID-19 test before we knew it we were on our way to Poland via Nottingham Reserve Centre and RAF Brize Norton. After a delightful 8 hour
coach ride from Poznan (RAF
not Ryan Air?!) we arrived
in Bemowo Piskie Training
Area (BPTA) in North East
Poland 70km from Kalinin-
grad and Belarus. We were
greeted by the sight of our
tented home (the ‘ISOFAC’)
where we would serve out
our two weeks mandated
quarantine time. Our stay
there proved a good time
to bond as a group. We
caught up with the NSE
Commander Capt Chris Homewood Cassino Tp had been given the US Scout
QDG who was already setting about the camp like a rottweiler. From touch rugby and football to scrap heap challenges,
Platoon to command (5th Plt) which gave an additional dimension to the Tp. The majority of the first three months was
PT and professional and personal development we made the most of our time there. Before long the Tp was released to the relative freedom of the main camp to takeover from the Light Dragoons.
The first few months were focused on integrating to the US Battlegroup, building the all important relation- ships and focusing on how we would work together.
Gunnery Gods or ‘Old, Older, Oldest’ still set- ting the standard on PT
Scrapheap challenge SSM
Sgt Brown contemplates an invasion of Kaliningrad