Page 10 - The Wish Stream Year of 2020 Crest

actually losing. There’s no ‘playing the game’ in the enemy’s killing area, at a court inquest, or a funeral for one’s soldiers, and simply having “no excuse” will not be good enough. If all we do at the point of failure is ‘play the game’ then we will have not made the most of the training that we are currently undergoing: the men and women who will look to us for leadership deserve better.
It’s a fine balance to strike: The Great Game has its uses. The Commander of Old College recently told us all that: “nothing is ever as good or as bad as it initially seems”, and on count- less occasions we are reminded to maintain a
sense of perspective, have a cheeky grin left and right, or the ever-elusive Condor moment. So yes, ‘play the game’, but understand its limits: take ownership of and learn from mistakes wher- ever and whenever the opportunity arises. In 35 weeks we will have dust of our own, and there will undoubtedly be those amongst us who wish that they had sought it sooner, before they had assumed the total, extraordinary responsibility for the lives of the soldiers that we serve to lead.
Any half-decent infanteer will gleefully remind you that they are ‘the last 100 yards of national foreign policy.’
First impressions of Sandhurst
OCdt Harkusha (Ukraine)
When I arrived at the Royal Military Acad- emy Sandhurst on the 6th of September, I had lots of positive emotions and I told myself: “Yeah, I achieved it, I am here!” The first five weeks were easier than I expected. Those five heaviest weeks equalled one year in my Academy back home in Ukraine.
From the first day at RMAS, I enjoyed studying and liked the intensive studying programme. I especially loved physical training sessions. Every PT lesson, field exercise or command task was hard and made me become better and stronger; I loved it.
When I was assigned any position on field exer- cises, I was a little bit nervous because for me it was hard to conduct an operation following all instructions before starting every new appoint- ment, but I received valuable experience and became more confident. Ex SELF RELIANCE was terrible because of the weather – every day was rainy! As it turned out, it was some of the wettest days for the last few years. I was waiting for Ex LONG REACH impatiently, because I like exercises like this one. They increase endurance and patience. British exercises are heavier than Ukrainian, particularly due to the weather and high tempo. In the Military Academy in Odesa, we had exciting firing exercises. We fire from AK/ AKM-74, PK machine gun, Dragunov sniper rifle, assault rifle Vulkan-M (Malyuk), and others. Also,
we do jumps with a parachute in the daytime and at night. I am missing it, because jumps are an addiction!
For me, it is strange that we learn commonplace things such as help, respect for each other, teamwork, etc. I consider that over-studying will just spoil the real essence of these qualities and Cadets will follow them only for increasing their personal rating (it will look like artificial help or interaction with each other). I know that RMAS has got plenty of interesting activities and com- petitions in different kinds of sports but, due to the virus, most have been cancelled unfortu- nately. Previous successful Ukrainian Cadets in the Academy have taken an active part in sports activities here. I wanted to practice the kinds of sports here as well, for showing yourself. In gen- eral, I am happy with the Academy and know that new challenges are waiting for me in the future.
8 SANDHURST