Page 9 - QDG Volume 9 No. 2 2021

keeping day-to-day activities going. Major Rob Mansel, who commands the Rear Operations Group and describes their role in later pages, currently commands more QDG soldiers than I! I am especially grateful to him and his team’s service.
Throughout the year, the QDG’s main effort was recruiting. Specifically, we are attending to a decreasing Welsh and Border Country constituency at QDG that has its origins in decisions about basing and limited physical presence in The Principality. To reverse this decline we have: generated and deployed a Regimental Engagement Team equipped with 4x4s and liveried tailers to our recruiting grounds; enhanced our social media presence and content; developed new recruiting products; and tightened up our nurture of recruits through the training pipeline. Further, Welsh Troop, D Squadron of the Royal Yeomanry now provides opportunities for Reserve service in Wales in a Light Cavalry role. Most notably however, and of strategic importance to QDG, was the Army’s confirmation that QDG will move to new barracks in Caerwent not before 2027. This exciting move into well-found new infrastructure provides welcome certainty
The famous UN Peacekeepers Badge
that will support individual and families’ decisions about their service, living, working, and schooling arrangements that are central to the moral component of fighting power, and retention.
Next year, in addition to rounding off a bountiful operational
period, we will invest signif-
icantly into the wider offer
of military service that
has been absent this last
year. Next year’s journal,
in contrast to the red dust
of Mali, will be a riot of
other colours too. ‘Build
back better’ (to borrow
a phrase!) at QDG will
involve: parades in The
Principality and engage-
ment with our Welsh and
Border County commu-
nity; adventurous training
activities in Oman, Croatia,
Malta, Spain and Canary
Islands; full winter sports
teams competing across
all disciplines; sports tours
to Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Wales; and, visits to our overseas affiliates. And our elite sportspersons competing at Army and Corps level will have every
support to enable their return to top-flight competition.
Finally, let me end by thanking our families and regimental comrades for your unstinting support during this last year. Our service has necessitated
significant physical separa- tion these last twelve months, including putting soldiers in challenging and stressful situations. No soldier is an island. Kinship is vital. But that extends beyond those of us in uniformed service. And whilst service is rooted of course in noble notions of patriotism, duty, and betterment within an historic organisation with purpose it is fundamentally rooted in love. Love of the profession of soldiering; love of fellow soldiers; and love of kin from whence comes strength. So, thank you for the loving support that you – our families and regimental comrades – provide to your is very much appreciated, and
1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
7
No soldier
is an island. Kinship is vital. But that extends beyond those of us in uniformed service
soldiers. It
at the very heart of the service recorded within this year’s journal.
HL
The Commanding Officer briefing the Long Range Reconnaissance Group before their departure
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