Page 29 - The Wish Stream Year of 2022 CREST

Intermediate Term Perspective
When thinking about how to start this piece, as I was sitting, condemned to a period of isolation in Zayed Lines, I turned to an article listing ‘50 Latin phrases so genius you’ll sound like a master orator.’ Adages such as: ‘ad astra per aspera’; ‘ad meliora’ or ‘timendi causa est nescire’ serve as suitably pompous openers that you may think: ‘Sandhurst does learn these Cadets a thing or two.’ They are also fitting max- ims when applied to the trials and tribulations of the Intermediate Term at Sandhurst.
This term has seen our transition from the doe- eyed and fresh-faced Junior Term OCdts, wholly occupied by a romantic vision of our time at the academy, to slightly-less naïve, though infinitely more capable, potential Officers – even if we may be a little ‘snapped’ at times. The Intermediate Term derives its infamy from the first eight weeks of the term, colloquially known as
the ‘Hateful Eight’ though some- times more lovingly referred to as the ‘Super Fun Exercise Period.’ This brutal term opener of three week-long exercises, with only a week or so break between them, I’m sure has tested the mettle of my fellow OCdts.
Our first outing back into the field
saw us deploy on Ex ROBERT’S
RETURN on Hankley Common, as a refresher to some of the offensive action skills we had started to develop by the end of the Junior Term. After an unexpectedly long four-week Christmas holi- day, the three platoon attacks per-day regimen made for quite a punchy exercise!
OCdt Bird
In no more than the blink of an eye, we were back from Ex ROBERT’S RETURN, and once again on the White Time Machines to Brecon – a place that has inspired many a tale of the ‘hard- est exercise I’ve ever been on.’ Ex ALLENBY’S ADVANCE certainly lived up to our expectations.
Our first steps across the cattle grid into Sennybridge were accompanied by the onset of 24-hours of howling weather. That evening we were to find many a shell-scrape, complete with sleeping OCdts, quickly filling with water and nervous white-light equipped colour sergeants ‘cutting about’ the harbour area making sure no one was in danger of ‘piling in.’ The morale of our platoon was gladly boosted by the arrival of a visiting
French Cadet, an already commissioned elec- tronic warfare officer with two tours of Mali under his belt. Not only did his giant basha keep us dry, but his tales of adversities faced in the jungle of Belize or the Malian desert, brought our plight into sharp perspective.
Our next two weeks in camp were punctu- ated by our introduction to CBRN operations, the Inter-Company Sports Day, and the Log Race – the latter being a true milestone of any Sandhurst experience. It was a busy schedule, surely designed to tire us out as much as pos- sible before deployment on Ex SLIM’S STAND, a week notorious for sleep deprivation and hallucination.
And so, we returned to the plains of Thetford, ready and willing to defend our position from the
...his tales of adversities faced in the jungle of Belize or the Malian desert, brought our plight into sharp perspective.
SANDHURST 27