Page 93 - Light Dragoons 2022 CREST

Sandhurst has been in the papers a fair bit recently, and not necessarily for good reasons. There’s been a significant
amount of soul searching at the Academy over the last few terms and this has seen Regular Commissioning Course 213 have a far more balanced time of it than when we all came through. They really do have it far easier than in your day.
On the other side of the coin, RMAS has realised that it has a powerful brand name – and as a result of this, and Global Britain, CC 221 has the most international cadets in any CC since the start of RMAS – a mixed blessing for the Permanent Staff as you can imagine.
As Pl Comd of 17 Pl, Ypres Coy, I have 31 potential Gen Z CDSs under my train- ing responsibility, with a wide spread of international cadets, hailing from Iraq, Oman, Qatar, and Zambia. Alongside these, there’s some very impressive British potential coming through. Despite this lot being labelled the “me generation” if even half of the good ones stay on then the army will be in a good place for years to come.
As a cadet I’m sure you thought the Pl Comds did very little, and you’d mostly be right, but the thrashings don’t just happen and you need to make sure your 5km pun- ishment casevac is on the risk assessment.
The cadets of CC213, in Inters as at time of writing, are about to embark on the “hateful eight.” Eight weeks of week-on- week-off exercise until they have enough dits about ‘this one time in STANTA’ to take them twice around every bar in SW1.
They then return to RMAS for Regimental Selection Board week and the character assassinations that come with it. Finding a place for the cadet who proudly announces his Warhammer hobby is where most of the Pl Comd’s time is spent in this term. The long shadow of Mali has been good for us, and for Lt Cav as a whole, and we are massively oversubscribed for places – with cuts now on the horizon for the unlucky or uninspiring.
The mess life at Sandhurst has got over long COVID and is now back in almost full swing, with a winter ball held just in time to ruin everyone’s Christmas with Omicron. The Louts are a diverse, friendly, and lively bunch – who knew
A stretcher race in the wishstream
there was a wider army? – but it’s a bit thin on the ground in terms of RAC Captains, with only 4 of us in the seat now and for some time to come now that they’ve removed cap badge balancing for the PIDs.
With Maj Jamie Harle in Marne Coy and Col Charlie Colbeck on site, there’s bril- liant LD representation here – and more than we’ve had in a long time. It would now be great to see an LD SNCO here – the infantry still have a pretty tight grip on things as they stand, and the more representation the better. However, LDs are in a good place at RMAS – long may it continue.
PB
The Regimental Journal of The Light Dragoons
ERE
Sandhurst Platoon Commander
The Colonel of the Regiment, with newly commissioned 2Lts Arulampalam and Emmanuel
A cluster of snaptins!
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