Page 74 - QDG Vol. 9 No. 2 CREST

72 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
Royal Yeomanry
For that noble and puissant regiment the Royal Yeomanry, 2021 was the year of rousing herself like a strong man after almost twelve months of enforced Zoom-based training, and shaking her invincible (albeit immaculately tonsured according to QR) locks. It was the year when the QDG, like a double- headed eagle mewing her mighty youth, strengthened her partnership with the RY as both regiments saw their soldiers return from a unique hybrid deployment to Poland. This much-vaunted, oft-im- itated but never-surpassed pairing, regularly held up to the undazzled eyes of the Army as an exemplar of the Regu- lar-Reserve relationship, has continued to leap from strength to strength and even now endures steadfast as the Rock of Gibraltar.
But while other units, like timorous birds, flutter about amazed by this radiant relationship, what have the RY been up to over the last twelve months?
We do not here shrink from describing the RY’s achievements even though they seem small in comparison to her mighty sister regiment, remembering that nearly a year of online-only training
(with a few exceptions, of
which more later) can erode
the spirit, the memory and
the will of even the strongest
amongst us. Others, less
blessed with knowledge
than we, might scoff at
what they consider a year
half-fallow and dedicated to
rebuilding; however, those
who ‘darkeneth counsel by
words without knowledge’
are not here our audience.
Spurred on by the inspired
and inspiring leadership of Col Tom Bragg, who continued to juggle scalpel and Skype throughout his tenure, the RY plunged back into the waters of face- to-face training over a series of testing
weekend training exercises. These took place in such compact and bijoux training areas as Pippingford Park, Yardley Chase, and Leek & Upper Hulme. In
We do not here shrink from describing
the RY’s achievements
these arenas the Yeomanry, in Sqn groupings, took the bull of basic fieldcraft by its slippery green horns, proving they were no greenhorns to the tricky business of tough reconnaissance soldiering, even after such a prolonged absence, an absence made perhaps more protracted by the increasing risk-aware- ness of the modern era.
Following the departure of the relentlessly dedicated and tirelessly efficient XO
Maj Ryan Morgan RTR in the summer, the RY rolled seamlessly into a ‘cours- es-camp’ Annual Deployment Exercise (ADX) on the hallowed grounds of Swanton Morley, with the great ship