Page 120 - QDG 2023

118 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
posting out of the Regiment for the first time to make use of his key RAC instructor qualification. Assuming the rather chilled post of kayak instructor with 20 Cadet Training Team in Taunton, Somerset. Returning after two and half years away, the Regiment had moved from Sennelager to Catterick and converted back to formation reconnaissance.
Promotion in 2002 meant a move back to C Sqn
but this time as 1st Tp Ldr. Post 9/11, another war
with Iraq seemed inevitable and training took on a
different focus as a result, but by late 2002 C Sqn
were as well trained as they could possibly be. In
February 2003 the Sqn deployed to Kuwait as the
recce squadron for 3 Cdo Bde. Initially located in
Camp Coyote, which bizarrely was only 1km away
from where A Sqn halted at the end of the 1st Gulf
War in 1991. Over the following few weeks the Sqn
conducted mission specific training which included
working with the US Navy and rehearsals for landing onto the Al Faw Peninsula. On the day his troop slowly made its way up the Basra waterway towards the port of Um Qasr in ‘old school’ landing craft with 30mm turrets traversed over the sides covering arcs. On finding what was thought to be a suitable landing point, Tys brazenly declared over the net “The Eagle has Landed” just as all 4 Scimitars sank up to the tops of their tracks in mud. Thankfully the landing point wasn’t covered by Iraqi fire, the next hour or so was spent freeing vehicles before moving into an OP screen to the south east of Basra. The next 14 days were spent in and out of contact with T55s and infantry with Tys experiencing the first tank contact and what can only be described as a very surreal experience, watching through his binoculars as a T55 began engaging him with 100mm HEAT rounds. Luckily, range and a hull-down fire position meant the rounds fell short. Never- theless a very ‘twitchy’ moment!
with Tys taking over as SSM B Sqn. Focus quickly changed from NIBAT 4 training to a 6-month Iraq deployment on Op TELIC 5. Based from the Shatt Al Arab hotel, colloquially known as the ‘Shat,’ B squadron’s early deployment was dominated by the attachment to the Black Watch BG as part the UK contingent to support to the US Marines in Fallujah. Op TELIC 5 finished in Apr/May 2005 and within 12 months Tys moved from B to HQ Sqn as RQMS(T) and redeployed to Iraq for nearly 9 months on Op TELIC 8.
2007 not only saw the regiment move from Osna- bruck to Sennelager but also promotion to WO1 and RSM of the Regiment, and straight into training for Op HERRICK 9. Deploying with RHQ to the Garmsir District as RSM of BG South. This was a tough deployment, but one highlight was the visit of COMISAF who at the end of the visit presented Tys
Knowing that warm (free) food would raise morale, Tys cooked up a squadrons worth of hotdogs
2004 brought the birth of his son Toby and further promotion