Page 10 - Chiron Calling Spring 2017

The PQO course was a unique experience. In such a short space of time we made friends for life and had experiences we’ll never forget, whether that be sitting in stag in the freezing cold or watching the Academy Boxing night we will have all come away with things we loved and hated about the course. One thing I will say is it’s a far cry from the reputation is has for being easy, the Staff worked incredibly hard to ensure we came away equipped to do our jobs and by doing so there was never a still moment.
If anyone asked me to do it again, would I go...? De nitely.
8 CHIRON CALLING
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Commissioning Course
When you think of the Professionally Quali ed Of cers Commissioning Course, what springs to mind?
“Vicars and Tarts” ring any bells? Only 4 weeks you say?
Historically this was very much the reputation, with all Army Doctors, Dentists, Vets, Nurses, Padres, Lawyers and Physiotherapists attending a 4 week course at Sandhurst, before becoming commissioned of cers.
In more recent years the course has undergone a big makeover and is now an intensive 11 weeks. It still may not seem comparable to the Regular 44 week course, but it’s surprising what can be crammed in to such a short space of time!
In true PQO style, our arrival was a bit more understated that the regular course. Arriving on a gloomy Sunday afternoon in October, with our cars laden with coat hangers, boot polish and irons, we moved into the concrete city known as Victory Building. It was all a lot calmer and more relaxed than I had anticipated. No CSgt’s herding us around and no timings to make; introductions were made and we all cautiously unpacked our rooms, knowing that the personal items weren’t going to last long!
As expected the pace quickly ramped up, the days began at 0530 with the traditional water parade on the lines and a rendition of the National Anthem in pyjamas, followed by morning room inspection. This was a somewhat stressful event for some and we all very quickly developed bigger biceps as a result of our inadequacies. This pleased our gym loving CSgt very much, it’s all about making “gains”, something one of my fellow VO’s is now very familiar with. The days were lled with more parades, where there was opportunity to make further “gains”, and lessons in drill, weapon handling (WH), tness tests and training for the various other military skills tests known as MATTS. Each day we had new information and skills thrown at us, nothing was repeated twice and we were expected to keep up.
Our rst 3 weeks were in effect the equivalent of weeks 1-5 of the regular course and included our rst exercise; Ex BROWNE’S BEGINNING; on Barossa, Sandhurst’s training area that we’d already become familiar with through our PT and navigation sessions. Equipped with our BCD and WHT passes we patrolled out onto the area to receive our rst day’s instruction in the eld. Thankfully the weather arrived right on queue and the heavens opened just as we departed. I think this quote from my CSgt summed the situation up nicely “you know it’s wet when the water is coming up as well as down”, as I kneeled in a newly formed stream.
The exercise was designed to equip us with our basic military skills, such as setting up harbour areas, patrolling formations, cam and concealment and eld administration. It also consisted of a
Lt Ella Gale –
moving over the ground exercise, a lesson I don’t think our knees let us forget for a while afterwards.
Once out of the rst 3 weeks, the demands of kit admin reduced, but the pace of the course didn’t slow. We covered the remainder of our MATTS and started the more academic lessons held in Faraday Hall. This was an area that was greatly reduced for us in comparison to the regular course, but nonetheless the staff tried to give us a good insight into topics such as Communication and Applied Behavioural Science and War Studies.
We also moved onto our live ring package which culminated in a week of ranges and our Annual Combat Marksmanship Test (ACMT) which I thoroughly enjoyed. It’s also important for myself and my fellow VO’s as when we move to the regiment later this year, we will be completing our Range Management Packages.
As the weeks rolled swiftly on, we completed our next two exercises which progressed our military skills further and started to challenge our leadership as well. We had days of rolling section and platoon attacks, nights of digging and navigation exercises and a round robin of command tasks, plus a pleasurable dip in the Wish Stream, with a stretcher and a couple of “ rst aid tins” (read: ammo boxes lled with sand). The PTI’s kept putting us through our paces too with sessions on the assault course, functional based training in the gym and progressive weighted marches to build us up to the AFT. We also experienced the gas chamber as part of our Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear warfare(CBRN) training, that was probably a day our platoon commander would rather forget after he unwittingly demoted himself back to his Sandhurst days. The CSgts also put on CBRN Olympics for us, think sports day in full CBRN gear.
The next phase of the course moved more onto focusing on developing our understanding of the combat estimate and orders process. As I’m sure anyone who’s been through this process will agree, it can be a bit baf ing at rst and with the very restricted time frame in which we had learn it, the staff did their best to nd novel ways to help us understand the process. This included planning a platoon social using the 7 Questions, I have to say it was a good social!
The course culminated in Ex KEOGH’S RETURN, this exercise was vastly different from our previous ones and we were fortunate enough to have a platoon from 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment to provide us with an enemy population. The staff set us up with an ops room in FOB William and two platoons at a time provided sentries and a patrolling and Quick Reaction Force whilst the remaining platoon set up a harbour area to conduct Ambush’s and Recces from. The aim of the exercise was to establish a Counter Insurgency Force (COIN), this is a strategy that is now used widely in modern operations so it is highly important for us to have a good understanding of what is involved. We conducted welfare patrols and tried to build a picture of the situation on the ground, which was fed back to the Ops room. In one particular patrol some of my multiple were welcomed into one of the villages, this left one of the patrol feeling more than at home, so much so he left his daysack behind – I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone run so fast. Unfortunately, as the exercise ramped up the locals became increasingly hostile, and despite our best efforts it culminated in concurrent dawn platoon attacks to rid the area of all enemy. Naturally we took casualties and had to ensure they were evacuated off the area, to conclude our last day in the eld.
The last few days were lled with nal course admin, we attended Colours to Chapel and had our rst Formal Dinner in our Mess Dress, completed our nal PFA and prepared for our Commissioning Parade.
The day of commissioning was a day none of us will forget, with all our families there to see us march up the steps it truly made the weeks of minimal sleep worth it.