Page 14 - MERCIAN Eagle 2020

Company Overview:
OC: Maj Paul Marriott 2IC: Capt Adam Keenan CSM: WO2 Mark Sumner WSM: WO2 Michael
Macpherson
WO2 Mark Nicholls
12
B (Malta) Company
2020 at least began in a relatively normal fashion for B Company. The first quarter
of the year was the usual busy fare of an armoured infantry rifle company. News stories of a virus originating in China began to catch the world’s attention, we all hastily double-checked our CBRN kit in case of
a Third World War with Iran, the majority
of the Company’s Platoon Commanders somehow managed to deploy on ‘exercise’ to various ski resorts and Lt Connor and Sgt Carrol organised an excellent range package for the Company in Lydd and Hythe. By early March, the Company was looking forward to the next twelve months which would see a much-anticipated deployment to Canada, a rather less exciting re-role onto Foxhound vehicles and finally a deployment as the British Army’s answer to armoured Uber in Kabul in March 2021.
Yet none of this would come to pass. As with the rest of the nation, in late March, B Company was plunged into lockdown. Exercises were cancelled, the character of work temporarily changed, and the Company chain of command
got a terrifying view into the bedrooms of our soldiers via various Zoom calls. But while others floundered, B Company drew on its stocks of resilience and positively flourished. Lt Keenan and Cpl Kelsall ran an excellent dispersed PT programme
via Strava. This included a half-marathon which definitely did not include any of the soldiers cheating by riding a bike very slowly instead of actually running. Lt Olive devised a way to teach fieldcraft and other lessons via Google Classroom that proved so successful it was copied by other units and even by training establishments. Lastly, by implementing what I can only imagine
is a regime so strict that it would make
Kim Jong-un blush, CSgt Cornbill, CSgt Goodwin and their teams somehow kept the Company’s stores, armoury, and vehicle fleet at their usual levels of excellence throughout lockdown.
This all meant that when B Company began to return to work in July, it did so with aplomb. Cpl Kelsall, Pte Hannam
and Pte Green recorded the highest Annual Crew Test score in the Battalion at Castlemartin Ranges and were personally congratulated by Brig Ginn. Then, in September, when the Battalion’s 2021 plans changed to operations in Estonia facilitated by a rapid deployment to train in Sennelager, it was B Company that was the chosen Rifle Company. Despite all
B Company, Lydd Ranges, 27 Feb 20
Cpl Martin Kelsall and Brig Paddy Ginn, Bulford, 6 Aug 20
have been careless enough to lose three. WO2 Fowles is now a Company Sergeant Major at the Army Foundation College Harrogate, WO2 Macpherson is now well into his next career as a full-time Reservist and WO2 Nicholls has moved to BGWO after covering a two-month gap as the Warrior Sergeant Major. I would like to wish Mr Nicholls well, but I can already picture him reading this and pulling that slightly disappointed face he seems to have every time I catch him looking at me in the turret.
Our previous Dear Leaders of the
stores and sheds, CSgt Cornbill and Csgt Goodwin, have moved on to teach at the DEMS Training Regiment in Bicester and the Armoured Centre in Warminster respectively. The Platoons also look different. Lt Connor is now teaching recruits at the Infantry Training Centre Catterick while Lt Olive
is now at the Army Foundation College Harrogate. Meanwhile a superb effort by Sgt Geoghegan sees him instructing at Sandhurst, Sgt Thomas is the second in command of the Ajax project in Bovington and both Sgt Hird and Sgt Hall have moved to C Company. There are too many others whom limited space will not allow me to mention, so I will now leave it to my Platoon Commanders to describe in greater detail what an exceptional year their platoons have all had. I am sure that 2021 will be even more successful yet.
THE MERCIAN EAGLE
this turmoil, I remain proud of the efforts
Cpl Martin Kelsall and Brig
Paddy Ginn, Bulford, 6 Aug 20
of all the soldiers within the Company.
I have been consistently impressed with their professionalism, their grit and their seemingly inexhaustible ability to unashamedly lie to my face about their plans to have “a quiet Friday night in Paderborn”.
With the Company now charging towards a well-earned Christmas break after six weeks of training in Sennelager, it is worth reflecting on the people who made this
year possible. Maj Odell has moved on
to pastures new as a contractor within
Army HQ and we wish him the very best. Meanwhile, while the loss of one WO2 could be regarded as a misfortune, B Company
Live Fire Ranges, Sennelager, Germany, 10 Nov 20