Page 18 - The Light Blue Volunteer Journal 2022

CCS 222
Having spent 2 years with CUOTC, and a year previously training with the Army Reserve, going to Sandhurst to attend the Commissioning Course Short felt like the obvious and exciting next step. Perhaps it is more of a comment on my sanity, than the course itself, but I can genuinely say that, in being tasked to write about the highs and lows of the course, I can recall a stream of highs, and few if any lows.
Entering a platoon of others who
were only attending modules C & D, the majority were members of OTCs who had completed modules A & B at their units. This led to a fantastic platoon dynamic, in which we all bonded very quickly, with vaguely illicit trips to Pop World in Guilford being planned from the off. The only downside of the common background of the majority of our platoon, was that COVID had hampered the delivery of some people’s OTC training over the past couple of years. This meant that initially, our platoon was slightly behind the other platoons, who had been training at Sandhurst for two to four weeks already. However, thanks to some late nights in the classroom and the hard work of our directing staff, we were the certainly the best platoon by the time we passed out (according to us, if not others...).
The most enjoyable experiences
for me were in the field, and certainly this is where I learnt the most about being a platoon commander, and leadership in general. We had two exercises, a 4-day exercise in module
C and a 2-day exercise in module D. These both consisted of a relentless stream of platoon attacks, with the main appointments of platoon commander
and platoon sergeant changing for each. Each person was appointed to one of these roles at some point over the two exercises, and were assessed on how they performed by the staff. As this was perhaps the single most important event we were assessed on at Sandhurst, there could hardly have been more of a build up to my appointment, as I was made finally made platoon sergeant for the final attack of the final exercise.
Certainly, things started well with
our staff sergeant calling my portion
of the orders the best he had seen at Sandhurst. My unbearable smugness was short-lived however. The next morning, we conducted our attack. And after being contacted by an in-depth position, I sent off the reserve section for an assault and quickly realised that
I had absolutely no idea where the new reserve section (who had previously been providing fire support) were. As seems to be the way, radio comms stopped working just when I needed them. So began a game of Marco Polo, through the marshland, in an attempt to find them. I did manage to find them in the end and was fortunate to get them more or less into position for when
the platoon commander needed them. Though, of course, the ever-watchful directing staff did not miss this episode. In the end a lesson was learnt, and the DS feedback was very positive, even if they did describe it as “a rollercoaster of an appointment”.
Whilst there were certainly times when I made mistakes, even these
were positive opportunities to learn.
My overwhelming feeling about my
four weeks on CCS 222 was that it was tremendous fun, I would recommend it to anyone, and I thoroughly look forward to attending the full 44-week regular commissioning course after university!
2Lt Matthew Hannon
18 THE LIGHT BLUE VOLUNTEER