Page 15 - Mercian Eagle 2014

stationary at the bottom of a small waterfall, and then to jump into it from another boat positioned at the top of the water fall. LCpl Rogers from B Company was slightly put off by the name the ‘Tumble, but in spite of this he jumped anyway and landed in the raft.
After this the group continued their journey down stream which included several more rough patches of water and trying to paddle under waterfalls.
LCpl Findlow navigating his raft towards another set of rapids
A raft violently entering the ‘Tumble Dryer’
Capsize drills in the ‘Tumble Dryer’
13
This year in B (Malta) Company LCpl Sibanyoni, 6 Pl.
One day I was sitting in the staff room at work as a care assistant and saw on the TV some news reports about British Troops in Afghanistan. Their lives looked so exciting compared to my monotonous job where I was doing the same thing every day. I was keen to sign up and within a year I was at the ITC Catterick.
I really enjoyed being on the operational cycle with 1 MERCIAN. We were out of camp almost every week learning new skills and doing actual soldiering. I learnt how
to be very different to the one we’d just had. We weren’t building up to anything and the opportunity to do some actual soldiering was going to be greatly reduced.
My first priority was to get on a Junior NCO cadre. I felt that I had more to give and this was going to be an opportunity to test myself. Before going on the cadre the Company deployed to Caerwent on an urban exercise. It was good to be back in the field after a few months in
Parachuting in Netheravon
Sanger duty. Before our final insertion tab, CSM Beaseley reinforced the point that Afghanistan was over for us and it was time to start focussing on conventional war again.
The exercise in Caerwent was also my first opportunity to be in a leadership role.
I had already volunteered myself to go on the cadre so I was appointed to act as
a section 2ic. In conventional platoons a LCpl has a lot more responsibility than he would if he was in a multiple. I really enjoyed an opportunity to practice my leadership skills and I also had a different view to the training. I no longer felt like a rifleman trying to get through the exercise, I now felt like part of the chain-of-command, which was trying to get as much training value out
of the exercise as possible. When I saw another Pte soldier firing his LMG from
the hip I knew I couldn’t let him get away without saying anything, so I had to go over and grip him for his behaviour. I knew that
I was going to have to show a lot of moral courage when I became a LCpl.
I went on the JNCO cadre when the rest of the Company were in France
on EXERCISE GAULISH EAGLE. I was disappointed to miss this exercise as it sounded like it was really well run, but I imagine that I will have another chance to work alongside the French as cooperation with other nations seems to be what the future of the army is going to be.
The cadre was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do with the army. We were working really long days and were often sleep deprived. I had to learn things I never
knew before and improve my leadership style. However, by the end of it I felt that
I had been given all the training I needed to start being a Section 2ic.
As soon as I was back in camp I
felt that the other Ptes in the Company were respecting me, more as they knew
that I had completed a cadre and my platoon Sgt, Sgt Miller, started to trust me
with bigger jobs, because he knew that I would be able to complete them. Before the Company deployed on EXERCISE IIRON TRIANGLE I was trusted to carry out the kit checks, I think I would have struggled to do this as a normal Pte soldier
to use a HORN and became so good at it, that I was made point man by my Platoon Commander, Mr Fisher, for the whole tour.
I really enjoyed being on the operation cycle with 1 MERCIAN.
Operations was
everything I’d expected
it to be. I was based in a
check point in Zarawa,
as a Private soldier, holding ground and building relations with the local population. My life was challenging and varied but nothing I hadn’t been trained for.
focussed, each patrol wasn’t being led by a HORN man and we were wearing ECBA instead of Osprey, which traded protection for mobility. We were sleeping in harbours instead of FOBs, covertly being on sentry duty instead of being a show of force on
camp. In Caerwent
we were going back to conventional soldiering, which was very different from what we had been doing in Afghanistan and many of us were relearning skills that we hadn’t practiced since phase one training in Catterick. We were no longer so Counter-IED
We returned from operations in May 2014 and I knew that the year ahead was going
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