Page 43 - Bugle Autumn 2014

ear and assumed a defensive posture. Whilst the Platoons cracked on with
their tasks, Company HQ coordinated the attachments that complete the Bastion Training Centre including the Operational Training and Advisory Group [OPTAG] and driver training. The rest of A Coy focused heavily on Op MASSIVE – the Company’s preparations to become extras in the second sequel to ‘300’.
Outside “green” soldiering A Company has been well represented in extracurricular activities. A good number of the company have represented the battalion at sport including football, rugby boxing and cricket, as well as less mainstream sports such as badminton, basketball and sailing.
The company has also been well represented in the battalion’s Adventure Training exercises, with members climbing to Everest base camp and the lion’s
share of the battalion’s divers coming
from A Company. There have been many opportunities that the riflemen have grasped to challenge themselves and also to pick up AT qualifications. A team of seniors from the company also conducted a Tough Mudder obstacle course race for charity, dodging electric shocks, swimming in mud and clambering over obstacles over 12 miles near Chester. On the back of this, CSjt Mark Holloway was entered into the world championship event, which was a 24-hour endurance version in which he finished very respectably.
It has been a successful year and although there have been a large number
of new faces and some sad farewells, the A Company ethos remains strong as ever and leaves the company in an excellent position to deal with whatever the next year throws at us.
Lt Nick Dawnay, A Coy 2IC
Lt Hugh Hemsley, A Coy Pl Comd
Lt Prince delivering a set of orders to 6 PL on MRX
B Company overview
Following their extended summer exercise in Germany, B Company was largely spread to the four corners for the autumn and winter of 2013. Two teams took part
in the Cambrian
patrol, led by Lts
Quayle and Corder.
Lt Corder’s scratch
team returned with
a silver medal, no
mean feat and a credit to the attitude of the company. With individual courses for the Kabul operational deployment beginning to take effect, Lt Ara escaped with a team of riflemen and JNCOs to the Infantry and Army skiing championships and others deployed to the Oman or Nigeria as part of short- term training teams.
With the New Year came a frenzy of driver training to bring the company from ‘zero to hero’ as a putative mechanised company. Mounted in Foxhound, the training bill for each young rifleman is considerable, matched by a cultural adaptation
from soggy bergen to million-pound armoured patrol vehicle. By March the company began to reconstitute after
a relentless spell of trawls, individual
training and instructing detachments; company parades swelled to almost 100 men and we prepared for
the distinct, different role of force
...from soggy bergen to million- pound armoured patrol vehicle
protection in Kabul. The pre-tour
training treadmill span too fast
to afford much reflection on our seven years in
Ballykinler, before we knew it we
were through the collective training and onto the boxing and scrubbing
of the move to Lisburn, barely time
for a farewell thrashing along the beach. Early impressions of Thiepval Barracks are unusually positive; the company looks forward to exploring
its new, accessible doorstep on its return in Spring 15. Amongst all this Maj Rich Wood handed over to Maj Mark Shercliff, and CSjt Jaime Moncho departed on promotion from CQMS
to B Coy 3 RIFLES. On the sporting front silverware kept trickling in, for the NI Steeplechase, the NI Swimming Championship and a record time for the 50km Mourne Mountains’ Plod. Maj M Shercliffe
THE RIFLES
SECOND BATTALION 41
This is what we do...
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and who we are...
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THE LIGHT DRAGOON
The Regimental Journal of
The Light Dragoons
Swanton Morley Volume 5 Number 4 April 2013
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THE LIGHT DRAGOON Volume 5 Number 4
THE DELHI SPEARMAN VOLUME XI NUMBER 15