Page 84 - QDG 2022

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1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards
St David’s Day
‘a dewi sant’
This year the Regiment has been deployed all over the globe, from West Africa to Salisbury Plain. With our Soldiers so widely spread it was critical that this year’s St David’s Day be designed to allow everyone to take part. It also provided the opportunity to expe- rience other Regimental traditions when combined with St Patrick’s Day cele- brated by A Coy 1 Royal Irish who were working alongside the Regiment in Mali. It was also great to see the Regimental Comrades Association get stuck in again and QDG recruits in Phase 2 training completing several tasks
under the watchful eye of WO1 Pete Cubitt.
Whilst the Regiment was
unable to celebrate on 1st
March due to being out on
patrol over the course of
Op NEWCOMBE it never-
the-less provided an event
to look forward to for those
deployed. On the 8th March
the combined St David’s and
Patrick’s Day began at the
reasonable hour of 0001hrs
to avoid temperatures that
rose up to 40 degrees. The
task was simple, each Sqn
was to accumulate the maximum number of miles possible by any means neces- sary, be in walking, running, cycling or crawling. The particularly adventurous chose to start the day by running a full marathon with LCpl Young, LCpl Carew and Tpr Huish being among the first to complete distance. Throughout the night, over 600 miles had been completed and with the temperature providing a low of around 25 degrees, the team were already putting in a huge amount of effort! The miles kept coming in throughout the day and with Cpl Thomas keeping track, there was no way of pulling the wool! He made sure that all mileage and partici- pants were taken care of and between him LCpl Rees and the PTI’s, the day ran in an amazingly efficient manner. By 1000hrs the LRRG had already hit over 1,000 miles – a great effort!
At 0815hrs the Commanding Officer and Maj Mansel delivered the day’s selected tasks to all QDGs in theatre and back in the UK. The Squadron Sergeant Majors then briefed their teams, making it clear failure was not an option. Tasks to be completed included receiving a message from a famous celebrity and acting out a skit from a popular Welsh or Irish film. For this skit, there was some top level acting and with LCpl Phillips being editor in chief of the LRRG, there was only one way it could go. LCpl Harcourt
put together a great rendition of Twin Town with LCpl Young securing victory in this task. Other tasks included getting a picture from a drone spelling out ‘Happy St David’s & Patrick’s Day from the LRRG’ and of course the traditional leek eating competition. Never before have I seen the leeks go down range so quickly with the fastest eater taking only 23 seconds. Indeed, I had to check that the winner hadn’t swallowed his fingers!
Such commitment to winning could be seen in the competitive spirit that soon
A Coy took
it upon themselves to don balaclavas and trash the GMSG block
developed.
A Coy took it upon them- selves to don balaclavas and trash the GMSG block then double padlocked A Sqn’s iso container, which contained their chariot. A bold move but one that was swiftly answered by the A1 Commander, a resident of the GMSG block. Karma would soon come back to them and with only two ration menus for 6 months and the dread of eating Chilli Con Carne, normality was swiftly restored! The day ended with one last run to account for the required
mileage and the traditional chariot race, organised by A Coy. To say that it was competitive and sometimes a bit risky is an understatement! The Royal Irish took the chariot race very seriously, to call it a baptism of fire may well be an under- statement. However, everyone finished in one piece... just about.
The final parade of the day was initially held over Zoom back to the UK. Using this platform, we managed to speak to members of the Regiment at ERE and brief all soldiers at Regimental Duty in the Gymnasium. Incredibly, the joint distance covered was 3,129 miles, a brilliant achievement by all. The day was a big success and one that allowed us to raise a good amount of money for the Dreams and Wishes Charity. The day was a huge success, and we all pass our thanks onto everyone from the wider Regimental community for getting involved and contributing towards our national day.
DC
1st place
2nd place
3rd place
4th place
5th place
6th place
7th place
HQ Sqn
C Sqn
A Sqn
F Sqn
E Sqn
B Sqn
RCA 2022