Page 12 - RAPTC Year of 2019

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HEADQUARTERS ROYAL ARMY PHYSICAL TRAINING CORPS
POLICY & PLANS
Maj (MAA) J Hughes SO2 Policy & Plans
At the time of writing the new HQ team are well established after nearly a year in role. With the significant churn of staff in Jun 19, the HQ quickly set about understanding each other’s ways of working, initiated through a Team Building day in London. It was a bright sunny day and I thought to myself, what a
nice relaxing day this would be. Wrong! As the morning progressed, I quickly came to learn that no plan survives first contact and, recognising the overt and competitive nature of the new team, I had to change my delivery and quickly. As lead and only official for the day, I found myself having to adapt and enforce strict rules almost immediately. Otherwise I could have found myself in some very deep water i.e. The Thames but at least the rest of the team gelled quickly, even if it was at the expense of tearing SO2 P&P apart; thank goodness for thick skin!
Military training this year has also been very successful, with a combined AT Ski Exped with ASPT to LES 2 ALPS, in France. This is where we saw the difference between those on a ski holiday and those who were truly put through their paces on an expedition. Some of us, me included, were ‘beasted’ (an understatement) both physically and mentally by the infamous Maj (Nick) O’Shea on SF 3.
Whilst others, (i.e. the SMAA) were having tea and medals at 1600 hrs each day, we continued working right through to 2000 hrs most evenings; noting that Nick forgot dinner started at 1930.
This was further compounded by the fact of having to sleep in very close proximity to the CO ASPT, who snored that loud, he was the cause of many avalanches in the local area, each night. It was that bad both SO2 P&P and 2IC ASPT had to seek refuge in the hostel lobby to get some sort of rest. I thought sleep deprivation was constrained to the office; not! All I can say is thank goodness it’s over, albeit I was glad I got best student; or was it a reshow for next year? A truly worthwhile experience and, what goes around comes around because the SMAA will be SF 3 next year.
It’s not an easy job in P&P I have to say, you have to be very much the diplomat, which as most of you who know me, will appreciate I find this particularly hard. However, in the P&P domain, we have adapted well to the working environment. We continue to tackle / battle with the SMAA’s CDO (OCD but in the right order), having to