Starbucks, Clapham, London
After my 3 weeks on the beach in Malaysia I spent a very pleasant, and drunken, long weekend in Singapore before flying back to London on Tuesday the 17th of May, arriving back in London in time to be in the pub in Clapham Old Town by about 8.30 PM. A couple of weeks earlier I'd got an email from my Platoon Commander asking if I wanted to do ‘Senior Brecon’, the Platoon Sergeants’ Battle Course (TA), which would make me eligible for promotion to Sergeant, at the Infantry Battle School, Brecon on the 21st of May. As I was at that point sitting in the beach bar, surrounded by Dutch birds in bikinis, and there was truly nowhere in the world that I wanted to be less than Brecon, I said that I didn’t. Inevitably, after a good few drinks in Clapham, I got home about 3AM, checked my emails and had a very cheery email from my Company Commander (the Platoon Commander’s boss) telling me that I was now a ‘local’ Sergeant (wear the rank, but don’t get the pay) and wishing me luck with the course 3 days later. As ever, if you can’t take a joke, don’t join.
In February 2009, while in the process of ending an engagement and relationship (to the same bird), and with the traditional 3 days’ notice, I did ‘Junior Brecon’, the Section Commanders’ Battle Course, which made me eligible for promotion to Corporal- and at various points I vowed that I was never, ever going back to Wales, ever under any circumstances. My lasting memory of that course was ‘Reacting to Effective Enemy Fire’ and diving into an icy stream, leopard crawling (when you’re on your belt-buckle with your body pressed to the ground) up it, as the water flowed down inside the top of my Combat Body Armour, then leopard crawling out across the snow towards the ‘enemy’ position. Massive crowd pleaser.
The lowest formation in the British infantry is the Rifle Section, which is 8 men commanded by a Corporal, the Section Commander (my current job), with a Lance Corporal (the first rung up from Private) as his 2nd In Command, 2IC, each of whom will lead a 4 man Fire Team, ‘Charlie’ and ‘Delta’, respectively. Within a Platoon (Pl) there are 3 Sections, as well as a Platoon Commander, who will be a junior officer fresh from Sandhurst, an ‘old and bold’ Sergeant, who runs the Platoon for the ‘PC’ and a few others such as a Radio Operator (the job I did in Iraq) to bring the number up to about 30. Three Platoons will then make up the Company (Coy), which is commanded by a Major, run by the Company Sergeant Major, and numbers about 100 men.
Basic training and the Combat Infantryman’s Course get soldiers used to being able to operate effectively when they’re cold, wet, tired and uncomfortable. Consequently the purpose of the infantry promotion courses is to ensure that commanders can not only operate under those conditions but can also plan, make decisions and command when they’re under pressure. The fact is there is a myth generated about ‘Brecon’, generally by people who want to justify not going themselves. Nothing done there is particularly unachievable for anyone mentally and physically robust enough to be an infantry soldier; it is just that the climate and terrain of the Sennybridge Training Area makes it a pretty grim place. For 12 out of 14 days it rained sideways, causing plenty of “Glad I’m doing the summer course”, “Life doesn’t get better than this”, “This is what we joined for,” type observations. The ground underfoot is either ‘baby’s head’, ankle snapping clumps of grass rising out of the bogs, or steep slopes, or a combination- winner!
The Infantry Battle School, Brecon is seen as the ultimate school of excellence for soldiering in the UK, i.e. the world, and the instructors or DS (Directing Staff) are generally some of the most experienced and best soldiers in the army. When at one point my DS Platoon Commander, a Captain who had won the Military Cross in Afghanistan, said “F*ck me, if I was in the TA I’d spend all my time doing tours and going travelling,” I couldn’t help feeling that his opinion must count for something...
The structure of the TA Brecon courses is that for 2 weeks the sections and platoons are made up of a mixture of potential Section Commanders, Platoon Sergeants and Platoon Commanders, all of whom will be taught how to do their respective jobs and take turns at playing that role as a Command Appointment. When not ‘in appointment’ everybody plays the role of being a ‘Jock’/ ‘Tom’ (Private, depending whether Scottish/ English unit) within the platoon, and does the joyous task of Section 2IC which basically means you are everybody’s bitch.
After my 3 days’ notice for the Platoon Sergeants’ Course I turned up at the TA Centre on the Friday evening , spent the night on a PT mat, then headed up to Brecon with the other guys from my unit in the minibus first thing in the morning. The best thing about Brecon is that, apart from officers, it is only for experienced infantrymen, including Royal Marines and the so called RAF Regiment, and ‘soldiers from another unit’, so the standard of soldier is as high as you can ever hope for- and no matter how much you’re suffering everybody else is suffering at least as much! After arriving, having our documentation checked and being given our accommodation we then had about an hour to pack our kit with 25KG’s/ 55lb’s ready for the introductory 6 miler Combat Fitness Test, to blow out the cobwebs. I never find CFT’s particularly difficult, although they do let you know if you’ve got any injuries or not. However, there were a few people who were embarrassing themselves with a lack of fitness, which is a pet hate of mine. How can you expect to lead infantry soldiers if they’re laughing at you for being a fat mong?
The first week of the course was basically a teaching and revising phase, focussing on the current vogue term, DCC, Dismounted Close Combat- killing the enemy just using the guys you have and what they can carry. Part of the week was spent doing blank-firing Section Attacks, using the mechanics of ‘Fire and Manoeuvre’, where nobody moves towards an enemy position unless somebody else is firing at the position. We also used the opportunity to practise our individual drills such as using the ground to provide the best cover, moving fire position after every couple of rounds, changing magazines quickly, ideally while on the move (well ‘ally’ when you get that right!!), ensuring there is correct communication within the section, i.e. lots of shouting “Contact front!”, “Move!”, “Magazine!”, “Move!” etc.
The general procedure would be that the section would advance across open ground until ‘contacted’ by the enemy, they would then go to ground, locate the enemy and suppress him so he’s fixed in place. The Section Commander would then decide what he was going to do, which generally meant Delta Fire Team stayed put, suppressing the enemy, while Charlie F/T with the Sect Cmd moved to a flank and took advantage of some form of cover (invariably a stream) to run/ crawl up to as close as possible to the enemy position. A practise grenade would then be lobbed in and the Sect Cmd and his lucky assistant would ‘kill’ the Gurkhas playing enemy, before calling “Position Clear!” and then Delta F/T would leg it it up the same 'proven' route as fast as they could and everyone would regroup around the enemy position.
The rest of the first week for the Platoon Commanders and Platoon Sergeants was spent doing TEWT’s, Tactical Exercise Without Troops (AKA Pointless Exercise Not Involving Soldiers...) where we would be presented with a hypothetical scenario involving enemy positions and then plan how we would use our platoon to deal with it. We would then deliver our plan to the DS and the remaining students, and the plan and delivery would then be critiqued/ savaged. There was also time in the first week for a cheeky individual Navigation Exercise around the training area in the sideways rain- the trick being to concentrate, get it right, get round ASAP so you could spend as much time as possible in the barn, drinking tea, waiting for the ‘navigationally embarrassed’ mongs to finish! The guy who came last on that was actually a Mortar Fire Controller whose job was to call in Indirect Fire, a job where one would have thought that an ability to map read might be an advantage. On the Friday we did a brisk stroll over Pen-Y-Fan, the highest point in the Brecon Beacons. The highlight of ‘The Fan’ for me was carrying the kit of some weak, 12 year old looking Platoon Commander, who I’d actually trained when he was a recruit a couple of years ago, most of the way round. When he told me at the end that I had done a very good job he was somewhat surprised by the colourful, not entirely respectful, response he got...
Week 2 began on the Saturday, and was entirely based in the field or a primitive F.O.B. (Forward Operating Base). As well as various ‘Advances to Contact’ and Platoon Attacks we also did Reconnaissance Patrols and my personal favourite FIBUA- Fighting In Built Up Areas (often referred to as FISH- Fighting In Someone’s House...). When I was first taught FIBUA, 10 years or so ago, pre 9/11, it was very much hypothetical, based on what people had read about Stalingrad, Hue etc. Today, it is very sobering to know that the instructors, and students, have often done it for real, throwing grenades into rooms in Basra or Afghanistan, and then going into deal with what’s left. My ‘Command Disappointment’ as Platoon Sergeant was for the 24 hours that included the FIBUA phase and it went fairly well, I got a good understanding of what went on and I actually really enjoyed it.
The main realisation of the job was that while the Platoon Commander makes a plan and tells the Section Commanders what is going to happen (in his mind at least) nobody within the Platoon tells the Pl Sgt what to do, you just have to know what everyone else is up to and wants to achieve, and then make it happen for them.
The final phase of the exercise was based in a forestry block, in a ‘platoon harbour’ (tactical campsite) and we just launched a series of day and night deliberate platoon attacks. Apart from 1 patrol as the GPMG machine gunner (12 KG’s rather than the 5 KG rifle), I did the job of Section 2IC pretty much the whole time, as I’d done it far more often than the rest of the section, over the years- and I couldn’t bear seeing the other guys’ faces drop at the suggestion they might be up next! Our penultimate attack involved us crawling through a stream, under a culvert to attack a Taliban, sorry ‘insurgent’, held building while I had my Commander’s radio and 30 mags worth of ammunition- the ultimate abs workout! We eventually finished the final night attack, got back to camp and then I got to bed at 4 AM on the Friday- ready for a 6AM start, a few “Well done you” presentations before heading back to London as a ‘course qualified’ sergeant.
After 3 nights of ‘revelry’ in London I then linked up with my own unit on Monday morning for what was effectively the first week of Pre-Deployment Training for next March’s return to Afghanistan. Firstly we all completed the mandatory annual shooting test, which involves firing at targets from different ranges, using different fire positions- standing at 200m being the most popular... Once everyone had passed this phase we then took the familiar route up the M4 motorway, over the Severn Bridge and back to Brecon and the Sennybridge Training area. Words cannot express the euphoria this filled me with.
Needless to say, of the 2 Corporals in the 30 strong group, I was the only one who had done Senior Brecon, so I played the role of Platoon Sergeant as well as Section Commander for the week. The week involved progressive live fire training starting with individual, where the same use of ground, fire positions, mag changes etc were practised. We then worked through the ranges at pairs, fire team and section level up to a full platoon attack on the last day. While the training during the previous couple of weeks had been entirely blank-firing, live firing is always much more interesting, and keeps you on your toes- particularly at night, with someone behind you firing! The safety staff were from the unit who we’re going to be attached to in Afghan, and they were fairly pleased with what they saw in terms of our own ‘skills and drills’.
Generally I find waiting around in the cold and wet pretty uninspiring, wherever I am. However once the adrenaline gets going and you’re oblivious to the weight of your kit, running at Mach 10 across the babies’ heads, diving into streams, shredding your knees and elbows on the rocks etc before getting into the enemy position and pumping rounds into the target, it is a massive rush, and not an entirely different feeling to playing rugby. Two different regular (as opposed to TA) Sergeants made the observation to me of “F*ck me you’re well mad for this!” I guess, having done everything I have in life, there is no doubt as to where my true motivation lies...
