9th-12th-Lancers - Year 2005 - Page 0033
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| Regiment | 9th/12th Lancers |
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| Year | 2005 |
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REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE 9TH/12TH ROYAL LANCERS (PRINCE OF WALES’S) 31 Covert Surveillance A Sqn’s elite covert troops delivered timely info for Bde Ops with detailed photography from the sweaty hands of LCpl Whitehall, whilst the grubbier hands of Cpl Smith and Cfn Williamson kept the Rovers roving. The voyeuristic tendencies of all 3 were well suited to sneaking around at night taking pictures. The Drawdown of REME in Theatre The EME’s job of reducing REME in theatre, in line with Corps doctrine of re-balancing, was made significantly easier as LAD members kindly arranged their own transport home: Sgt Graciano’s trip to Canada saw him representing the Corps at Ice Hockey, he managed to get back in time for his R&R flight; Cpl Mclvor won the Class 1 lottery; LCpl Calvert covertly buried l x Samson and the ASM with constant concerns of having noth- ing to do, in fact, proved it and left under the cover of darkness. Even the EME was keen to jump ship with claims of an early posting. EME’s Summary I am very aware that as this is published the tour will be over and summer will again be with us. My 2 year tenure will be up, so I will take this opportunity to take to the floor. I have found that in every post I have been in it is not the job that has made my time enjoyable, it is the people I have had the honour to work with. Once again I have fallen on my feet: throughout my time with 9/12L LAD I have been ably supported by all of you and I have enjoyed every minute of it. It gives me great confidence to see the levels ofperformance that REME soldiers can achieve. As tradesmen, as soldiers, and as sportsman you should be justly proud. The good grace with which the LAD has taken all that has been thrown at it is typi- fied by a piece of razor wit I found in, of all places, a portaloo: baking hot, smelling ofprevious tardis occupants deposits, with flies buzzing around my nether regions I was cheered by the quote ‘Can it get better than this?’ Wherever you go in the future, in line with your posting pref- erences of course, I wish you all the best and thank you for your hard work, loyalty and good humour. Thank you. Gymnasium During the last 12 months there have been a lot of changes to what was once the Station Gym. It started by giving 3 RHA half of our equipment to free up floor space so we could have an indoor area where we could carry out BPFA’s and CircuitTraining. This was fantastic and the movement of the kit and the paper- work went smoothly. With the equipment and machinery that we had left, myself and the PTI’s came up with a plan to relocate all the Cardio Vascular and the Resistance machines into what use to be the boxing room, this would free up even more space which meant that we could now even play minor team games at the end of a lesson like Uni - Hock or 5-a-side, finishing a PT session on a high. This was now the 9th/ 12th Gymnasium so we put in for a new sign to be made so the rest of the garrison knew who the gym belonged to. While waiting for the sign to be made we had a visit from a group of people wearing suits, carrying briefcases and clipboards, so I introduced myself and asked ifI could help them. The answer was “no we are just looking around”. Approximately one month later I was informed by the SMI 7 Armd Bde that the Regional Rehabilitation Unit (RRU) were going to be attaching themselves to our gymnasium which will not interfere with the way 9th/ 12th run their gym. LCp/ Baker bola/jg green around the g/Hs, We were going to get new showers and toilets which we would have to share with the RRU, not a problem, we can live with that. The work started, the field was marked out for the new build and the diggers arrived, then out of the blue a phone call from the QM “Staff you have to move yourself and all of your stuff out of your office”. “When by sir?” “By 0830, which only gives you 10 mins because the builders are knocking a doorway through to your office and they are knocking your office down, and your gym is now closed until further notice”. So my staff and I, along with the lads on pre course, emptied the office of all its stuff and put it neatly into the main hall. We were then temporarily relo- cated into the RHA gymnasium that were kind enough to let us have an office and use their gymnasium floor space just as long as our timings for PT didn’t clash. So we settled into a routine around the RHA and got on with it. In Jan 05 I went to work as an instructor on Exercise Snow Warrior (ESW) for 3 months teaching members of the Regiment to Ski. However, while your away it’s always good to phone up to make sure everything is still going 0k, which it was, and we shouldbe able to move back into our gymnasium at the beginning of April. On arriving back at Hohne the RRU building was almost finished. It looked really good except they had put all the machines and equipment back in the main hall and had taken over the Gym fully. We were built an office in the corner of the main gymnasium, and now that the gym has been taken over by the Skin Rubbers we don’t any longer have any say over the run- ning of it. During the last year we have had two soldiers from the 9th/ 12th Lancers pass the new All Arms Physical Training Instructors (AAPTI) course, They are LCpl Chris Liburd and LCpl Richard Harrison, both of them received excellent reports with recommendations to attempt the Army Physical Training Corps (APTC) selection course in the future. Well done lads and good luck in the future. Currently the Regiment are in Iraq on TELIC 07 based at Shaibah Log Base (SLB). HQSqn are still running with a robust physical training programme, from Super Cones to Trim-Trails. Sport is still very much alive here in Iraq with Volleyball being the main sport, there is a half marathon forecast for New Years Day and there is to be a Charity Boxing Night held towards the end of the tour. |
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