9th-12th-Lancers - Year 2003 - Page 0045
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| Regiment | 9th/12th Lancers |
|---|---|
| Year | 2003 |
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REGIMENTAL JOURNAL OF THE 9TH/12TH ROYAL LANCERS (PRINCE OF WALES’S) 43 With Camera to War — A Media Operations Staff Officer aving spent a busy, but very enjoyable summer of 2002 brieflyback with the Regiment in Canada, it dawned on me that I could put off the inevitable Staff job no longer! HQ LAND Command beckoned; I was to become one of two $03 MNTs, chosen partly because no one seemed to have a clue what it entailed, and partly because the outgoing incumbent had described it as “...the best fun he had had in the Army.” I was sold! MNT stands for Mobile News Team. Largely unknown to the majority of the Army, there are three MNTs based at LAND whose role is to film and photograph newsworthy activities that the Army gets up to, be it on operations, exercise, adventure training or just in barracks. We then market and distribute this (both free of charge) to the national, regional and sometimes international media. This material supplies both news pro- grammes and documentaries, but either way it helps keep the Army in the public eye. It is also used in many military inter- nal and external publications and for training videos and the like. It is all finally archived at the Imperial War Museum in London. Rather surprisingly for the Army, the team’s equipment is first class, often attracting jealous looks from other photojournalists and TV crews. TV footage and photographs are now all digital and we are able to transmit them from anywhere in the world to any media company in a matter ofminutes. During operations we become a Combat Camera Team (CCT), filming and photographing where the media either can’t get to or won’t go. The resulting material is then supplied to the MOD and the Worlds media companies. An MNT/CCT typically consists of an $03 as leader and two RLC soldiers (both professionally trained, one as a TV camera- men, the other as a photographer). When not on operations a civil servant media writer can be attached. There are also a number of professionally trained civil servant TV cameraman in the branch. I quickly realised that the post gave me great freedom of action; researching, planning and leading trips to film troops all over the World. Training for the role was very much “on the job” and sadly Op FRESCO replaced Afghanistan as my baptism of fire! However, it was invaluable experience of how the media work, their needs and vices, that was to prove vital while on Op TELIC. With war looming the day-to-day jobs gave way to trying to work out what our role in the TELIC media plan would be! You want to make sure you put some sunscreen on that ba/d patch There was much talk, but as the Army had not put two CCTs into this sort of operation since WWII, it was all a little woolly and we had little top cover! It was decided that we would attach ourselves to one of the Battle Groups to acquire footage and images from the frontline that the general media and the embedded journalists could not get due to the proximity of the fighting. Having filmed 7 Armd Bde training in Germany, we arrived in Kuwait at the beginning of March. There followed two frantic weeks filming the preparations and training, interviewing sol- diers and waiting, like everyone else, for our kit to arrive! With no idea of timelines we sprayed our vehicles, picked up our TA drivers and I attached my team of four in two Land rovers to the lst Bn The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers Battle Group (1 RRF BG). They welcomed us, although there were a few raised eye- brows as I explained how we were planning to dash around the battlefield in unescorted and un armoured vehicles while snap- ping and filming away! The team’s first major success was the photograph you will all have seen on the front page of every national UK paper; some 7000 British soldiers listening to USMC Gen Conway’s address as Cobra helicopters fly overhead. The l RRF BG was to be the first through the breech into Iraq. After a day of enemy missile attacks that had us in and out of NBC kit like a change parade, we moved up to the border at night. I convinced a newly commissioned female Engineer Tp Ldr, who was leading the breech operation into Iraq, to let us join her to film it with our night sight. With friendly artillery and mortar fire covering us (sometimes a little too close for com- fort!) the breech was made and the QRL tanks, followed by the Mowng p/ctures |
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