9th-12th-Lancers - Year 1986 - Page 0066
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| Regiment | 9th/12th Lancers |
|---|---|
| Year | 1986 |
| Transcription |
THE 9TH/12TH ROYAL LANCERS REGIMENTAL JOURNAL complete with three inches of snow. Nevertheless. the pro—Northern Ireland training was extremely interesting. The final three week work—up was partic- ularly good value, and although it was undertaken at a very demanding pace. it imparted to everyone involved the standards that were necessary to avoid disaster. Three weeks after the end of that phase I found myself in Shackleton Barracks. Ballykelly, an enormous sprawl which once had housed 3000 airmen, and now contain an impressive cross—section of the military com- munity in Northern Ireland. The Bat— talion has little actually to do in Bally- kelly other than maintain the security of the base itself. The only dedicated piece of TAOR belonging to the Bally- kelly regiment is a company base at Aughnacloy, on the tip of the Monaghn salienti This. no doubt, will be familiar ground to those who served in Omagh not so long ago. The Omagh resident battalion is SLI. and they appear to be as busy as ever in Fermanagh. My job as the company second in command entailed my becoming the company ops officer for the majority of the time. Whilst in Aughnacloy it was my responsibility to supervise the day to day business of the patrolling within our company TAOR. Although it is not a very large area to patrol, it is an area in which a considerable amount of terrorist activity takes place. Within a few days of our arrival in the province, the UDR base at Dungannon just to the north east of Aughnacloy, became the latest target of the renewed PIRA mortar attack campaign. One of the main tasks in our first few weeks was to provide round the clock protection for the Royal Engineers rebuilding the Ballygawley RUC station. This had been destroyed the previous month in a shooting and bomb attack in which two RUC men were killed. The threat to the Security Forces is now significantly higher than it has been for some years. This would appear The Ops Officer at Aughnacloy I No — This was NOT posed! ‘ i to be largely as a result of the emotions unleashed on both sides by the new Anglo-Irish agreement. During the past few months the Nationalists have been causing the problems, but with the onset of the Unionist “marching season" there might well be a return to the dis- turbances of the 1970's in Northern Ireland. Life within the security forces base is a monotonous routine that would be ex- tremely dull if there was not so much going on. There is always the possiblity of something happening at anytime. Although the threat is ever-present. there is always work to be done, and the long hours. seven days a week, make the days fly past. In any case, the alt- ernatives to work are very few — writing articles for the Regimental Journal or, in desperation, seventeen laps of the inside of the base to do a EFT! My time with the Grenadiers still has many months to go. Fortunately not all of them will be spent within the confines of Aughnacloy SF base. There are a number of other sides to the job in [re- land, at least two of which include ski- ing on leave and sailing on duty. And, of course. the shuttle flies direct to Heathrow! J M M |
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