Week 10 Musician O'Malley 29 October - 04 November 2001

Well after a nice relaxing long weekend at home with our families it was back to the great outdoors; for a week of Kosher meals and curried beans on Exercise Hunters Moon.

We arrived at Longmoor camp and guess what? Our first task was to put the tents up… even though we wouldn't be sleeping in them. Once we had put up the tents we were all armed with Jerry cans of water and had a lesson on how to set up trip flares. The water was just in case we set something… or someone on fire. It was then time for us to move to our new home… the harbour position. Sergeant Higgins and the 3 section commanders went and did a recce of the chosen harbour position, whilst the remainder of us cooked our scran and waited for it to get dark.

After setting up the harbour position it was time for us to do our first proper night NAVEX. Before we set off Colour Sergeant Basford said that we wouldn't be going through any water that was above our knees. I think his statement was directed to the taller members of troop because Musn Dawkins and I had to put up with wet knickers for the rest of the night after going through some 'knee deep water'. The following morning, much to our relief, we did not have a kit inspection and the rest of the day passed quickly with lessons in the various skills we had learnt in the class room the weeks before.
The next morning and we did have a kit inspection! The instructors were not impressed by the state of many people's weapons and kit so we had a brief practice in moving with and without weapons in the perfect instructor terrain with plenty of mud.

Then after a lesson in which we covered fire and manoeuvre it was decided it was time to change the terrain type… so we practised fire and manoeuvre in some heather instead. This however wasn't too bad and, although physically tiring, most of the troop myself included enjoyed this lesson. After a hard day of physical lessons we then moved back to our harbour position and got our heads down, unless we were on sentry duty. These duties seemed to take up most of our time as we changed the rota every 30 minutes because certain members of the troop had decided to sleep whilst on sentry the previous night!

The next day everyone was extremely tired however we were all feeling a little better as we remembered were going home later on in the day.
During the day we were taught how to search bodies/people and vehicles, because that night we had a small taster of an attack exercise. During the exercise Musn Shaw was told to search a vehicle, during the day were told that we shouldn't open the doors ourselves just in case they were booby trapped. However, when told to do so by Sgt Connelly Musn Shaw didn't hesitate and ended up making a booby trapped thunder flash go off.

After the exercise we then had a yomp back to where the coach was waiting for us (about 1½Km away) with our Bergen's. I don't know about anyone else but I ended up doubling part of the route as I just couldn't keep up any other way.

The next day we cleaned all of the field stores making sure they were all imaculate. We then had a lesson in NBC (Nuclear, Chemical, Biological Warfare) where Musn Lowe had his trousers cut off and we were shown how to go to the toilet!

Saturday and we had PT during the first period. Sgt Griffin was not at all impressed with our performance and we lost count of how many times we had to run around the camp circuit. We then had 10 minutes to have a shower, get changed and get ready for the next period of NBC with Sgt Henderson. I think the first people to arrive were 4 minutes late. It was then time for us to sit our NBC re-test hopefully we'll all have passed when we get our results next week.
This weekend however, everyone had shore leave until 0200 instead of 2300. That is everyone except myself, Musns Dawkins & Gray because we are all 16 and have to be tucked up in bed by 2359. Everyone was relieved at this extra bit of freedom. Unfortunately we saw the departure of Musn Sparkes who left us this week to seek pastures new, we wish her ever success in whatever she choose to do.

Troop 2001 ready for exercise Hunter's Moon	The troop move into the Harbour Position
Sgt Higgins takes the troop through casualty & body searching	Prisoner handling, searching & the Geneva Convention
Sentry duty...	...in the harbour position
Preparing for a load carry	Section standing too
L/Cpl Lou Simpson mucks in as one of the team	Reporting any activities in the area
Firing position assumed...	...at the harbour position
Standing too at dawn	Troop 2001 on Patrol
ENDEX and the journey home... time for some Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz's
Photographs taken by CSgt Paul Basford

Musn O'Malley