SECRET ARMY TRAINING
A Secret HJP mission was set. Two members were chosen. The task was to complete a weekend training exercise with the TA. We Set out on friday night to a secret base in Cambridgeshire. Only one problem, on arrival, one team member had to pretend to be someone else. Luckily security was not too tight and i ended up having to be John L** for the weekend.
It was a great location on the lake. The first night was spent collecting gear and getting pissed at the very cheap bar (£1 a drink). Lovely old job. Then off to bed on the floor at approx 2.00am in a nearby Gym. Mikey was assigned to another team and unlucky enough to be based in a nearby garage.
Before you know it we get a nice 6.00am wake up call. A rushed breakfast and we pack our kit bags and we are off to start our training. It ended up being a hardcore day in the field using only our rations for food and being ever alert of other teams as we all compete to be the best overall team of the weekend.
We had a number of mental and physical exercises to complete over an 18 hour period on day one. These included:
A parade where we had to practice formal marching in a marked area under the guidance of a full on Sgt from the Royal Artillery. Firing range practice. Winching a Land Rover out of a ditch after having to fit the wheel without a jack and using bits of wood in the area to lift the vehicle. Orienteering on a raft in a lake filled with markers each of a different score. A two hour late night schoole room based mission planning exercise, with a grueling assessment of our plan (nightmare) and we ended the evening with a mission to ambush a bunch of rebels with real SA80 rifles and a load of blank rounds. In addition some of us got to use night vision scopes (well cool).
After all that we camped out in the woods under the stars to be rapidly awoke by gun fire and an evac across a lake under fire at 6.00am. Unluckily another team sank the evac boat so we had to march out of the field. Before we know it we had to push a trailer around the camp and straight away complete a grueling assault course finishing with a 12ft high wall that the whole team has to get over.
The whole team was totally killed. After the assault course and a quick blind driving session we were off to build a raft out of some barrels, rope and planks. Under the stop watch all the time we rapidly pushed the boat onto the lake to navigate around a marker and race all the way back to the bank. Yet, just when we thought that was the highlight of everything they bust out chops with another 1 hour metal test. Man the love that shit.
So after all that it was only Sunday lunch time. A nice few nibbles and we were all finished. It was a totally wicked weekend, Mike and I met some totally cool people and were pushed beyond what we could ever imagine and came out alive. Broke the news of the covert infiltration of the crew on Sunday before we left. They took it quite well considering some of the team worked for the MOD security..ahhh