Other -Secret Army Training

Army Training Weekend - Undisclosed Location - September 2005

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 Jay ended up having to be John L** for the weekend.

Lake based secret camp

The calm before the storm - Jay aka John's team mates

So 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 at approx 2.00am in a nearby Gym. Mike, the other HJP assignment member ended up in a nearby garage (unlucky dude).

Before you know it we get a nice 6.00am wake up call. A rushed breakfast and we pack our bags and we are off for our training. We had a hardcore day in the field using our rations for food and ever alert of other teams as we all compete to be the best 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. Orienteering on a lake finding markers within a short space of time. A two hour late night mission planning exercise, with a grueling assessment of our plan (nightmare) and 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).

Firing range

Ian - SHow me ya war face

Night mission

Night ration munchies

Bed for the night

We camped out in the field overnight after the ambush and were awoke to gun fire and an evac across a lake under fire at 6.00am.

6.00am evac

Unluckily another team sank the evac boat so we had to march out of the field. Before we know it we have 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.

Warm up for the assault course (pushing this around the base)

The last wall of death (12ft mother)

Team after the assault course (shagged)

Blind driving exercise

After the assault course and a quick blind driving mission. Then off to build a raft out of some barrels, rope and planks we were given. After that we had to get it onto the lake and Get the raft onto the lake and navigate round a marker in double quick time to beat the other teams times.

To end it all we had another mental test for an hour. Crazy stuff.

'Metal' exercise

We finally finished at Sunday lunch time.

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

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