Commanding Officer's Notes March 2008
Deployments
As the end of March approaches and a few months have passed since my last CO’s notes, my thoughts are with those Royal Yeomen with the Household Cavalry in Afghanistan and those just starting their mobilisation and training to go there with the Queens Royal Lancers. These members of the Regiment along with the others mobilised or on Full Time Reserve Service in the UK, Germany or Canada are important ambassadors for the TA and the Regiment and from all reports and letters we have had they have done us proud. They are also living proof of the commitment we, as a Regiment, have and continue to show in supporting our Regular colleagues on operations at this busy time. It is great for the individuals who go as they return with skills and experience to share with the rest of us. They also return with some good stories to tell, now not least for some about having served with a Prince!
Regimental Activity
The period since my last notes is traditionally a quiet period for training and events. All the Squadrons and Regimental Headquarters supported Remembrance Sunday. W Squadron in particular represented the TA at the Cenotaph and acquitted themselves well in front of the public and the more critical experts in the Household Division. At the end of November we had the Regimental Exercise on and around Salisbury Plain. It was a formation reconnaissance exercise with the squadrons manoeuvring against each other from Oxford down and onto Salisbury Plain. It was a great chance for commanders at all levels to practice their skills. In December the Squadrons all held their Christmas parties and the Officers Mess held their Ball, all of which form an important part of Regimental life. Whilst training is important, the social side of the Regiment plays a big role in bringing us together as well as giving our better halves a chance to have fun with us too. With the New Year we started the individual training period, when we focus on running the trade training courses in Signals, Driving & Maintenance and CBRN at weekends and Drill nights. These ensure all our soldiers get their “trades” prior to the more complex collective training at Troop and Squadron level in the spring and summer. That training included an Officers and Senior Non-Commissioned Officers weekend in Thetford in January to develop their professional skills as commanders and leaders. This will all culminate at Annual Camp in September. This year it is up in the Borders, where we will be spending the two weeks in the field living off our vehicles and putting into practice all we have learnt. I intend it to be fun, challenging and testing for us all, as that is how we will learn. Just hope the weather plays as well!
TA 100
A key set of events coming up will be the start of the events to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the formation of the Territorial Army in 1908. While we as a Regiment can trace our roots back to Napoleonic times in 1794, the first time we deployed was in the Boer War. It was partly as a result of that deployment that the TA as we know it now came into being as properly constituted reserve for the Regulars and insurance policy for the country. It is salutary that 100 years later the TA is proving itself as relevant as ever. If you have not already, I encourage you read to the “history” pages of the individual squadrons to understand what the Regiment and its antecedents have done in the service of the nation in the last 100 years. The collective list of battle honours tells the tale well. In the First World War, serving at Gallipoli and in Palestine as well as on the Western Front. In the Second World War in North Africa at Alamein, in Italy and then we were in the vanguard in Normandy on 6th June 1944 and thence across Europe. Finally and most recently our newest and only purely Royal Yeomanry battle honour of “Iraq 2003.” It is a history of service and sacrifice to be proud of and one that continues to be written in Iraq and Afghanistan today.
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