Morning:
6°c
It is wet, bitterly cold and painfully early on a Sunday as the “soldiers under training” come crashing through the undergrowth, weighed down by helmets and backpacks, rifles at the ready.
Exhausted and hungry, they have spent more than 24 hours in the open, snatching sleep while colleagues guard against “enemy” attacks. They are learning how to conduct a “tactical retreat” from a firefight, which culminates in an energy-sapping half-mile hike extracting a “wounded” colleague on a stretcher. Welcome to life in the Territorial Army.
The Army's regional training centre in Aldershot delivers one in five of the TA's new recruits each year. “The TA is here for one purpose today,” said Major David Rogers, officer commanding 4th Division recruit training company. “We are preparing soldiers to go out to Afghanistan. We don't beat about the bush.
“They have been out on the ground for two days. They will be tired, they will be wet, they will be cold. We just push them that little bit more to prove to them that they can push themselves harder. It gives them a little bit of a taster of what is coming up.”
The training, initially involving six alternate weekends over a 12-week period, has three key elements: weapon handling, field craft and fitness.
In Afghanistan they are faced with the same deadly dangers as regular soldiers - IEDs and insurgents. The TA training now places greater emphasis on shooting skills as a result of lessons learned.
One TA trainee, Craig Charlton, 23, an engineer from Worthing, hopes to become a soldier in the Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment. “It was something I have always been interested in,” he said. “I can't see the point of doing the training if you're not prepared to go [to Afghanistan].”
Another, Jo Loft, 28, who works in Slough as an events manager, said: “You get fulfilment out of the TA that you can't get out of civilian life.”
Mark Hodges, 39, a security officer at Norton Rose, was in the Army between 1987 and 1992. “[Joining the TA] has been in the back of my mind for a few years,” he said. “I just fancied challenging myself before I got too old. Life begins at 40.”
Marc Drummond, 40, a father of five from Oxford, previously served as a regular soldier in Northern Ireland. “Everybody wants to do their bit and do something more than a Monday to Friday job,” he said. “I was quite surprised how good the training is.”
There are 3,000 members of the TA in London - 10 per cent of the national total. Around 600 Army, Navy, Marines and RAF reservists are currently serving in Afghanistan.
One of the TA instructors, Sergeant Paul Dyer Wright, 37, from Brighton, has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I have trained recruits here and been on tour with them,” he said. “If I was to mobilise I have not a doubt that some of these guys could deploy with us.”
Another instructor, Lance Corporal Kevin Morrison, 42, a warehouse manager in Poole, is undergoing his own pre-deployment training in advance of a tour of Afghanistan. He was previously in the TA in the Eighties.
He said: “The TA in 1989 was a lot different to the way it is now. You are under no illusion that in three years you could be out there doing the real thing.”
He has a son of 16 but wants to play his part in the British effort in Afghanistan. “I was watching TV and seeing the news and thinking I could be there doing something, helping someone, doing a role I can do, rather than leaving someone else to do it.”
Major Rogers describes the process as “putting the green chip” in civilians. Further skills are learned at Catterick or Pirbright before they become trained soldiers. When they are mobilised to go to war, they become full-time soldiers for the period and spend up to three-and-a-half months training before being deployed.
TA soldiers require a minimum of 18 months' experience before they are deployed to a war zone, plus further pre-deployment training. They are required to give up 27 days a year for training. Of the 80 who would apply to start a TA training course, around a quarter fail to turn up or drop out quickly. About half complete the course at their first attempt while the remainder are “recycled” and will eventually qualify.
