4 Rifles Pre Deployment Training.

4RIFLES can trace its linage back to the original 95th Rifles formed in 1802, and 
The "Experimental Corps. of Riflemen" before them, formed in 1800.

Formerly 2nd Battalion, The Royal Green Jackets, they have come full circle becoming The Rifles in 2007 with the amalgamation of the entire Light Division into one "super regiment". 
5 years on from the amalgamation and the battalion has a healthy mix of "new generation" Riflemen, those from the other Light Div regiments and 2RGJ itself.

The battalion holds true to "The Rifleman's Ethos"; their relaxed demeanour and lack of uniformity meant, as 2RGJ, they were often called "slack jackets" by other units. 

We call it "relaxed professionalism". 
At the end of our Pre Deployment Training (PDT), the only things we were criticised for, were our haircuts/sideburns and only wearing t-shirts underneath our body armour. 
As our Company Serjeant Major quite rightly said;

"If that's the only thing you can pick them up for, I'm happy."

The Rifles are the largest Infantry regiment in the Army with 7 Battalions, 5 regular and 2 Territorial.
Due to the Regiment's size and our variety of roles, there is always at least one Rifles battalion in Afghanistan at any one time. 

That is why we have taken so many casualties, warranting the formation of a dedicated charity, Care For Casualties.

Since our formation in 2007, 64 names have been added to The Roll Of Honour. 

                BULLDOG APC.
I chose the 4th battalion, mainly due to its mechanised role. The irony is that as the BULLDOG armoured vehicle was unsuitable for our tour of Afghanistan, we converted to a "Light Role" battalion. 

Two weeks after passing out from ITC Catterick, I arrived at Bulford Camp near Tidworth on Salisbury Plain. 

Standing "at ease" at Kiwi barracks guardroom, I got a taste of the "relaxed professionalism" of my new battalion:

"Stop f*cking standing like that, you're not in Catterick now!" 

I was knocked for six a few days later I was threatened with being "banged out" as I  kept putting "Cpl." at the end of every sentence. Another throwback from training in Catterick.

Quickly, the tempo of a battalion gearing up for a tour of Afghanistan hit me as we began our Pre Deployment training.

Shooting is very important to us, as Rifles battalions and as individual Riflemen. 
We spent a many a day on the ranges, becoming qualified in as many weapon systems as possible, as well as perfecting our shooting with the weapons we would take on tour.
Soldiers "Tabbing" to improve their fitness.
The hierarchy saw this as an opportunity to kill 3 birds with one stone; 
To improve our general fitness, to get us used to the heavy "Osprey" body armour and to work on our shooting saw us tabbing to and from the ranges each time.

Later on during the training program, we undertook the 24 mile tab which was luckily split into two "12 milers" over two days. I didn't stretch properly after the first, which made the second much harder than it needed to be. 

And we were almost constantly on exercise. 
2 weeks on, 1-2 weeks off; It continued like this for almost the whole 6 months before we deployed. By the time we did deploy, I had been training almost constantly for a year.

But being way too keen for my own good, I enjoyed it.
I was learning new skills and getting to grips with new weapons and equipment I had only seen before in films.
Riding in helicopters, MASTIFF and JACKAL armoured vehicles-all things we never did in training. 

Then there were counter IED drills. These were perhaps the most necessary skills we would need for our tour. But they were things we resented having to learn. 

It's a terribly underhand and cowardly way to fight. But an effective one. I have no problem respecting an enemy that fights by the same rules and code as I do, but The Taliban are not soldiers, they are insurgents. Nothing more.

And they know, from experience fighting us at the beginning of this latest Afghan conflict, that they cannot defeat us in conventional battle. 

British soldier using a Vallon.

Getting to grips with the "Vallon" mine detector and "Op.Barma" the IED search drill was essential.

On my second day, I was given a Vallon and pushed out the back of a land rover and told to "Barma" a choke point.

"Obama?" I said, "Like the president?"

That didn't go down well.

We also practised medical drills almost incessantly. 

Not just how to treat battlefield casualties but also how best to extract them with the high IED threat. 

In 2009 6 Riflemen from 2RIFLES lost 6 Riflemen in one day to IEDs. 

5 men that were extracting a casualty suffered an IED strike, killing them all. 

And simulating the horrific results of an IED was essential if we were going to be able to treat IED victims, under fire if necessary. 
For this real "traumatic" amputees-IED survivors are made up so their injures resemble how they would have at the point of wounding. 

Their authentic cries of pain, plenty of fake blood and writhing around as you try to treat them, makes shockingly realistic training. 

Yet, it was one of the most valuable parts of the whole PDT process. 

Soldiers clear the route toward an  IED victim.

When I saw it for real a few months later, I was able to focus on the job in hand and not the nature of the injuries.

We also undertook an exercise at Stanford Battle Area in Norfolk, also known as STANTA. 

Established in 1942, when the need for training in simulated "Nazi village" arose, it is home now to a 12.5 acre replica of an Afghan village.

It is populated by real Afghans, as well as ex Gurkha soldiers. It even has a system that pumps out smells like rotten meat and sewage. 
Shortly after I arrived at my battalion Abi, my girlfriend at the time (she's my bloody wife now), moved over from Gran Canaria to Brighton. The weekends I had free were spent there with her and at last we began to have a not-so-long distance relationship.

But with the end of every exercise, the countdown to deployment continued.

             The village at STANTA.

Putting on our desert combats for the first time was when it really hit home that we were going.

(Although, you'd think all the training would have done it)

In the final weeks before we deployed, we had endless kit checks, lessons and final kit issues for things like dog tags and brand new weapon optics. It was a busy period. 

We had a long weekend before the off. I said goodbye to my family that still lived in the UK (having seen my parents and youngest sister back in Lanzarote, a few weeks earlier) and spent the rest of the time with Abi in Brighton. 

We were due to fly on the 8th of October 2009, and leave for Brize Norton in the early hours. 

The night before, in our platoon accommodation, no one slept. 

We sat around in the common areas talking, some of the lads drank or went out into town; making the most of the time before the months of enforced sobriety to come. 

We asked the Iraq veterans among us last minute questions and spoke to our families for the last time.

I spoke to my parents over the phone and even Abi's family phoned me, one by one, to wish me luck and say goodbye. 

When the time came to leave, we walked across from our Company lines on Ward Barracks in small groups, to our battalion HQ on Kiwi Barracks, where the coaches would collect us. 

It was not dissimilar to the scene in "We Were Soldiers" when they slowly arrive and board their transports to leave for Vietnam. 

We gathered out side Btn HQ, chatting nervously, waiting for everyone to arrive. 
We had no weapons, as they had been bundled up to be stored in the hold of the RAF Tristar that would fly us the 4,500 miles to Kandahar Airfield.

It felt like we were stood there for hours, in the early morning gloom. I remember seeing the coaches arrive and thinking "This is it".

There were no rousing speeches by our officers or raucous cries as we boarded the coaches. 
It's not the way we do things. Just a simple nominal roll call and a "Let's go".

A Company of 4th Battalion, The Rifles was going to war.

Little did we realise that when the Company came home almost 7 months later, we would do so with 6 of our brothers dead and over 30% of our company wounded.

No amount of training could have prepared us for the reality of what was waiting for us.