As the school bell rang and our last ever Lent term ended we set off for Sennybridge, where Army Platoon Commanders are trained and the SAS run selection.

Our mission: to give the leadership cadre the opportunity to put into practice all that they have learnt since September by providing enemy support and acting in various roles during simulated operations.

To join the Leadership cadre you have to pass a demanding three week selection and in due course, if you pass out successfully, you can become a section commander with Ypres Company.

During this long-weekend tour we occupied a farm house position on the Friday evening and probed the Leadership cadre’s entrenched positions late into the night.  The next morning we undertook recce patrols, spied on the Leadership platoon attack practice and acted as ’local farmers’ in a simulation of troops ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of the local community.  In the afternoon we set out for our new overnight wooded harbour position and acted as UN advisors taken out by a fake IED (Do Johnson and Johnson know what uses we have for baby powder?) in a casualty simulation. Having ‘bashered-up’ we moved into our forward trench positions and set about repelling the three-man recce patrols sent out by the Leadership cadre until late into Saturday evening. 

0500hrs Sunday morning we were up and having devoured our ‘all day breakfasts’ broke camp,  settling into our trench positions ready to take on the Leadership platoon attack.  With interesting odds of 3:1 we didn’t even notice how frosty it was until after the attack!