A relatively small turnout of about 12 Sappers and NCO's marched in on the Friday evening for training. After filling out our travel expense & march-in proformas we got stuck in to the boxed meals that our Cadre NCO had procured for our dinners. We received a short briefing on what the weekend was to be about and then loaded up the MOG with the appropriate stores. ( I am not sure if it's intentional but most weekends we generally find out whats going to happen shortly after we get off the truck at the destination!)
We found that Saturday was to be spent learning how to build a two man gun pit with sleeping bay, while on the job. A concurrent task would also be to get our vehicle camouflage drills sorted out and well honed.
Unfortunately the weather prediction was reliable for once and we were treated to an overcast day with frequent drenchings of rain. (It makes digging through clay quite fun!) We took turns digging the pit while the others tried to get the truck fully cammed up from moment the vehicle stopped in less than a minute.
The gun pit had it's +'s & -'s and was a excellent learning experience. For example the angles on the pit need to be quite sharp ~60degrees for the gunner to get the best arc of fire as well as protection against grenades. The tailing from the digging should be piled higher at the rear so that the soldiers helmets aren't sillouetted against the sky. And lastly keep the sods of earth small when turfing otherwise later it becomes a real pain in the arse when replacing the grass sods to disguise your earthworks.
That night we were glad to be barrached under a warm roof and even happier that 1 Field Ambulance had brought their Cook along because we were treated to a massive steak dinner. Later on in our freetime we got to watch a disappointing game of Rugby in which Auckland lost to Canterbury 21-15, disappointing as Auckland miss out on the final and unusual as there were no tries scored either way. All points came from penalty kicks. Luckily we were able to drown our sorrows.
Sunday saw us pack up our stores, get into our good kit, polish our boots and head back into Auckland for the Church Service. It was pretty much the same as last year right down to "Onward Christian Soldiers!". The Rememberance Wreath was laid, "Last Post" was sounded on the bugle andthen we scooted off to the RSA(Returned Services Association - A clubroom were members both past & present of the Armed forces may get food and drink at subsidised prices) to sink a few, listen to a couple of stories and most important, have a laugh.
All in all it was an excellent weekend that shouldn't have been missed by the rest of the unit but shit happens. Those who were there are getting issued with the new standard uniform and wet weather kit and the rest will have to wait for another time. Spr Torrie has a digital camera and a scanner and has promised to bring the camera along to the next exercise(SQN DEMS) so I'll have something interesting for people to look at here.
Spr Watson D E
24/10/97