Gwent TA soldiers play part in Cyprus exercise

In the first of his features, he meets an Ebbw Vale soldier following in his father’s footsteps.

IT’S 2am in a field in southern Cyprus and Private Josh Price is on sentry duty, as he begins what will be the final nine hours of a gruelling nineday military exercise.

The 20-year-old from Ebbw Vale is on lookout for his colleagues in the second of three platoons in the joint training operation between the 1st and 3rd battalions of the Royal Welsh.

In total 120 soldiers are taking part in the nine-day operation in the training area, close to the Radio Sonde camp on the south of the island, and a short trip from Eskopi barracks, the British Army’s main base on the island.

While many young Brits are in the holiday resorts of Pafos, about 20km to the west, and Limassol to the east, the predominantly reservist soldiers have been ‘in the field’ through extreme heat (up to 36C) and at times monsoonlike weather conditions for more than 190 hours.

Many of the men have had to take time off work, some of them even dipping into their annual holiday allowance to take part in the camp.

It’s a massive step up from previous reservist exercises and that is because of the seismic changes hitting the armed forces and in particular the Army.

As part of government spending cuts, every regular soldier in the entire British Army would fit into the Millennium Stadium by 2017 as the force is cut from 102,000 to 82,000.

At the same time the Army is looking to double the number of reservists by increasing the size of the Territorial Army (TA) from 15,000 to 30,000.

That increase in reservists isn’t purely about numbers either. It is also an increase in expectations.

Expectations, potentially, of how many tours TA reservists are asked to go on, how much training they will be expected to do, and an increased expectation of the role they will have to play alongside their regular counterparts.

Here in Cyprus, for example, the TA arm of the Royal Welsh, the third battalion, are working alongside around 30 professional soldiers from the 1st Battalion, the same battle group which returned from a tough tour of Afghanistan shortly before Christmas last year.

Sergeant Major Wayne Clark, a professional soldier with 1 Royal Welsh, is essentially overseeing the training exercise with Training Major James Waters, also a regular in the 1st Battalion.

As he watches the final day of the exercise unfold, Sgt Maj Clark says: “Because the Army wants more out of them there’s less fun and more soldiering. We have to make as much use of the time we have them as possible.”

Because of the lack of time they have to train the TAs, he says, it can take up to two years to train a TA soldier to be ready to support regular forces on operations. In comparison, basic training for a professional Army recruit at Catterick in north Yorkshire takes three months.

“The old TA had a bit of a marketing issue,” Sgt Maj Clark, who served two tours of Iraq, three in Northern Ireland and one in Kosovo, says.

“It was seen as not the place to be for ex-soldiers or if you wanted to take soldiering seriously. They saw it as the reserve league and we are trying to get that level up.

“Hopefully, with the intensity of the exercises, the people who aren’t quite up to it will decide it is not their game.

“But we don’t want to cull people, particularly who have given a long service to the TA. We need all sorts.

Roles like drivers, chefs, and medics are essential.”

The operation in Cyprus is part of a two-week training block for the 120 soldiers – nine days in the field culminating in a full company attack, with a couple of days off for adventure training like sailing and mountaineering put on for the TAs afterwards.

The penultimate day has been spent in a spectacular thunderstorm as they prepare their weapons, rations and other kit before the final attack.

It sees the group split into three platoons, each sort of rotating through to be the lead group as they attack nine enemy positions (played by trainers from 1 Royal Welsh) up a steep, rocky and arid 2km route.

The lead group is airdropped in by helicopter to secure a beachhead before the other groups are bussed in (they were due to use landing craft on the sea for a beach landing but a swell meant that is cancelled.) It’s pretty impressive as the platoons sweep up the valley, local scavengers trailing them, pinching the brass bullet cases as they go.

It’s quite tough going, too, with more than one cry of ‘man down’. One soldier has to be airlifted to hospital after breaking and dislocating his ankle.

But all appears to have gone to plan, and the commanders, including the visiting head of the Army in Wales, Brigadier Phillip Napier from Monmouth, declared themselves impressed and pleased.

Pt Price has been in a platoon that is in the reserve for much of the early action, but completed the final assault on the last remaining enemy position.

The former Brynmawr High School pupil joined the TA last August after spending “quite a bit of time” unemployed.

He’s recently secured a job in McDonald’s in Ebbw Vale and helps train local air cadets at the 1188 ATC squad.

“I was on sentry duty from 2am-3am and then the rest of the boys were up at 3.15am to start moving into position for the final exercise,” Pt Price says.

It means the final day of the longest exercise he’s had in the field has been nine plus hours in more than 27C heat in full kit.

“I’ve really enjoyed it,” he says. “Though at some points the weather was worse than in Wales,” he laughs.

“I’ve made friends from North Wales all the way down to South Wales with the TA.

“I found it hard to make my voice heard in big groups and the TA has really helped my confidence with that as well.

“One of my mates has been unemployed for quite a long time now as well and I say to him ‘why not try and join the TA?’ You can learn some new skills, get a bit of money and have some fun as well.”

Pt Matthew Smith, also 20, from Croesyceiliog in Cwmbran, is also in Pt Price’s platoon for the exercise.

The former Fairwater High School pupil’s situation is not that different to that of his colleague.

Unemployed, he is using the TA as a sort of taster session for whether he would like to try and go full time into the Army.

“I’ve been in the TA for just coming up to a year now,” he says.

“My Dad, Kevin, was a regular (serving with the Royal Regiment of Wales which morphed into the Royal Welsh. He is still a TA trainer now) for more than 25 years so I grew up around the Army and knew what it was like.

“He was the one who got me to join the TA, actually. He said we would go to the TA office in Pontypridd just to have a look at it and a chat about it with someone and when we got there he just said to the guy behind the desk ‘this boy would like to join the TA.’ It was a bit of a shock,” he laughs.

“I’m very thankful to him now, though, because it’s been great. It’s a lot different to my life back at home - definitely more fulfilling.

"There’s something new every day and I like that.

“You make great mates and then get to go places with them and it gives you great memories.

“After this one you know we’ll always be able to joke ‘remember that time we were hiding from that monsoon in Cyprus talking to that reporter?’ It’s a good laugh but also something I am seeing if I enjoy to use as a sort of stepping stone to the regular Army,” he said.

● Tomorrow, Will Bain talks to three more Gwent TA soldiers honing their skills on exercise in Cyprus.

Sixty-pound pack has all you need

EACH soldier is carrying slightly lighter kit than usual because of the hot weather.

In their bergen (a large rucksack with webbing attached to hold other kit) they are carrying essentials like water, sun cream, and a ration pack of tasty, or perhaps not-so-tasty, treats including things like a packaged omelette for breakfast, a soup for lunch and a chicken and mushroom pasta for the evening.

They also have snacks like a maple syrup bun. For the exercise they are having about 4,500 calories a day.

All the men are armed with blank-firing SA80 A2 rifles, and each platoon has a machine gun team.

In the heat the soldiers are drinking about a litre of water an hour – vital to stop them passing out with heatstroke, something which has been an issue on the trip.

They carry ponchos with which they make camouflage shelters and which keep the rain and sun off them and their kit. Some of the constructions appear to have failed one of those tests as the rain came down.

The bergen weighs around 60 pounds in total.