Monday of week two kicked off with relative ease with a few hours in far-away hall. We had 3.5 hours researching and discussing what leadership is and its relevance on operations etc. So once given our title the 5 of us disappeared down the NAFFI and got a coffee and chocolate brownie whilst we discussed what and how we planned on tackling the question. After an hour had swiftly passed with no real advance in our plan we headed over to the library and cracked on. With a few notes scribbled down on a piece of paper we headed back and gave the presentation. All in all it went well, I mean it was only 5 mins long split between 5 of us!

Unfortunately a few people got far too in to their presentation which meant we were running late for our next lesson: remedial drill!!!! It was a uniform change quicker than superman throwing all the green kit on the floor into my drill kit and on with the most uncomfortable boots ever – this all mixed with my “spas” hand all made for a lot of swearing, sweating and much frustration! Still made it out just on time and so began a very very sweaty 45 minutes of being drilled up and down the parade square of New College. Considering 24 platoon isn’t exactly a dab hand at drill and we’d not carried any out since about week 10 of the Junior term we didn’t do too badly! The afternoon cracked off with eating/drinking/defecation drills whilst in our CBRN (Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear) suits! The effort to eat whilst you have a respirator and nuclear protection gloves on is massive not to mention going for a number two! With the huge sausage fingers you get from the gloves merely undoing the ties on your trousers is hard enough and the probability of catching what you’ve just got rid of in your chemical trousers during your defecation drills is also worryingly high! The day finished with a 4 hour lecture marathon on defensive operations.

Tuesday kicked off with 3 hours of CBRN information overload! We had to run through the different signs that are used for different types of attacks. How to react to certain attacks and how long the suit lasts in each type of attack. The British Army’s tactic for the soldier to survive a nuclear attack?!?!? Get into a ditch face down and lie in a small a position as you can get into. That will definitely work! This was followed by a session of pys post lunch. For me it meant 15 mins on a bike and then a bit of lower body weights stuff. It was only the second time I’ve been in a gym and not even broken a sweat! Post the heavy work out in le gym we moved to the halls of study whereby we received our orders for the exercise coming up in the following Monday, Worst/First Encounter. The day was closed off with a couple of hours in the skill at arms wing (this is where you go to do all the weapon handling) for a second lesson in how to coach your rifleman. This is all well and good but when yuo have people who themselves cant apply the basic firing principles trying to then teach and coach some one else doesn’t always produce the best results!

Wednesday went down in the book as one of the most boring days of my time at RMAS! From 0730 throught till 1830 we were on the ranges.Which is fine if you can use a rifle! Obviously with my spas hand I wasn’t allowed to use a rifle and as such could only coach people and stand in the firing butts workoing on the targets. Not a great day in the whole scheme of things.

Thursday was all about defensive operations in build up for Exercise Worst/First Encounter the following week. It kicked off with a demonstration from the Ghurka’s on the lawn of New College. The whole thing lasted about an hour and had the whole intake lined up on the bank watching as they went through every part of initialising your defensive harbour. From here we moved back in to the halls of study with the platoon commander for a debrief and recap on everything we had covered before we headed out on to the local training area to carry out a TEWT (tactical exercise without troops). In essence you head out un-tactically as a platoon get split up into groups and told to carry out your estimate as you see the ground then the DS will go through your plan and then the group gets to debrief itself as each member stands up to deliver a section of their estimate.

With every one knowing exactly what they had to do come the First Encounter Friday was scheduled for another full day on the ranges. Luckily for me though this day was broken up with a lovely trip down to Frimley A&E to get my cast removed and finally crack on with some remedial physio and back to smash the commissioning course able bodied! I managed to dive out the ranges a little early to head back for a brew and shower before being picked up. Being nice and early I was hoping that it would be a quick stop in the cast removal room and then a swift x-ray and back to camp for tea and medals. This is not quite how it panned out. Firstly the queue for every part of the process was an hour! So from getting into the ward I was an hour before seeing the consultant. He then said get the cast removed and head for an x-ray which surprisingly also then took another hour. During having the cast removed the head nurse was saying about if it didn’t feel right then surgery might be the way forward and that they would have to do a hip bone craft. I accepted her wealth of knowledge as a nurse and at the same time instantly dismissed it thinking that’s not an issue for me, my wrist is fixed.

Post x-ray I headed back to the waiting queue to go in and see the consultant whereby he delivered the morale-shattering blow. My wrist was in fact still buggered and due to the displaced fracture that was still present after 2 months in a cast I would require surgery. This was quite obviously the end of my attendance on commissioning course 102. Arse. I headed back to camp in a pretty fool mood, after the head nurse had to smugly re-apply a new cast to protect it whilst I wait for an appointment with the hand specialist, and informed my platoon sergeant who moved it up the chain of command and within an hour I was told that I would in fact be moved into Luck Now Platoon. This is where any one who is injured or unable to continue on their course gets put to hold until they are fixed and can slip into a new platoon and carry on the commissioning course at a later date; this is the platoon that every one dreads being put in. Whilst no words can describe how de-motivated, angry at the pillock who walked out in front of me and just generally pissed off with the situation I was I some how felt it hadn’t quite hit me yet!

Saturday morning I carried on with the platoon as normal as nothing had been passed my way officially and I didn’t really want to sit and fester in my room by myself! So I headed to the gym and did a lower body work out whilst they got smashed on circuits then I headed up with the company to the CS chamber.

The point of the CS chamber is to firstly give you the confidence that the kit works well, introduce you to CS gas as you have to remove the mask before leaving the chamber whereby the sergeant will make you sing a song of his choice until you are out of breath and are required to inhale a lung full and thirdly to again prepare us for First Encounter as the exercise is not just about digging but the potential for an enemy to gas us. The whole morning was pretty funny watching people coming out of the chamber in pieces with tears, snot and bile flinging every where with a number of people loosing the ability to stand up!

Saturday afternoon was standard sports afternoon so headed and meet the SCUBA club for the first time and had a chill out session with them and sat in on one of the lectures. The evening was to be taken up with a last minute dash up to Clapham for a night out to celebrate me leaving the platoon and the others having to go without sleep for 5 days and dig at least 6 WWII style trenches! We headed for a bit of a mini bar crawl down the high street at which point we decided it would be funny to try out the local gay bar. On getting to the front door and seeing it packed to the rafters with what can be only described as a bar full of 1980's stereotypical german-esque bumders. The night, for some reason, took a drastic turn down hill after we each brought ourselves a paddle of 10 shots in Rev's. From here we swiftly moved on to the classy establishment that is Inferno's. This place is well known for the very reason its a shit hole and a massive cattle market effectively! The drinks are overpriced, its so big you loose every one (which we did on a number of occasions), the floor is so sticky its easy to loose your shoes when they stick to the ground and theres a couple of poles to dance on! Come the end of the end everyone had pretty much split up and gone their own way with myself ending up in a random house arty, one sleeping in his car, one loosing his jacket and the hotel and one sleeping with that can only be described as a Gorrillapig. The rest of the weekend was pretty much a write off with returning to camp at around 22:30.