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Look at Life
A Look at Life - with the Coldstream Guards
(Click the below for scanned images of the Look at Life Brochure)

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CSgt 'Mack' McWilliams
on 07782 186661

 - Lance Corporal


It should be noted that although these stories were recorded whilst in our previous post in Northern Ireland, it provides an ideal background to life in the Battalion.

This page gives an insight into how and why training in general and specialist training in particular is conducted in the Coldstream Guards. Lance Corporal Nick Jackson has served for over six years. He is a Signals Detachment Commander within the Signals Platoon, one of several specialised support platoons within the 1st Battalion, and is attached to one of the Rifle Companies. He has a demanding job as he is responsible for training some 110 men, for commanding his small detachment, for advising his Company Commander on all signals related issues, for ensuring radio communications up, down and across the chain of command in peace and war, and for maintaining a great deal of expensive equipment.

TRAINING WITHIN THE BATTALION
Lance Corporal Nick Jackson

Training has greatly improved since I was a recruit in November 1992, when I signed the dotted line and took the oath. Training was hard, as a soldier was bred to fight and follow orders without questions. This in my opinion was and still is a good way of training. This is not to say that today's recruits are inadequate or weak, but training has changed along with the political climate and so more time is taken with the individual to make the difficult change from civvy street to the military.

If you need a high standard of soldier then the training has to reflect that, so the type of person that the army is looking for has to rise to the challenge: shock, hard work, learning new skills and making new friends is what happens in the first few weeks of training. It is rewarding and, ultimately, makes a man out of a boy!

Recruit Training

Just to remind you, all Guards recruits go through two phases of training of about 6 months. The training is designed to be progressive, particularly the initial fitness training. We want to build people up, not break them. Phase 1 training is designed to give the young recruit a thorough but basic grounding in a wide range of core military skills, like weapon training, basic tactics and fieldcraft, First Aid, drill (of course!) and NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical defence). After Phase 1 is completed, Guards recruits move onto Phase 2 training at Catterick. There they hone their Infantry skills and knowledge and in every area increase their range of expertise. For example, instead of just concentrating on the SA80 rifle, they learn about and practice on the whole range of weapons available to a platoon, like the Light Support Weapon, 94 mm Light Anti-tank Weapon, the 51 mm mortar, and grenades. They do a lot more tactics and fieldcraft as well. Being future Guardsmen, they also do a special course in Drill, which is not just an exercise in shouting and being shouted at. For hundreds of years, Armies have used drill to instil self-discipline, self-confidence and pride in soldiers. It works, trust me! The aim is to ensure that every recruit can take his place straight away in his platoon once he joins the Regiment after passing out from recruit training.

Training in the Battalion

Of course, training doesn't stop when you join the Regiment, either in No 7 Company or in the 1st Battalion. In one way or another, we train constantly, to refresh our skills, to learn new ones, to deepen our knowledge of our profession and ultimately to prepare for future operations. Training is as realistic as we can make it and we have a solid foundation of operational experience in the Regiment to make it as good as possible. I've highlighted a few general subjects below and will then concentrate on my specialty: signals.

• Drill. Drill in 90% of the Guardsman''s eyes is the least glamorous part of Battalion training, but inter-Company and even inter - Regimental rivalry makes it more enjoyable. Of course, in Windsor, where the 1st Battalion is currently based, and in Chelsea, where No 7 Company is stationed, we mount Ceremonial Duties for real. But like any good performance, you have to practise to make sure it goes perfectly on the day. There are other benefits to being smart on parade. One often hears stories of sentries at Buckingham Palace, St James's Palace and elsewhere being chatted up by women who fancy you because of your smart tunic, shiny boots and bearskin cap. The stories are all true - I speak from experience!

• Driving. Nearly all Guardsmen go on a driving course to get their licence. It doesn''t cost a penny and once you pass you can further your experience by learning to drive larger vehicles. As long as its green, or any colour and used by the Army, then you can get a license for it. We get qualifications for free that can cost hundreds of pounds with civilian firms. Many Guardsmen arrive unable to drive and can thank the Battalion for getting them through their Driving Test. ·

• Personal Skills. Weapon handling continues with the whole range of weapons available to us. Range days are designed to refresh personal weapons skills while live firing exercises allow command and control and tactics to be practiced and tested under arduous conditions. Range days in particular are often combined with other lessons, like NBC training or 1st Aid to enhance basic skills and spot potential instructors. Fitness remains very important and we are lucky to have Windsor Great Park for runs, Combat Fitness Tests or just days out for low-level training, such as Map Reading.

• Communications. Being able to communicate is very important, in whatever line of work you may be in. Practice gives you the confidence to be able to speak to a group of people, either in person or with a radio, and to get your points across clearly and accurately. A Signals Detachment Commander, such as myself, teaches communications, or signals, within the platoons and companies. I aim to bring out the more confident Guardsmen within the platoon to see who can handle the extra responsibility and technical knowledge that comes with radios.

Specialist Training

Signals is the specialist subject on which I can talk with some knowledge. Being a signal instructor is quite a responsibility as you are only as good as how and what you teach. The Battalion currently has a very good signals platoon with a wide range of experience and knowledge. All Guardsmen attend a Regular Radio Users (RRU) course early in their career. This is taught in the Battalion. Later, selected individuals will go on to attend further specialist training outside the Regiment.

• Regular Radio User (RRU). Many Guardsmen find the RRU course hard because there is so much new technical equipment to learn. In addition to learning about the radios and their ancillary equipment, you also learn voice procedure, or how to speak clearly on a radio net and skills like the phonetic alphabet (A=Alpha, B=Bravo, etc), which sometimes causes a little confusion. However, like your Army number, once learn it, you never forget it.

• Regimental Signaller. The Regimental Signaller course is held outside the Battalion. It gives you not just extra signalling knowledge but also introduces you to the care, maintenance and accounting of signals equipment.

• Regimental Signaller ( Junior). This course is much more advanced than anything you will have done previously and is aimed at NCOs. You begin to learn about the theory of communication, the way a radio wave travels, and about power theory. This course is very intense and qualifies you for promotion.

In the signal platoon you have to be able to think quickly and take in information, as you are often at the heart of the action. You may be providing communications for Battalion Headquarters or working directly with the Company Commander. You are their link with the rest of their command and so you carry great responsibility at a relatively junior rank. It is essential that signallers have a high degree of physical fitness and stamina. You have to keep up and you will be carrying more weight than the average Guardsman. You can''t think coherently if you are half-dead with exhaustion. Being in the Signal Platoon definitely isn''t all about sitting in the back of a Land Rover, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes! But for compensation, you always know what''s going on and what''s about to happen and you take pride in knowing that you are definitely essential to the effort.

There are other specialist platoons and areas such as Reconnaissance, Mortars and Anti-Tanks. These, also, have intensive training where a Guardsman''s skills are improved, enhanced and he becomes of great benefit to the Battalion as a whole.

Sports and Adventure Training

If you enjoy a particular sport, be it common-place or exotic, the Regiment will support you. The benefits of sports are obvious, at any level of expertise, and we try, for example, to keep Wednesday afternoons free for sporting activities. This is not your excuse to go down to the shops! A number of Guardsmen also go away throughout the year on courses to qualify them for adventure training expeditions and activities. These can range from a week at the Guards Adventure Training Wing in North Devon, which offers a number of activities like kayaking, mountain biking, sand sailing etc to sailing on the Household Division''s yacht ''Gladeye'' as far afield as the Caribbean, Mediterranean or the Canary Islands.

Summary

There is much to do within the Battalion and No 7 Company. We train for a purpose and not just to fill time and we try to make our training as relevant and realistic as possible. We train to make sure that we as individual soldiers and as formed bodies of men, whether within a small section, larger platoon. bigger company or even as a Battalion, are ready for operations anywhere in the world at any time, so that we can live up to our motto of Nulli Secundus, or Second to None!

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