Skills, Endurance and Team…plus a couple of BBQs
The Gordon Cup 2024
Mirroring her attendance just four days before her installation last year, the Master returned to Blandford for the final external event of her year. A somewhat fitting finale given the Master’s personal role in establishing the Career Workshops in 2010, the Professional Horizons website and working more recently with the Corps to develop their own internal mentoring scheme.
Anyone attending the event cannot fail to be impressed by the military skills, fitness, teamwork and determination shown by the teams from the Royal Signals Training Regiment, Permanent Staff, and visiting international teams from Germany, Lithuania and France. This year the event was also attended by Brig. Caroline Woodbridge-Lewin, who many members will remember as the guest speaker at the Master’s Installation.
The competition sees the teams undertake 11 different military skills tests (at “stands”) across a large exercise area. These range from a test of military knowledge during a ‘rest break’ through to the highly channelled aggression needed to complete the Bayonet Run. The latter this year accompanied by loud hard rock music and a bagpiper – providing a backing track of Good Morning Vietnam meets the Edinburgh Tattoo for the day.
We started with a visit to the command area where we were able to see the teams’ movements in real-time rendered on satellite images of the exercise site. Teams progress and scores were updated in real time with the standard military digital toolset augmented by programming from within the school. A short walk on brought us to the SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) where teams are challenged to build a shelter in the woods, build and light a fire using just a fire steel from a survival kit and cook food within 30 minutes. The stand also brought the first ‘BBQ’ of the day with the now traditional dish of locally sourced venison cooked over a log fire.
The Master was then invited to watch the shooting stand in preparation for awarding the WCIT Best Shot Trophy later in the day. A visit to the “Observation” stand followed, with the opportunity to follow a troop through the course and test our own skills. Walking through the wooded area, we spotted a variety of items including a torniquet, kneepads, DPM Jacket and a trainer. Whilst the exercise has the very serious purpose of training to observe signs of the presence of hostile forces, for the older among us listing what we had seen felt a little like the conveyor belt round on the Generation Game.
We were then able to watch a simulated patrol resulting in the detaining of ‘persons of interest’. The teams were scored on their approach to the situation, how they controlled the detention in accordance with very strict official guidelines, the performance of a full search and undertaking of questioning.
A short walk brought the Master to the final stand of the day. In a patrol scenario the team was approached by someone requiring help at an accident. Around the car were protestors and a film crew, all of whom needed to be carefully and calmly controlled while first aid was given to the injured parties in the accident. In addition to smoke and paint bombs a sense of true reality was brought by volunteers with double leg and arm amputations who acted as accident victims.
The formal day ended with the Master giving a short speech on the WCIT followed by the presentation of the WCIT Best Shot Trophy to Sig. Frudd.
Court Assistant Nick Claydon