The following article is taken from the latest issue of the Globe & Laurel magazine.
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Clawing at the wet rock trying desperately to keep a firm and safe grip, it was a tense moment for our team. Bergens full of optics, cameras, ammunition, food and more, taxed our tired bodies. Cautiously and deliberately, we felt around for subtle folds in the rock from which our mountain boots could gain some purchase. A biting, nagging wind enveloped the team. Although the night carried a pervasive darkness the significance of the intimidating drop directly below could not be shaken from our minds.
We had already been on the move for seven hours, recently departing an agent link-up in the woods to receive our next tasking. Our three separate teams of five, the shadow callsigns, had been sent northwards to develop an understanding of a new named area of interest. A local resident had dropped into a local police station to report on some suspicious activity, and it was our job to grow a better understanding of what we believed to be enemy presence. Our deconfliction boundaries (the corridor in which we could move and operate) took us through dramatic terrain; dominating rocky features giving way to steep-sided glens hosting an often inconvenient arrangement of rivers and streams.
We had climbed an arduous and slow 500m. Only 100m to go before beginning the descent into the adjacent glen. We knew another 450m climb was to promptly follow. The gully we had found ourselves in became too dangerous to continue ascending, so a traverse was imperative to keep the team heading up, but the way out was not easy; we confronted a barrier of wet, sheer rockface. We had to keep cool, keep working hard and keep looking out for each other.
We reached the OP location 26 hours after departing our previous LUP, with an assisted 15-minute CMV (Civilian Military Vehicle) move.
Operating at reach. Disaggregated in small teams. Moving in terrain no one else dares go. Reporting on enemy activity as an Advance Force – this is proper Commando business. Welcome to the Mountain Leaders 2s course.
Ex Gaelic Venture is the course’s cumulative test following a high intensity few months. After a full-on Joining Week, the course heads to Cornwall for four weeks of climbing, ropework and ‘beach’ phys (think ‘Top Gun’ but with rocks, sandbags and tyres vice volleyballs!). Next, we move to Wales for two weeks of mountain movement concluding with the 55km Aber test march. Progressing into the realms of developing quality soldiering, the Surveillance and Reconnaissance phase lasts six weeks with a final exercise on Sennybridge. The Scottish Highlands and islands then host a particularly gruelling portion of the course: one week of mountain movement, two weeks of Ex Gaelic Venture straight into a week of Survival on Islay and Jura.
As we reached our final PUP on Ex Gaelic Venture the teams were……….
To find out more about Commando Force and RM activities across the globe, catch up regularly with all the news in the Globe & Laurel Magazine, the Journal of the Royal Marines.
The Unit’s CO, Col Will Norcott, said: ‘The CRC is multi-purpose and more supportive of the Commando Force model, working in small, disaggregated teams that…..
To find out more about Commando Force and RM activities across the globe, catch up regularly with all the news in the Globe & Laurel Magazine, the Journal of the Royal Marines.
Read more from the Journal of the Royal Marines
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