introduction Trooper

[trooper]

Hello

Edited October 31, 2012 by trooper

[Tony B]

Welcome along.

[shane.c]

Welcome to HMVF,

[private mw]

hi welcome to the forum ,

[AlienFTM]

Hello Ladies & Gentlemen

 

My name is Roger Howell served in NZ Territorial Army trained as driver/ commander APC M113 in early 1970s.

Lived in UK since 1974 always an interest in any military vechicles/War birds etc.

Have lived on the Isle of Wight since 1988

 

I am taken back to the summer of 76.

 

Just back from NI where, at the end of the tour as all the drivers slipped away to do Scorpion conversion courses, I was volunteered to drive first a Land Rover then a Ferret on the back of my civilian driving licence: both were covered legally. Four months on the Plain, then off to UNFICYP as a Ferret squadron. However, the UN were funny about people driving vehicles they hadn't been formally trained on, so we each did a three-day "D&M course" (basically it consisted of a day getting familiar with the vehicle and how to perform the various parades (from the Servicing Schedule - hardly rocket science), a day out driver training, to Everleigh near Netheravon in the morning, where we stopped at a transport caff and consumed a big mug of brew and a bacon sarnie before swapping driver and returning home, then another transport caff outside Andover on the then not-dual-carriageway A303 in the afternoon, exactly the same routine as for the Scorpion driver training a couple of months earlier (every crewman did all the courses: only those designated as drivers had left Omagh early to do their D&M training). The third day was about taking a driving test: cabby out onto the public roads with our Qualified Testing Officer, the SQMS, drive a handful of miles into the ulu, swap drivers and he'd be tested on the way back.

 

("What is he wittering on about? Is he ever going to get on topic?" Ed.)

 

So our instructor on our FSC D&M training was a Staff Sergeant in the RNZAC. He was quite proud, in his words, that the RNZAC ran to about 14 armoured vehicles, most of which were Ferrets.

 

(Oops I feel another drift off on a tangent.)

 

Great course. I'd broken my glasses in July when they slipped off my nose while underneath a Scorpion on ramps where I changed some filter (oil?) as my practical Maintenance test, and I just collected a brand new pair of them newfangled photochromic glasses that would be good for my eyes in the searing brightness of Cyprus (nobody had told me that the army didn't like sunglasses).

 

So there we all were, sat on a bank by a Ferret while our instructor instructed. SSM walked by. "Trooper Alien, are you wearing sunglasses?" I stood up, to attention and replied, "These are new, prescription glasses, sir." He thought about it, evidently not exactly happy, but I hadn't lied, turned to my sadly soon after demised mukker Joe and bawled, "Butler, get those sunglasses off," and went on his way.

 

Aah halcyon days.

[stevenivers]

Welcome to the forum Roger