Hi everybody, well things here have now now come to a halt as the Battalion are now on pre-deployment leave until early September. The last four months has seen us doing the Afghan training up and down the country.

We have completed numerous briefing days and alot of hard range packages. We have had 8 new draft come to the platoon which has now bolstered our numbers up to 25 which is good to see. Our main effort has been getting the blokes up to speed on Sf which has gone extremely well, however we have had the introduction to 2 new weapon systems, the 50 cal and the Grenade Machine Gun.

Credit must be given to the whole Platoon as they have picked it all up and they have now shot them both live which is very lucky as ammunition for both weapons are hard to come by as most of it is currently in theatre. Not only has the lads been training hard in the Fire Support Role but they also have completed section attacks most of them using gpmg's and getting good de-briefing points which again is very good to see.

Our last week of training colminated in a comapny attack but using literally everything available, from engineers to Apache's and Fast Jet's, even for me that was an experience. The lads are now looking at deploying from the middle of September to the middle of October, we are split into three sections, one of our sections are getting attached to 2 yorks commanded by Lsgt Wall (pebbles)and the rest of us are attached to the rifle companies.

Overall this has been an extremely hard four months for all of us and we can now put all the training into real time when we come into contact with the taliban where the blokes will thrive to take action especially with the heavy weapons we have now got. I shall end it there for now and will remian in constant comms with you all through out the tour, so all take care and stay sake.

Cheers Ben and Family.