Birmingham soldiers prepare for deployment to Afghanistan
THE frozen Canadian wilderness has been the unlikely setting for a massive training exercise for Birmingham soldiers in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan.
The Queen’s Royal Hussars (QRH) – which operates the army’s main battle tank, the Challenger 2 – recruits exclusively from the West Midlands.
This year they are one of the units which could be chosen to continue the difficult and deadly British mission in Afghanistan.
Over three weeks recently more than 1,000 troops fought a sophisticated mock conflict – called Exercise Prairie Thunder – at the British Army Training Unit Suffield, (BATUS) in Canada’s Alberta province.
Just like a real operation they lived on boil-in-a-bag ration packs, carrying everything they needed in their vehicles and slept as little as two hours a night.
And winter in western Canada meant night time temperatures have plummeted as low as minus 15 C.
Aston Villa fan Tom Guest, 21, from Aldridge, Walsall, was one of those involved.
The trooper, who drives one of the mammoth Challenger tanks, said: “This is the first exercise of this scale I have been on.
“I drive the second in command in our unit, they are actually pretty easy to control, it is just two levers.
“This exercise has been good, but it has turned very nippy.
“To be honest though, I don’t mind the cold too much, as long as it is not wet.
