A message from Uncle Rikki

Hello friends and family of 11 Platoon.

My name is Sgt White and I am the Warrior Sergeant in 11 Platoon. I look after the Warrior vehicles and train the crews within the Platoon.  I’m like the cool Uncle within the Platoon Headshed, whereas the Platoon Sergeant (Sgt Wilde) is like the Dad, or in our case Granddad, and the Platoon Commander (Lt Hicks) is like the Mother or older Sister.

Recently it has all be about weight loss and this isn’t just down to one of Sgt Wilde’s PT sessions! It’s down to the searing temperatures out here and being stuck inside a Warrior vehicle for over 10 hours a day. This is pretty brutal, especially if you are a driver and you are stuck next to an engine running at 110 degrees.

 

Now as you can imagine, it is pretty morale sapping being stuck in the heat for so long, so what we do in my vehicle (22), is come up with games to play. So when Fusilier McCaig forgot to bring cigarettes with him out on an operation the game was, ‘What would McCaig do for a fag’.  McCaig kept us entertained for hours making noises like an angry monkey or screaming like a little girl.

 

As we have been using the Warriors very regularly, a lot of time is spent maintaining the vehicles, which all the lads are very good at but hate doing, especially Fusilier Richardson. Fusilier Paul King, however, clearly really enjoys it because when he was about to finish work on his vehicle he decided to arc the negative power cables and try to set his engine on fire. As you can imagine, he is now best friends with the REME (Warrior-Fixers) as it took the whole day for them to fix what he had broken!

 

One person that does make my life easier is Fusilier Cunningham AKA Noel Gallagher. He gets on with what he has to do, so he is my star driver at the moment.  As for my crew, Fusiliers Corr and McCaig are usually the last ones to start work on their vehicle, mainly due to the fact that they have to stop at every smoking area from the accommodation to the tank park.

 

I try to keep the blokes morale high, but please keep sending your parcels as they are the best source of morale out here.  We are now past the half way point and can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Best Wishes

 

Sgt White.