“We have the enemy out there, our mission is to destroy them.”
Corporal William O’Brien is explaining the orders he issued as section commander in a section attack training exercise at the Coolmoney camp in the Glen of Imaal in Wicklow.
It’s week three of the 8th All Arms Standard Non Commissioned Officers Course, a ten-week course that is a requirement for corporals in the Irish Defence Forces to complete if they want to be eligible for promotion to Sergeant.
Half of those ten weeks are spent on the ground in patrol harbours, conducting tactics day and night, and when we encounter O’Brien and his colleagues, they have been out for four days, operating on only a few hours sleep every night.
At night, they’ve been conducting reconnaissance (recce) patrols on a number of different areas in the training camp to provide information for the platoon commander that will prove vital in their attempts to defeat the enemy.
On the day of my visit, I get to witness two separate section attacks, both of which replicate a live firefight with an enemy.
They’re intense, but necessarily so, as those taking part are developing knowledge and skills they can use in high-pressure environments.
Even when observing at a safe distance, you get caught up in it and briefly forget, for a moment at least, that it’s a training exercise and not the real thing.
If the physical and mental exertions of the week are taking their toll on O’Brien, he’s certainly not showing it, as at a number of different stages of the section attack, he communicates orders with great clarity and authority.
When it was all over, I asked him if he was satisfied with the attack.
“We achieved our mission,” he replies.
“Our mission was to find and destroy all enemy within our boundaries by 1700 hours on D Day + 4, which is today, and we did it, we achieved our mission.”
For O’Brien and the other 57 Corporals on the course (four of the 58 are women), the week has been a hard slog, but entirely worthwhile too.
Not only are the corporals learning vital skills and making themselves eligible for promotion to Sergeant, they’re forming relationships with colleagues stationed in different barracks throughout the country who they may not have met before.
“It is very tough, I’m not going to lie, but we’re blessed the section has gelled so well,” O’Brien says.
“This is the end of week three. We’re all clubbing together and that’s what makes it. It doesn’t matter how tough it is, if you’ve got a good bunch of lads. Morale wins every time.”
The course is tough, but it has to be. If it was a walk in the park, then it would serve no purpose.
Course Sergeant Valarie Cole, who has been observing proceedings throughout my visit, says: “It is designed to be challenging, if it wasn’t everyone would be a Sergeant, and we want to make sure everyone who passes this course is fit to lead a Platoon at home or overseas.
“In addition, the student must come away confident in the knowledge that they can do the job of a Sergeant and do it to the standards expected within the Defence Forces.”
Following the first section attack of the day, I caught up with Corporal Damien Doherty, who has been given the job of Platoon Sergeant for the night ahead.
Like O’Brien, there is absolutely no ambiguity when he discusses exactly what that task will involve.
“We’re doing an attack on a road down here, an ambush, and I’ll be in charge of that,” Doherty says.
“I’ll be responsible for the troops’ welfare, making sure they’re all fed, making sure they’re all carrying their proper kit that I told them to carry, making sure all the weapons they’re carrying are firing correctly so that whenever the attack takes place it all goes to plan.
“Once the attack goes in, I plan on bringing them back out again, I’ll have them told in orders before we leave here what they’re doing, how they’re going to do it, when they’re doing it and their timings.
“As long as they’re working for me, we’ll get back out and back up here to the base camp.”
Over the course of the ten weeks, the corporals will have to fulfil several different roles and Doherty stresses that the co-operation of colleagues is paramount.
“If someone’s in an appointment, you’re working for them because you know at some stage – we’ve seven weeks remaining – that you’re going to be in that appointment and you’re going to want them to be working for you,” he says.
“It’s just a matter of getting through it, doing what is asked of you and then hoping the boys do what you ask of them.”
Home comforts that are usually taken for granted are particularly appreciated after a week like this and when it’s over and done with, most of the corporals I speak to are looking forward to a hot shower and a hot meal.
They’ll have earned it, as they will when the ten-week course is completed in early July.
At that stage, they’ll be more than ready for the challenges that greet them at home and abroad.
The Irish Defence Forces are currently accepting applications for General Service in both the Army and Naval Service.
Closing date for applications is 23:59hrs on Sunday, May 22.
For more information, check out the Irish Defence Forces on Twitter, Facebook and the Irish Defence Forces website
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