Girls army

I’m happy the girls have returned from Fox troop to do it with us, but that meant the girls from 10 Troop have gone back upstairs. They all seemed happy it was going back to normal but it would have been nice to keep a few of those who came down.You do notice a massive improvement in yourself mentally and physically. Although I didn’t find it hard to fit into some of the core values (courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment), I have definitely developed in all of them. You will achieve things you never thought you could. I remember because we fidgeted on parade we had to stand to attention outside and wait there. I had quite a bad cold at the time and my nose started running but I had to be disciplined and leave it. It was embarrassing.

Also thinking back, from now, I am a lot fitter than what I was in week 1. I reckon I can lift a heck of a lot more weight and run a lot quicker and have more stamina, but we will see if there is an improvement with the PFA tomorrow. I hope to do well, especially as I want to transfer to the Royal Engineers to prove I’m just as good as their lads. We also have our first assault course lesson.

I hope you enjoy cleaning as you do a lot of it. Every morning you will have block jobs and if you don’t clean them properly you will be living on the fence until you learn. I’m not going to say the Army is perfect and it’s for everyone because I’ll be lying, block jobs, inspections and writing your best books isn’t fun but it is a good choice to make if you can stick it.

Not every day saw the best of weather, some days were heavy rain, which made it difficult to see when a rain drop went into your iron sight. I passed my rifle test. It was metal targets on the day we did the tests, which is a lot better than the paper targets because as it was manual it wasn’t as accurate. The targets popped up for 6 seconds then fell again in the test. In the 100m when you had to fire one shot from standing then 4 more in the prone I had 2 stoppages. Corporal Koff said she would take her hat of to me if I passed. I did but I was gutted she didn’t actually take her beret off.

The only day we didn’t do ranges that week was Wednesday as we had our PFA. It turned out to be ok but not as good as I hoped, but the PTI was impressed with me, which is a positive. I was the only girl to do decent press ups and although I didn’t reach 50 ( my arms were killing from the jerry can and ammo lift) it showed I have improved and had the determination to improve my press ups since being told they weren’t up to standard.