Royal Visit to CP JEKER

Lt Findlay Guerin, B Company
22nd September 2011

Wk ending 17th September 2011... This week’s highlight has been a Royal visit to CP JEKER, of all places. We played hosts to the Duke of Kent for an extremely short stop over, what was planned to be a whole afternoon turned into a short hour. In that time we managed to give him a brief of our area of operations and a chance to have a chat with many of the Riflemen within the company.

It is these moments that you value, when shown true interest in what everyone does and how they go about doing it. Shortly before leaving there was a chance for everyone to get a company photo taken with the Duke in front of our three Husky armoured vehicles. The only people upset with the day were the chefs. Having been told that royalty was turning up for lunch they went out of their way to produce an outdoor buffet of delicious curry, rice, chicken tikka, garlic and butter pitta breads with home made poppadoms and a range of chutneys. Unfortunately the Duke was delayed in PB2 for longer than planned and was not able to enjoy their hard efforts. It did not go to waste however and I think we can all attest to how great a lunch they had prepared.

The government sponsored school in close proximity to CP JEKER continues to progress very slowly. The roof is slowly coming together but the new mud applied to the walls has started to peel off. Locals think that the roof is too heavy but it’s likely that the new mud is just failing to stick to the old mud. So much so for ancient construction techniques. We’ve suggested the use of bricks and mortar and wait with baited breath to see what they may do next.

Those CPs with access to British Forces Broadcast Service TV have been lucky enough, this week, to enjoy the start of the Rugby World Cup. Fortunately no disputes have arisen yet over any football/rugby clashes as the New Zealand timings put the rugby on early in the day. Not as early as you may suffering in the UK but early enough.

This week has continued the relative lull in activity seen off the back of RAMADAN and EID. A few IEDs have been found but they’re believed to have been laid a couple of weeks ago. The tragic loss of LCpl McKinley has hit the company hard and shown that the insurgents are still an active threat in certain parts of our area of operations.