ARmy Rumour SErvice

OK. I'm an HAC officer. I'm not going to say much more about me than that since there aren't a lot of us & so working out who I am could be easy if I said too much. But I am fairly experienced and patrol qualified.

I have enjoyed a lot of what I have done with the regiment and have made lots of very good friends. There are downsides - we get smashed for ceremonial stuff (I know it's an honour, but once you have done one gun salute they're all the same, and getting time off in the week isn't easy for me) and there are a few complete throbbers, but most of the time it has been good fun. And you can't knock the parties (though the number of throbbers at them seems to go up).

But I am thinking very hard about leaving for another regiment in the TA - probably 4 Para, or the RMR. The reason is because just having fun isn't enough. There is a lot of work involved being an officer (and I have a busy job) so I want to know that it is worth doing - and I don't. Nobody can seem to tell me what the Regiment is for. Ok we send people on tours but that isn't "the role". If I was in 4 Para I could see myself being mobilised to do what I was trained to do and work as an infantry soldier. I cannot see that ever happening as an HAC soldier. We support 4/73 but never doing what we are supposedly trained to do. I know some of that has to do with Afg and 4/73 having to fill in FST slots and more or less invent a role for itself to get on the Herrick Orbat. But even beyond Afg I just can't see it ever happening even for 4/73 let alone a bunch of TA. So why does the Army bother training us like that if it never has any intention of using us in role ? What we're trained to do just feels hopelessly out of date and irrelevant unless you are SF. This is dispiriting if you have put yourself all the way through Rcts and then the patrols course, but it is even worse as an officer because we are judged by how many of our blokes turn up. And persuading them to turn up is all about convincing them they have a worthwhile role. With the complete lack of credibility we have I am finding that very difficult to do.

This is not a "losing TA mojo" thing. I want to stay in the TA. But I want to do something that feels like it has a real future. (I know the HAC will probably be around for another 475 years - but whether it will be doing anything useful looks dodgy from where I am sitting). And before anyone tells me to "wait for Army 2020"

a. Other units (Para, RMR) aren't unsure about what they are going to be doing.
b. I don't think 2020 will have the answers anyway.

I know the easy answer is "You will just support 4/73" whatever they are doing. But the FST & JTAC jobs are too qualification / currency heavy for TA soldiers apart from on FTRS - and anyway will 4/73 really do anything else in the future ? The way it seems to be going is just base ISTAR and UAVs. Fine if you are into fiddling with joysticks and looking at TV screens, but not what most of my friends and I joined the regiment for.

Have patrols had their day ? Is it time to move to somewhere where they will still offer chances to put boots on the ground ? I would like someone to tell me different. But I will take a lot of convincing.

I had a fairly decent lunch there the other day if that's any help.