Wirral soldiers in Canada for vital training mission

Jun 17 2009 by Vicki Kellaway, Birkenhead News

SOLDIERS from Wirral are among hundreds of troops using the vast Canadian prairies to prepare for war in Afghanistan.

Warrant officer Glyn Crawley, 43, and Gunner Mark Pratt, 26, are training with soldiers from the 1st Battalion, Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment in Suffield, south-west Canada.

The British Army’s training area there is the largest in the western world – four times the size of Merseyside and bigger than the entire nation of Luxembourg.

The troops must live on the dusty and inhospitable prairies for a month; maintaining their arms, eating rations and keeping clean alongside antelopes, coyotes and rattlesnakes.

The Government has yet to make a formal announcement but it is likely the soldiers in the battlegroup will deploy to Afghanistan next spring.

Warrant Officer Glyn Crawley, from Wallasey, believes the training is vital – not just for soldiers to learn how to survive in the field but to learn to keep up their morale.

He said: “It’s about practising the basics of survival in the field – keeping clean, washing your socks, making sure you eat properly.

“A bad day is a bad day, if you lose guys or suffer injuries.”

Gunner Mark Pratt, 26, from Tranmere, went to Iraq twice but said it is sometimes difficult for the troops to visualise their potential stint in Afghanistan.

He said: “I still can’t picture it. Getting contact [with the enemy] every day of the week. You expect the odd one or two – but you don’t want that.”