News
HRH visits 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards as Colonel-in-Chief in Sennelager, Germany
2nd September 2004
The Prince of Wales paid a visit to British soldiers today before their deployment to Iraq and watched them in training.
The Prince was visiting The Queen's Dragoon Guards in Sennelager, Germany as their Colonel-in-Chief.
All British soldiers based in Germany come through the Sennelager Training Centre to prepare for their Operation Telic Missions.
During the training, fellow troops took the role of armed insurgents and attacked a convoy of two Spartan personnel carriers using a booby trap as they thundered along a road.
Gunshots from the blank ammunition sounded out and colourful smokescreen grenades were thrown as six soldiers from 1st The Queen‘s Dragoon Guards moved towards the seven-strong enemy group to defeat them.
Afterwards The Prince, dressed in combat fatigues, greeted the troops who took part in the exercise at Sennelager Training Centre in central Germany.
Trooper, Ben John, from Haverford West, Wales, was among the B Squadron soldiers who were involved in the training exercise.
The 19-year-old, who went to Iraq last year said: “Prince Charles was asking me about last year. I told him I had a great experience.
“In Basra I was the first inside the palace. It was brilliant but I was scared obviously.
“It will be a lot different this time. There's not so much war fighting. It's just order training.”
After meeting the soldiers, The Prince chatted to soldiers and their young families.
Georgina Greaney, eight, from Caerphilly, south Wales, presented him with a bouquet of yellow flowers.
Her 30-year-old mother Bridgett said: “We nearly didn‘t make it. She is diabetic and had a bad turn last night. She‘s not 100 per cent but she‘s so excited.”
Her husband Squadron Quartermaster Sergeant Neil Greaney, 35, is due to leave for Iraq next month.
“He went last year and it‘s not that you get used to it - it‘s hard, but it‘s his job and I married into it.
“The community here is really supportive.”
The Prince also met Corporal Emma Pope, from Halifax, West Yorkshire and her husband Sergeant Andy Pope and asked them how they were coping with their four-month-old twin boys.
The new parents held identically-dressed babies Ethan and Aaron in their arms as they talked to The Prince about life in the Army.
Later, The Prince had a mass group photograph taken with the Queen‘s Dragoon Guard, also known as the Welsh Cavalry. Flanked by two tanks, the soldiers held SA80-A2 rifles and wore combat gear.
The Prince praised the regiment, saying he would be thinking of them as they left for Iraq. He praised their “immense professionalism and their very special Welsh humour that gets you through an awful lot”.
“A lot is expected of you, a huge amount placed on your shoulders, but you do, I think, unbelievably well.”
Around 400 service men and women from The Queen‘s Dragoon Guards will deploy to Iraq in October with 4 Armoured Brigade.
The Regiment previously fought in Basra and in the Al Faw Peninsular as reconnaissance units to 7 Armoured and 3 Commando Brigades.