Wives Prairie visit

Well what fun! On Sunday night a bunch of us wives spent a night out on the Prairie to see just what our husbands get up to and to watch the final nights live fire exercise unfold. We started out at 8pm and were taken to CFB Suffield for a safety brief & helmet issue. From there we were packed in to the back of a smelly, dusty, green truck and were strapped in to what can only be described as some sort of roller coaster seat (all rather OTT I thought at this point!) for our next journey up to EXCON (Exercise Control). To get to EXCON we had to travel on what is called 'The Rattlesnake' - a very bumpy, dusty track on which we were thrown around and completely covered in dust - at this point we valued our helmets and 'OTT' seating and we all had scarves covering our faces as we couldn't see or breathe! Once we dusted ourselves off at EXCON, we were fed and watered and were given a briefing on what the whole Medicine Man (MEDMAN) exercise is about before being given more kit ready to move on to the Prairie. Packed again into our smelly, dusty truck, we had an hours drive across the Prairie where we were thrown yet again around inside this truck (I think we could be heard for miles with all the shrieking & giggling - not from me of course!) before reaching our final destination at Madden's Rock.

We arrived around 1.30am, which was when I realised that I had packed nothing of any use in my rucksack; the rest of the girls were unpacking chairs, blankets, LOTs of food and flasks of coffee - all I had brought was (a now very squashed) marmite sandwich and a hairbrush! Just as I was beginning to feel very sorry for myself, Leigh appeared from out of the darkness and took me off to watch the exercise from his very warm & cosy TSV (Training Support Vehicle). I had never really thought very much of Leigh's TSV before, but at that time in the morning on a freezing Prairie I was becoming a huge fan of it!

So, as 'Jack' as it was to abandon the wives in favour of relative warmth and comfort in Leighs TSV, I showed my true colours and was off like a shot! The exercise itself was very impressive indeed. I have to say I was utterly confused about what was going on - lots of explosions, tracer fire, loud bangs and soldiers and tanks moving around. A lot of the firing was going over our heads (which was slightly alarming!) and I was listening to all the radio nets from Leigh's TSV. Needless to say I couldn't understand a word of it! Amazingly throughout all of the noise Leigh's driver managed to kip outside in the rear of the TSV and only woke when Leigh shook him to drive us to the next point in the exercise.

Sadly, I had to leave to exercise early at 7am to get back & relieve the babysitter before the children woke, which meant I missed the finale of the 'Python' being fired - a very expensive rocket that makes alot of noise & a big mess (and apparently clears a route through a minefield)! But all in all it was a really good night and I have alot more sympathy for Leigh being very tired. It has taken me about 3 days to catch up on my sleep; the men were still working long after we left!

I have attached a little bit of film which I took during the exercise and have since edited. The last scene is the 'Python' being fired which Leigh filmed for me. Sit back, I think you will be impressed!!!