work that doesn’t seem to have any particular rhythm to it. We managed to get through it and entertain the enthusiastic audience, who are not privy to our unique Military Pomp and Splendour. The main event of the week, and eagerly awaited by the locals, was centred on a music festival in the market square, again in Mafra. For the duration of the week, various acts ranging from Pop
Bands to local Folk Groups had performed on the large outdoor stage. We were privileged to round off the week giving our own unique flavour of British Military music to an ecstatic crowd. Following our own independent concert we were joined on stage by The Banda Sinfonica do Exercito. This is a 70 musician strong Portuguese Military Band of outstanding quality. The stage was inundated with musicians of contrasting
coloured uniforms and personalities, a massed spectacular, which brought the house down with an unusual mix of styles and traditions, which was capped by a firework extravaganza. A perfect Coda to a most enjoyable week, where many friends were made and where links were strengthened between two Military Bands from very different cultures.
Media Operations on Operations By Major Alex Dick MBE RHG/D hilst plenty has been written about the Army’s involvement in two major recent deployments, OP BESSEMER (Macedonia) and Op FINGAL (Afghanistan – ISAF), not so much has been written about the media operations that were run concurrently. As the SO3 J3 Media Ops for the headquarters deployed on these operations, 16 Air Assault Brigade, I was in a good position to be able to see how they unfurled in both the eyes of the army and those of the media.
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Media Ops may not seem to be the most glamorous of postings as a SO3. Despite this, I applied for the job at 16 Air Assault Brigade and was fortunate enough to be selected. With its HQ in Colchester, the brigade has approximately 6000 troops centred on 3 infantry battalions and 3 aviation regiments. The wide geographical spread of the brigade’s units make the C2 arrangements rather daunting on a day to day basis, particular in the area of the media as I had to deal with journalists and news outlets up and down the country. As many readers will be aware, the Household Cavalry has been well represented in the Brigade, not only with an affiliated Squadron from Windsor but also by members of the Pathfinder Platoon and of course by the Commander, Brigadier BWB White-Spunner CBE. My first operation with the brigade was Operation BESSEMER. This involved the recovery of weapons handed in voluntarily by the Albanian insurgents who had been fighting against the Macedonian army prior to the signing of the Ohrid agreement in the summer of 2001. A rapid deployment meant that we had, quite literally, to hit the ground running. For me, this meant getting hold of the multitude of journalists in the AOR and briefing them on what was going on.
Major Alex Dick with Afghan friend.
With a policy of ‘transparency’, I was in the enviable position of being able to tell the journalists pretty much anything I wanted to without betraying any operational secrets. Having said that, many journalists were convinced that we had a hidden agenda which was clearly not the case. Having a BBC 24 news crew embedded with us meant that I was in a position to be able brief as and when I wanted too. This meant that we could keep the families back home up to date on any developments almost immediately, which became all the more important as rumours began to circulate that we were to redeploy directly to Afghanistan! Op BESSEMER was reported on widely, mainly because there was nothing else going on in the world at the time, but also because it was being touted as a model for a European Army deployment (quite incorrectly!). The events of 9/11 put a halt to that, and the media disappeared overnight. This was a great
shame as at the end of a very successful operation, the brigade did not receive the coverage that it deserved. Soon after our return to the UK, we began planning for operations in Afghanistan. Initially we were to be deployed on a specific operation, but this changed so that we deployed under the command of HQ 3 (UK) Division as the Brigade HQ of the ISAF. It was quite a change to be working in an environment where the media were so widely dispersed and inaccessible. With offensive operations running in the north of the country, the media’s centre of gravity was focussed there quite soon after our arrival in Kabul. That said, it provided us with more of a challenge, and enabled us to concentrate on Information Operations, in particular the transfer of information to the local population. This was crucial as a force protection measure, as we realised from an early stage that keeping the local population informed of what we were doing in Kabul, and why we were doing it
Household Cavalry News
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