Midlands TA play vital Basra role

A group of TA soldiers from the West Midlands have swapped civilian jobs for a vital role in protecting British troops based in Basra.

So far in their six month tour of duty in the Gulf, members of the group of 12 soldiers from the Royal Mercian and Lancashire Yeomanry (RMLY), based in the Black Country and Shropshire as well as Chester, have foiled two potentially lethal rocket attacks and an invasion of the perimeter fence.

Four of the dozen soldiers come from the Black Country.

They are Trooper Christopher Homer, aged 22, from Dudley; Trooper Matthew Burns, 20, from Coseley; Lance Corporal Andrew Edwards, 30, from Quarry Bank, and Lieutenant Rikul Karadia, 23, from Wolverhampton.

Their work is part of their role in providing surveillance and reconnaissance for the British Contingency Operating Base in the southern Iraqi city and three of the group have been honoured with a special Brigade Commander's Coin for their work.

As reservists, the soldiers come from a variety of different backgrounds and all hold down civilian jobs which they will return to after completing their tour.

The troop commander is Lt Karadia, who is a postgraduate medical researcher and his soldiers include a sawyer, a builder's apprentice, a truck driver, a security guard, a pub manager, a landscaper and a chef.

Lt Karadia said: "For the type of work that we do out here, the qualities that we need are maturity and the ability to read human behaviour, as well as the ability to integrate with others.

Because my troops come from such a diverse range of backgrounds, we can apply a bit of lateral thinking to unusual situations and I feel that is part of the reason why we have been successful."

The members of the troop have all been trained as tank crewmen on the Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank and were specially selected for the role before deploying to Iraq.

While all members of the same regiment, they fall under the command of another armoured regiment, the Royal Dragoon Guards whilst at Basra.

Prior going out to Basra the soldiers completed about ten weeks of intensive training.

This was focussed on getting them used to working alongside regular soldiers and completing all the necessary work to enable them to deploy to Iraq.