A YOUNG soldier marched back into his home county this week to talk to young local people about the training, travel and sporting opportunities offered by a career in the Army. Trooper David Taylor, from Okehampton, has been spending the week at the Armed Forces Careers Office in Exeter. Having experienced the training programme first hand, David is an ideal candidate for young people to talk to and learn more about a career in the Army. David enlisted at the Armed Forces Careers Office in Redruth in 2004 and now serves as a Royal Armoured Corps crewman with the oldest and most senior regiment in the British Army, the Household Cavalry Life Guards, based at Allenby Barracks in Bovington, Dorset. A former pupil of Okehampton College, David, 18, completed a 42-week apprenticeship at the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, where he learned basic military skills, such as fieldcraft, weapon handling and firing, and drill, and took part in adventurous training exercises, as well as playing sport. He went on to complete nine weeks of specialist training at the RAC Centre at Bovington in Dorset as a driver of an armoured fighting vehicle. David completed more training at the Reconnaissance Regiment at Windsor, before passing out as one of the Army?s most highly trained soldiers at the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment at Hyde Park Barracks in London. Warrant Officer Bob Wright, of the Exeter Army Careers Office, said: ?This is a unique job which calls for special soldiers: young men who can adapt themselves to the added responsibility and variety that a career in the Household Cavalry offers. ?David has proved that he has what it takes, and having successfully completed all his training, I?m sure he will be an inspiration to other potential recruits.? The Household Cavalry Regiment has an operational role in armoured fighting vehicles which has seen them at the forefront of Britain?s military operations, including the Falklands, the Gulf and, more recently, Bosnia and Kosovo.
