Exercise Saif Sareea II was an exercise that was held in the Oman, and involved over 25,000 British troops. The exercise lasted over 6 months for some and took part in both the North and South of the country. It started for Irish Guards Battle Group in early September in the South with 14 days acclimatisation and light training which involved brushing up on basic survival skills as well as learning new techniques that were important to desert survival. The main problem that we knew we would all face was the degradation of the vehicles due to the terrain and the difficulty in getting spares to fix them. However in spite of the age of the vehicles that Support Company had to taxi around the battlefield (some of which were older than the crew driving them!) this problem was coped with well and apart from the odd story of crews breaking down for days on end we had no major dramas.

After the initial acclimatisation period it was time to get down to some real soldiering. This started with some Company training just to brush up on what were learned in Poland and BATUS, Canada. When these drills were up to the highest standard, it was time to progress upto Battle Group and the Brigade level exercises. These involved all arms from Fighter ground attack aircraft down to the battlefield Replens run by the Royal Logistical Corps. This lasted for more than 30 days and at the end of it we were all ready to relax a bit prior to the big logistical move North for the large scale exercise that would see us working along side the Omani Army with the Royal Marines as the enemy. It was during this stand down period the Combined Services Entertainment's show (CSE show) was laid on. The stars who performed were Bobby Davro, Steps and Geri Halliwell.

We then moved north and continued the exercise with the Omani army. This culminated in a joint attack on the Royal Marines defensive positions which was a resounding victory for the Irish Guards Battle Group. At the end of the exercise the Irish Guards had spent a total of 56 days in the desert and have taken a wealth of experience and knowledge away from it.