Joshua Leakey
Colour Sergeant Joshua Mark Leakey (born 1988) is a British soldier currently serving in the Parachute Regiment. In 2015, Leakey was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration for valour in the British and Commonwealth armed forces, for his involvement in a joint UK–US raid in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on 22 August 2013. He was the only living British soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross for the War in Afghanistan. Early life and family Leakey was born in 1988. He is the son of retired RAF officer and former director of the Armed Forces Christian Union, Air Commodore Mark Leakey, and his wife Rosemary, an occupational therapist. He has a younger brother Ben. Leakey was educated at Witham Hall preparatory school and, from 1999 to 2006, Christ's Hospital, a private school in Horsham, West Sussex. He began a degree in military history at the University of Kent but dropped out during the first term to join the military. He is the second member o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkhas, and 28,330 volunteer reserve personnel. The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with antecedents in the English Army and Scots Army that were created during the Restoration in 1660. The term ''British Army'' was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, but the Bill of Rights of 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The Brit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Kent
, motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' (University of Kent at Canterbury, 1990) page 36 As Martin notes "Our former Information Officer has ventured the opinion that Thomas Cranmer, Cranmer would not have got very high marks had this phrase appeared in an General Certificate of Education#O-level, O-Level Latin paper!" , top_free_label = , top_free = , type = Public university, Public , established = , closed = , founder = , parent = , affiliation = , affiliations = Universities UKSGroup European Universities' NetworkEuropean University Association, EUAAssociation of Commonwealth Universities, ACUEastern ARCUniversities at Medway , religious_affiliation = , academic_affiliation = , endowment = Pound sterling, £5.528 million (2018) , budget = , officer_i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Captain (United States O-3)
In the United States Army (), U.S. Marine Corps (USMC), U.S. Air Force (USAF), and U.S. Space Force (USSF), captain (abbreviated "CPT" in the and "Capt" in the USMC, USAF, and USSF) is a company-grade officer rank, with the pay grade of O-3. It ranks above first lieutenant and below major. It is equivalent to the rank of lieutenant in the Navy/Coast Guard officer rank system and should not be confused with the Navy/Coast Guard rank of captain. The insignia for the rank consists of two silver bars, with slight stylized differences between the Army/Air Force version and the Marine Corps version. History The U.S. military inherited the rank of captain from its British Army forebears. In the British Army, the captain was designated as the appropriate rank for the commanding officer of infantry companies, artillery batteries, and cavalry troops, which were considered as equivalent-level units. Captains also served as staff officers in regimental and brigade headquarters ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lance Corporal
Lance corporal is a military rank, used by many armed forces worldwide, and also by some police forces and other uniformed organisations. It is below the rank of corporal, and is typically the lowest non-commissioned officer (NCO), usually equivalent to the NATO Rank Grade OR-3. Etymology The presumed origin of the rank of lance corporal derives from an amalgamation of "corporal" from the Italian phrase ''capo corporale'' ("head of the body") with the now-archaic '' lancepesade'', which in turn derives from the Italian ''lancia spezzata'', which literally means "broken lance" or "broken spear", formerly a non-commissioned officer of the lowest rank. It can be translated as "one who has broken a lance in combat", and is therefore a leader. "Lance" or "lances fournies" was also a term used in Medieval Europe to denote a unit of soldiers (usually 5 to 10 men strong). Brazil After the independence of Brazil in 1822, the new Brazilian Army followed the Portuguese system of ranks, h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rocket-propelled Grenades
A rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) is a shoulder-fired missile weapon that launches rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. Most RPGs can be carried by an individual soldier, and are frequently used as anti-tank weapons. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor which propels the RPG towards the target and they are stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are reloadable with new rocket-propelled grenades, while others are single-use. RPGs are generally loaded from the front. RPGs with high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) warheads are very effective against lightly armored vehicles such as armored personnel carriers (APCs) and armored cars. However, modern, heavily-armored vehicles, such as upgraded APCs and main battle tanks, are generally too well-protected (with thick composite or reactive armor) to be penetrated by an RPG, unless less armored sections of the vehicle are exploited. Various warheads are also capable of causing secondary damage to vulnerable system ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Machine Gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower, and are not considered true machine guns. As a class of military kinetic projectile weapon, machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to a bipod or tripod, a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils. Many machine guns also use belt feeding and open bolt operation, features not normally found on other infantry firearms. Machine guns can be further categorized as light machine guns, medium machine guns, heavy machine guns, general purpose machine guns and squad automatic weapons. Similar automatic firearms of caliber or more are classified as autocannons, rat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Boeing CH-47 Chinook
The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is a tandem rotor helicopter developed by American rotorcraft company Vertol and manufactured by Boeing Vertol. The Chinook is a heavy-lift helicopter that is among the heaviest lifting Western helicopters. Its name, Chinook, is from the Native American Chinook people of Oregon and Washington state. The Chinook was originally designed by Vertol, which had begun work in 1957 on a new tandem-rotor helicopter, designated as the Vertol Model 107 or V-107. Around the same time, the United States Department of the Army announced its intention to replace the piston engine–powered Sikorsky CH-37 Mojave with a new, gas turbine–powered helicopter. During June 1958, the U.S. Army ordered a small number of V-107s from Vertol under the ''YHC-1A'' designation; following testing, it came to be considered by some Army officials to be too heavy for the assault missions and too light for transport purposes. While the YHC-1A would be improved and adopted by the U.S. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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US Marines
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combined arms, implementing its own infantry, artillery, aerial, and special operations forces. The U.S. Marine Corps is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. The Marine Corps has been part of the U.S. Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834 with its sister service, the United States Navy. The USMC operates List of United States Marine Corps installations, installations on land and aboard sea-going amphibious warfare ships around the world. Additionally, several of the Marines' tactical Naval aviation, aviation squadrons, primarily Marine Fighter Attack squadrons, are also embedded in Navy carrier air wings and operate from the aircraft carriers. The history of the Marine Corps began when two battalions of Continental Ma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Operation Herrick
Operation Herrick was the codename under which all British operations in the War in Afghanistan were conducted from 2002 to the end of combat operations in 2014. It consisted of the British contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and support to the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), within the central Asian country. Operation Herrick superseded two previous efforts in Afghanistan. The first of these was Operation Veritas, which consisted of support during the United States invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. The last major action of this was a sweep in east Afghanistan by 1,700 Royal Marines during Operation Jacana, which ended in mid-2002. The second was Operation Fingal, which involved leadership and a 2,000 strong contribution for a newly formed ISAF in Kabul after December 2001. Command was subsequently transferred to NATO ally Turkey several months later and the British contingent was scaled back to 300. Since then, all com ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tours Of Duty
For military personnel, a tour of duty is usually a period of time spent in combat or in a hostile environment. In an army, for instance, soldiers on active duty serve 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the length of their service commitment. Soldiers in World War II were deployed for the entire war and could be in active service for 4–5 years. Air force In World War II, Royal Air Force doctors had started to notice symptoms of battle fatigue in their pilots. Before 1942, there was no official limit for an operational tour. Some pilots had been flying over 200 missions with only a short break. Then the Senior Medical Officer of the RAF station Biggin Hill intervened, after asking one flight sergeant how many missions he had done and was surprised to hear 200 over 2 years. A tour system was then adopted; the length of it varied, depending on the period, theatre, and Command requirements of the time. In Western Europe, it was set at 200 hours operational flying. In 1944 in So ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment
The 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (1 PARA), is a battalion of the British Army's Parachute Regiment. Along with various other regiments and corps from across the British Armed Forces, it is part of Special Forces Support Group. A specialized airborne light infantry unit, the battalion as of 2006 has been the main contributor of manpower to the British Army's Parachute Regiment and is capable of a wide range of operations. Personnel regularly deploy outside the United Kingdom on operations and training, 1 PARA is part of Special Forces Support Group and regarded as the elite of the Parachute Regiment deployed to assist United Kingdom Special Forces in a supporting role as well as being the main part of the hunter force on SF selection. All personnel complete the Pre Parachute Selection ( P Company) course at the Infantry Training Centre Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire (previously at Aldershot, Hampshire). History The 1st Battalion can trace its origins to 1940, w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rea Leakey
Major-General Arundell Rea Leakey, (30 December 1915 – 6 October 1999) was an officer in the British Army. He served in the Royal Tank Regiment in the Second World War, in North Africa, Italy and France. He later served in Korea, in the Arab Legion, and commanded a brigade in the British Army of the Rhine in the 1960s. He served as Director-General of Fighting Vehicles and finally as the commander of British troops in Malta and Libya. He retired in 1966, and became Director of the Wolfson Foundation. An autobiography, ''Leakey's Luck'', was published in 1999. His father Gray Leakey and step-mother Mary were murdered by the Mau Mau in Kenya in 1954. His older brother Nigel Leakey was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross in the Second World War, and a cousin Joshua Leakey was awarded the Victoria Cross in 2015. One of his sons is Lieutenant General David Leakey. Early life Leakey was born in Nairobi, Kenya on 30 December 1915. His father, Arundell Gray Leakey, was the son o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |