Reserve Defence Forces plan public awareness event in Mullingar this Friday

The Reserve Defence Forces, C Company, 6th Battalion, based in Mullingar, are planning a public awareness event in the town next week.

Sgt John Duncan and colleagues will be on the Market Square between 11am and 4pm on Friday March 13. Sgt Duncan said, that as well as providing information on the RDF, they are hoping to attract new members aged between 18 and 35 to sign up.

Sgt Duncan said: “This is an opportunity to experience something people haven’t experienced before. Life in the Defence Forces is slightly different from whatever they’ve done before, but we do offer things like leadership training, confidence building and weapons handling.

“We also do courses in first aid, advanced first aid, communications – we have state of the art radio equipment, CIS (communications and information systems) and units that maintain them.”

Other areas in which tuition is available are driving, including off-road and trucks, adventure training (hiking, obstacle courses, canoeing), navigation.

Sport is part of Reserve Defence Forces life too, and there are official teams in all the main ones, from GAA and soccer and other field and team sports to equestrian activities.

“That’s all available to anyone who joins the Defence Forces; if they want to do courses in any of those areas, we can facilitate them,” said Sgt Duncan.

Visit military.ie to find out more.