A “bumper crop” of 200 Regiment recruits made it through the 40th annual two-week boot camp, according to Capt. Wayne Caines.

Speaking at Warwick Camp's open day on Saturday, where a crowd of several hundred civilians clapped and cheered as the soldiers were put through their paces on the parade ground, Capt. Caines revealed there had been “virtually no disciplinary problems” and that many had expressed an interest in training to become officers.

“The mean age of this years intake was 25 and we have noticed a major difference from other years in terms of the maturity with which the majority have approached their training,” he said.

“200 of the 204 soldiers that walked through the gates two weeks ago are still here while three out of the four women who volunteered also made it through. That is an impressive conversion rate by anybody's standards.”

Watched by Premier Alex Scott and a number of other political dignitaries, four separate platoons performed their drill and were inspected by Maj. Mark Telemaque, the officer in charge of boot camp, and Maj. Brian Gonsalves.

And despite the odd hiccup, with one private from seven platoon dropping his rifle as they were presenting arms, the exercise passed off with no glaring hitches - despite, as Maj. Caines stressed, “only two weeks of training”.

Meanwhile, one exhausted recruit, talking to The Royal Gazette from his bed yesterday evening, said that although he had found large parts of boot camp a chore, there were some “interesting and beneficial elements” to the experience.

“It is amazing how quickly you get used to people shouting at you,” said Pte. Calvin Thomas. “A lot of people tell you before you go that it is not as bad as it is made out to be. But it is, and you are forced to get used to it and accept it.

“I started off absolutely hating drill but by the end it started to get better and I found things like the rifle exercises pretty interesting,” he concluded.

Over the course of the two weeks, the soldiers were sent on regular morning runs around Warwick Long Bay, completed a gruelling assault course, drilled for hours and received weapons training.