Inverness Man Wins High RAF Reserves Honour
Most of the time David Caddick, from Inverness, goes about his work as a business consultant advising companies, charities and voluntary organisations on organisational and management techniques, but during his spare time he is Squadron Leader Caddick MBE an officer in the Royal Auxiliary Air Force. Now working within 5 Force Protection Wing at RAF Lossiemouth his previous position was that of Officer Commanding 2622 (Highland) Squadron of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment, a role which recently took him on operational service to Afghanistan.
“2622 Sqn is a RAF Regiment Squadron, the infantry of the Air Force to put it in layman’s terms,” David explains, “and in Afghanistan our role was to take part in the protection of the area around Khandahar Airfield to prevent insurgents from disrupting our flying operations”.
An important part of that defensive work is based around the very human activity of talking to people, explaining the position and assisting local people to go about their daily lives unmolested by insurgent activities, through a series of development programme such as well drilling, road repairs, school refurbishment and skills training. That is all part of what the military calls “influence”, and it was for his work in charge of the influence effort in Kandahar as well as his command of 2622 (Highland) Squadron, that David was awarded the prestigious Pooley Sword at a ceremony in London last week.
The Sword was presented by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshall Sir Stephen Dalton, before an audience of Lords, Knights and Senior Officers. Afterwards David said: “It is a great honour to receive the sword, but you can’t be a good leader without good followers and I have an outstanding team. I should say that, in order to do the work we have done, we have also had tremendous support from the RAF Regiment chain of command as well as the Royal Air Force Reserves staff.
Anyone interested in finding out more about the RAF Reserves can do so at www.raf.mod.uk/rafreserves or information on 2622 (Highland)Squadron Royal Auxiliary Air Force can be found at www.2622sqn.com
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