A young paratrooper from Bedford is currently in France training alongside French airborne forces as part of a major multinational military exercise.
Private Zack Lago, 18, is among 2,000 troops from 16 Air Assault Brigade and France’s 11e Brigade Parachutiste taking part in Exercise Orion on the St Cyr Coëtquidan training area in Brittany.
The scenario tests how British and French forces would work together to support a NATO ally facing an insurgency and the threat of invasion.
“Hardest challenge I could set myself”
It is the first overseas exercise for Zack since he joined the 2nd Battalion The Parachute Regiment last summer.
“We have spent eight days out in the field, patrolling the area and both defending positions and making attacks,” he said. “It has been interesting to work with the French, to see how they do the same job as us but slightly differently.”
Zack, a former Mark Rutherford School pupil, trained at the Army Foundation College Harrogate before earning his place in the Paras.
“My grandad served, and I grew up on his stories, and wanted to have some of those experiences myself,” he said. “He was in the Royal Marines, and I wanted to do something different but at the same level.
“Joining the Paras was the hardest challenge that I could set myself, and I am getting what I wanted.”
Exercise Orion forms part of the Airborne Combined Joint Force, a British–French partnership that has been ready to respond to global crises since 2013.
It is a key element of the defence cooperation established through the 2010 Lancaster House Treaties, which were updated in 2025 to deepen joint military readiness.
