From school leaver to full career and some
One of my most memorable moves was becoming a training instructor at ATR Pirbright, being an instructor gives you the drive to not only succeed for yourself but more importantly to shape recruits to becoming good soldiers.
Sticking with the instructor theme getting posted to the Household Division and Parachute Regiment Centralised Courses really improved me an instructor and helped me learn from intelligent soldiers from Lance Corporals to Captains who came on pre courses to finely tune their fitness and military skills.
Getting promoted to Warrant Officer is one of the best highlights of many but one that allows you to recognise your input to the field army and in some ways a great reward. I was extremely proud to become the Regimental Sergeant Major of Old College in the Royal military Academy, even at that stage of my career learning a great deal from intelligent men and women who would become future leaders in the field army.
Recruiting co-ordinator for The Royal Welsh (regular and reserve)
Having served a full career I was fortunate to continue with the reserves to assist with recruiting future Infantry men and women. Whilst the army has changed shape several times over the years, fundamentally its about offering individuals that great opportunity to serve and help develop them individually and collectively as a team to achieve the same end GOAL.
Seeing the next generation making a commitment to serve
Having spent a lot of my career in instructional posts with new recruits and Officer cadets it always astonishes me to see young men and women succeed in this great organisation, realising their own strengths and weaknesses and overcoming mental and physical barriers to develop into young officers and soldiers in the field army.
Assisting in that choice to serve is a key motivator and allows me to reflect on my own choices that I made to join the Infantry, a choice that has often allowed me to realise how I have been looked after by the team to get to where I am today.
Stick with it
One of the main things that disappoints me is the young man or woman that makes a snap decision to leave training before they have given themselves a real chance.
Training is hard, its designed to be hard, so that in difficult situations it allows you to find the strength to succeed.
Achieving the appointment of Warrant Officer class one
Its always good to have a clear vision of where you want to be within your career and projecting forward but realistically the army has a clear structure when it comes to promotion, whilst you may show potential early on it still takes a good proportion of your career to get to a senior level.
Each rank on the way to your end goal has its own merits and arguably being a full corporal is the only time where you have 7 soldiers directly under your command to shape, mentor and lead.
The further you go on the promotional ladder has its own challenges but is outweighed by the merits.
