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British army officer career

Mr. Talk

I am going to be graduating next year and was thinking about joining the Brit. Army as an officer and serve as a military police officer or platoon commander. Has anyone gone through the recruitment process. I am only interested in replies from those that have gone through it or who know someone that has.
There has been a few threads like this, but none of the replies come from those who were in the army.

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spurious

I doubt many army personnel hang out in the LC forum.

The Military forum might be a better place to ask this. Do you want me to move your post?

Mr. Talk

spurious wrote: »

I doubt many army personnel hang out in the LC forum.

The Military forum might be a better place to ask this. Do you want me to move your post?

Yes please

discus

Mate, there's a few of us here who have been through it. What ya want to know?

i r legend

Mr. Talk wrote: »

I am going to be graduating next year and was thinking about joining the Brit. Army as an officer and serve as a military police officer or platoon commander. Has anyone gone through the recruitment process. I am only interested in replies from those that have gone through it or who know someone that has.
There has been a few threads like this, but none of the replies come from those who were in the army.

You'll have to add the 3ws but treasonforbeginners.com should tell you what you need to now. You're welcome.

hurlsey

i r legend wrote: »

You'll have to add the 3ws but treasonforbeginners.com should tell you what you need to now. You're welcome.

eeeeeem how is this a helpful reply to the OP exactly?

tac foley

1. Read this - http://www.army.mod.uk/join/20201.aspx

2. Then come back here with questions, if necessary.

tac, former officer.

PS - ATD [attention to detail] note - You wrote 'There has been a few threads like this...' That SHOULD read 'There have been a few threads like this...'

tac foley

i r legend wrote: »

You'll have to add the 3ws but treasonforbeginners.com should tell you what you need to now. You're welcome.

Not sure quite where you are coming from, but it seems to me as though you are accusing the OP of being a traitor.

In which case, there are a pretty large number of fellow traitors serving in the ranks, or as officers, in all three HM Forces.

I've noted your post to the moderators.

tac

tac foley

Just found this - 'Precise numbers are not available, but it is estimated that upwards of 4,000 Irish citizens serve in the British forces.

'One source said that recruits from the Republic are especially prized because most have a decent education and all want to make the military their career.

"It is no surprise that a significant number of non-commissioned officers are from Ireland," he said.

Sooooo, basically, other ranks seems to be a breeze, but officer, on the other hand, is about as hard as the PDF, plus there is that little matter of residency and/or dual nationality. Northern Irish, of course, have no such problems.

tac

Mr. Talk

tac foley wrote: »

Not sure quite where you are coming from, but it seems to me as though you are accusing the OP of being a traitor.

In which case, there are a pretty large number of fellow traitors serving in the ranks, or as officers, in all three HM Forces.

I've noted your post to the moderators.

tac

Hi Tac, it is best just to ignore any bigots. They just want us to give them attention. Those that are in a small minority don't get that much publicity in this country.

Mr. Talk

tac foley wrote: »

Just found this - 'Precise numbers are not available, but it is estimated that upwards of 4,000 Irish citizens serve in the British forces.

'One source said that recruits from the Republic are especially prized because most have a decent education and all want to make the military their career.

"It is no surprise that a significant number of non-commissioned officers are from Ireland," he said.

Sooooo, basically, other ranks seems to be a breeze, but officer, on the other hand, is about as hard as the PDF, plus there is that little matter of residency and/or dual nationality. Northern Irish, of course, have no such problems.

tac

I just want to know about your experience the the British army and what you did.

Mr. Talk

discus wrote: »

Mate, there's a few of us here who have been through it. What ya want to know?

As I said to Tac, I just want to know about your experience in the army. I know there is a lot of Irish regiments such as the R.I.R. but are there many in the military police for example.

tac foley

Mr. Talk wrote: »

I just want to know about your experience the the British army and what you did.

Well, I joined back in 1967, and it was REME that I went into, to play with and fix tanks. Two and a half years later, having been made redundant, I transferred into another part of the British Army that is not much talked about, and spent the next 31 years in it.

I was commissioned from WO1 having got that far in less than fifteen years, and spent the rest of my time as a Late-entry Officer.

I retired in 2000, and have had a very busy career since then back in Canada and Japan, as well as here in UK.

Needless to say, I also spent a lot of time in Northern Ireland and former DDR, where I found the Russians a lot more friendly than many that I encountered who lived in Ireland. At least the Russians and East Germans were in uniform, and easy to spot. If you log on to the BRIXMIS site, and look at the gallery, you'll see a very p1ssed-off soldier sitting in the front seat of an Opel Senator, while my tour officer makes whoopee with the Sovs who had detained us. That very pissed-off soldier is me.

So I never went to Sandhurst but walked into a room as a WO1 and walked out ten minutes later as a Lieutenant - a month later I was a Captain, and ended up a good deal further up the ladder.

As such, I have nothing to really share with you as far as experiences go. Being Jewish and having a triple-surname that ends with Foley [the rest is French] was never going to make life easy [especially when dealing with what was then the RUC], but it wasn't too bad, and I never got killed - not even once.

tac

tac foley

Mr. Talk wrote: »

As I said to Tac, I just want to know about your experience in the army. I know there is a lot of Irish regiments such as the R.I.R. but are there many in the military police for example.

Of all the choices you could have made, the Royal Military Police is probably the worst you could have picked.

Necessary, but generally reviled by anybody who is NOT in the RMP, you will never be 'off duty', will be regarded with suspicion by everybody when you appear out of uniform at a p!ss-up because although you don't have the uniform on, your warrant card gets no time off.

I suggest that you join www.arrse.co.uk and see what the rest of the Army thinks about the RMP before you make up your mind. Becoming an officer in the RMP will set you apart from all your fellow officers, as well as the ordinary Tom.

You will no doubt be as popular as a fart in a lift for your entire military career, but hey, don't let me put you off.

tac

Mr. Talk

tac foley wrote: »

Well, I joined back in 1967, and it was REME that I went into, to play with and fix tanks. Two and a half years later, having been made redundant, I transferred into another part of the British Army that is not much talked about, and spent the next 31 years in it.

I was commissioned from WO1 having got that far in less than fifteen years, and spent the rest of my time as a Late-entry Officer.

I retired in 2000, and have had a very busy career since then back in Canada and Japan, as well as here in UK.

Needless to say, I also spent a lot of time in Northern Ireland and former DDR, where I found the Russians a lot more friendly than many that I encountered who lived in Ireland. At least the Russians and East Germans were in uniform, and easy to spot. If you log on to the BRIXMIS site, and look at the gallery, you'll see a very p1ssed-off soldier sitting in the front seat of an Opel Senator, while my tour officer makes whoopee with the Sovs who had detained us. That very pissed-off soldier is me.

So I never went to Sandhurst but walked into a room as a WO1 and walked out ten minutes later as a Lieutenant - a month later I was a Captain, and ended up a good deal further up the ladder.

As such, I have nothing to really share with you as far as experiences go. Being Jewish and having a triple-surname that ends with Foley [the rest is French] was never going to make life easy [especially when dealing with what was then the RUC], but it wasn't too bad, and I never got killed - not even once.

tac

So you served during a time when Anglo-Irish relations were very low. What was it like being an Irishman serving in the british army. Did you encounter much abuse. I did hear of one Irish man who served in the 70s and he said the Irish were treated like s**t.

Mr. Talk

I think it is fair to say that the Gardai, MP etc are generally not treated with much respect. But the MP is the job that most appeals to me. Would it be competitive to get into the MP given that so many resent them?

tac foley

Mr. Talk wrote: »

So you served during a time when Anglo-Irish relations were very low. What was it like being an Irishman serving in the british army. Did you encounter much abuse. I did hear of one Irish man who served in the 70s and he said the Irish were treated like s**t.

Only my father was Irish, but I never lived there, or had much to do with the country apart from visiting as a child from the age of eight to seventeen or so.

I can sit here and tell you categorically that I never encountered the slightest hint of anti-Irishness in my entire 33 years in the Army. Remember, too, that Foley is a name here in UK, and does not necessarily belong to a person with any Irish connection whatsoever. One of my bosses, who was a General, is called Foley, and was about as Irish as Don Quixoté. Look up the history of the Foley Arms hotel in Malvern if you don't believe me, or look into why Foley Park is called Foley Park.

I have worked with real Irishmen - my last Chief Clerk came from Swords, and had an accent you could sole your boots with. But it would never have occurred to me to make any disparaging remarks about him or his accent, we both loved the Dubliners too much to have any kind of argument, not that we would in any case, military disciplne does not work like that, and besides, his wife was a great hand with the cakes.

No doubt as an OR you will have your leg pulled - that is what we call banter - but I have to say that it never ever happened to me, but then, I don't sound Irish either, in spite of my name. On the other hand, if you decide to try for RMCS, you and everybody else there will be so far up your ass in alligators for 99% of the time that you won't be noticed, no matter what kind of a name or birth address you might have.

Discus probably has a far better handle on things than I do, I'm sure, so I'd read what HE has to say, rather than the maunderings of an old hasbeen.

tac

Beano

tac foley wrote: »

... If you log on to the BRIXMIS site, and look at the gallery, you'll see a very p1ssed-off soldier sitting in the front seat of an Opel Senator, while my tour officer makes whoopee with the Sovs who had detained us. That very pissed-off soldier is me.
...

I recommend you do look up that pic. Its hilarious. (sorry tac)

The info on BRIXMIS and SOXMIS is pretty interesting as well

tac foley

Hey, no fair! Mind you, the TO wasn't so smilish a couple minutes later when I advised him that I'd overheard the sneaky-lookin' f***** in the background [the ferrety-faced guy] ordering two of the squaddies to try and crow-bar open the trunk while he was sweet-talking...

tac

tac foley

Mr. Talk wrote: »

I think it is fair to say that the Gardai, MP etc are generally not treated with much respect. But the MP is the job that most appeals to me. Would it be competitive to get into the MP given that so many resent them?

I couldn't possibly comment on the popularity or otherwise of AGS, but I'd hazard a guess that the line of prospective recruits for the RMP might be rather shorter and somewhat less frantic than just about anything else.

You definitely need a certain mind-set to want to be a RMP - perhaps you have it.

So long as it is the Army that you wish to join, and not the RAF - THEIR police personnel are much lower down the food-chain in terms of respect, in spite of doing a 'great job'. Their dog-handlers are usually referred to as the 'brain-on-a-chain'. I'll leave it to your imagination which end the 'brain' is on.

One of my RAF troopies got into deep do-dah late one night returning from a beverage-sampling tour of the local German township. Asked by the gate-duty RAFP Corporal to display his Mod Form 1250 [that's the RAF ID card], he knelt down and showed it to the dog.

He spent the night in the guardromm and was charged with 'insulting behaviour'. In the RAF that's anything that hurts their feelings, from using the wrong flowers in the mess table displays, to making disparaging remarks about the date of the formation of the RAF [1st April, 1918]

In the Army he would have been taken aside, given a swift kick up the arse, and told to go sleep it off, but the RAF Plod take themselves REALLY seriously.

tac

Beano

were you in this when it happened? http://www.brixmis.co.uk/photos/rammed.html Its the same driver as in your pic. And why is a captain described as Tour NCO?

tac foley

Beano wrote: »

were you in this when it happened? http://www.brixmis.co.uk/photos/rammed.html Its the same driver as in your pic. And why is a captain described as Tour NCO?

Yes, I was there.

The gentleman you see with the coffee mug is Captain Peter Williams Coldstream Guards, now Major General Peter Williams Ret'd. The driver was Cpl John Boland - again - he is behind the car looking at the damage. The Chief of Mission, Brigadier John Learmont [not a Russian-speaker] stayed in the car.

The car was written off.

It was the last time that we used a black car with the #1 number plate. thereafter they were all the same colour green as all the others.

The DDR troops thought they had to prove just how lap-doggy they were to their Soviet masters in Zossen. I was only rammed once - badly - on Christmas day in Dueben later that year after we caught a Sov truck driver out stealing a Christmas tree. He followed us into town and nigh-on destroyed the left-side of our car with his Zil-130 dump truck. Shortly after that, the French Mission Warrant Officer was killed in a similar ramming, and the US Mission deputy chief was about to get shot dead by an over-zealous sentry.

Oh, and our aircraft got shot and and holed...

Apart from that, it was the best time I ever had in my entire career. Nothing else came even partly near, even when I was CI of one of the principal training establishments.

tac

Remmy

Hi Tac, It is interesting reading your posts. Looking back what made you rise above your peers in the ranks and later when you went LE? I'm aware it's quite an open ended question but I was just curious really.

Beano

Interesting stuff tac. There must be a book in there somewhere.

tac foley

I was always an individual, but a team-player when needed.

Lots of people could do some of the things that I did, but nobody else could do all of the things that I did.

That was it, really. Nothing more than that.

Needless to say, in my bit of the Army there were lots of people like me, or else it would not continue to exist.

tac

tac foley

Beano wrote: »

Interesting stuff tac. There must be a book in there somewhere.

Sure there is, but two others have written it - Tony Geraghty - 'Beyond the Front Line', and 'The Last Mission' by Steve Gibson.

tac

Beano

tac foley wrote: »

Sure there is, but two others have written it - Tony Geraghty - 'Beyond the Front Line', and 'The Last Mission' by Steve Gibson.

tac

Any idea if this is the same as the one you mentioned? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brixmis-Untold-Exploits-Britains-Mission/dp/0006386733/ref=la_B000APQSCO_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406665530&sr=1-2

It has the same cover picture but the title is different.

tac foley

Yup.

tac

krissovo

Spent 15 years as Sapper in the Royal Engineers, started as a junior leader at 16 in 1988 climbed the ranks to Sergent (acting Staff Sergent) and then did a commissioning course at Sandhurst when I was 27 and came out a Captain. Left school with zero qualifications, trained as a Combat Engineer, Mechanical Engineer plant and machinery and then specialized in bomb disposal for the remainder of my career. Joining as a Tom was an invaluable experience and made me a better officer, you will find the best leaders are often ex toms. Served in the first Gulf War, Bosnia, Kossovo (hence user name), Kenya, Canada, Germany and Belize.

Best rank I had was Sergent, you are still one of the lads and can socialize across all ranks plus its a great mix of being hands on and leading without much of the paperwork as a warrant officer or officer.

Sandhurst is an amazing positive experience and has made me very rounded with valuable transferable skills, leadership, analytical, positive outlook, problem solving, decision making I could go on but I am doing very well in a civilian career and its all down to the military even though I am doing a totally different career now.

A day in the life is normally fitness 3 mornings (early) a week (6 miles, circuits, assault course, log runs a couple times a year) or kit/room inspections, sports afternoon on Wednesday (play almost any sport you can name). Lessons during the days will be military skills (first aid, weapon handling, signals, Drill, NBC, Navigation etc, military education), Leadership (classroom theory, problem solving practical, military leadership, orders) and exercise preparation (section in defense, section battle drills, platoon in defense, platoon attacks etc). Evenings are homework for the theory, prepping your kit for the next day/week ahead and a couple of pints once or twice a week. Weekends are mostly free to do your own thing after 6 weeks.

In the real world after Sandhurst its actually quite tough, managing your lads takes a lot of time to do it right, projects from squadron leaders keep you tied up plus you have a day job to do along with the military routine but very rewarding.

RMP is very different to most officer roles, its up there with the military clerks, dentists and vets as you are mostly doing a day job other than preparing for war. You would probably end up a "det" commander in a crappy small barracks with a small section of corporals and sergeants so not much room to be social, you will get all the crap in the officers mess unless you are a really cool easy going guy so you will need to to thick skinned. I think RMP had the one of highest rates of lads looking to transfer to a new Corps. Large garrisons would have better social life for the RMP but like a few other Corp's (like REME battalions) where a big group of them is a nightmare and they hate each other.

An Claidheamh

Mr. Talk wrote: »

So you served during a time when Anglo-Irish relations were very low. What was it like being an Irishman serving in the british army. Did you encounter much abuse. I did hear of one Irish man who served in the 70s and he said the Irish were treated like s**t.

british-soldiers-in-afghanistan-display-their-racist-and-sectarian-orange-order-emblems-and-british-unionist-flags.jpg?w=620

No Mr Talk.

I'm sure you'll be grand.

discus

I failed Officer Selection 3 years ago. Joined anyway as regular.

My advice: Don't fail officer selection.