No more Dad’s Army for region’s part-time troops

Volunteer soldiers from Yorkshire have been training with the Army Reserve in Denmark as their regiments prepare for a bigger role in our Armed Forces. Rob Parsons reports.
Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony JohnsonSoldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson
Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson

As gap year destinations go, Helmand Province in Afghanistan wouldn’t be the first choice for most young students.

But rather than spend his time back-packing or working at his local restaurant, Tom Waterson found himself battling Taliban insurgents alongside Royal Marines from the 40 Commando infantry unit between years at university.

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As a member of the Army Reserve, Lance Corporal Waterson went out on the six-month warzone deployment as a 20-year-old while still at university having done much of his training alongside his school studies.

Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony JohnsonSoldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson
Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson

Four years later, he is one of the near-20,000 part-time soldiers across the country combining a commitment to the Army with regular jobs ranging from prison officers to receptionists, marketing and IT workers to call centre staff.

“I was a boy soldier, I was sworn in on my 17th birthday. I wanted to try out for a regular career while I took my A-Levels,” says the 24-year-old, from Belle Isle, Leeds.

“It was a really good way of testing the water for a regular career while not doing it full time. It is great beer money for a student, I never needed a proper job.

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“Afghanistan was very enjoyable, I got a good sun tan. It was a good way of putting my training into practice alongside regular soldiers.

Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony JohnsonSoldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson
Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson

“That was in 2010, I was 20. My family supported me all the way through. Most of the regular soldiers didn’t realise I was a reserve until I told them. There were a few contacts [with the enemy] but the training kicks in and you deal with it.”

Rather than become a full-time soldier, Lance Corporal Waterson elected to stay a reservist and pursue a civilian career.

He now works as a security guard and has designs on a career in military contracting or law enforcement, boosted by the skills and experience gained during his Army Reserve training.

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“There is responsibility you have from a young age,” he says. “I was a tank commander at 22, which an FHM magazine article I read said was the second coolest job behind Premier League footballer.”

Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony JohnsonSoldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson
Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson

He speaks to The Yorkshire Post during a 15-day training exercise near the town of Oksbøl in western Denmark, part of the 27 days Army reservists are required to put in every year.

He is joined by more than 100 volunteer soldiers from his regiment, the Queen’s Own Yeomanry, a light armoured reconnaissance unit with a base in York whose role is to gain intelligence on the enemy and local environment. Their cut-off 4x4 vehicles, manned by teams of three, are armour plated and have a stand for several different gun types.

The regiment was until last year part of the Territorial Army, previously derided as a modern day ‘Dad’s Army’ or ‘Weekend Warriors’ due to the age and the perceived lack of professionalism of its members.

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But since the TA was renamed the Army Reserve last year its regiments, such as the QOY, are battling to reinvent themselves in the public eye and attract new recruits.

Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony JohnsonSoldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson
Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson

The shift from hobby to professional is more than just cosmetic. As part of controversial cost-cutting plans, the number of trained regular soldiers at the Army’s disposal is set to drop by 20,000 from around 100,000 by December 2018, with the manpower of the Reserve rising from 19,000 to 30,000.

Over the next few years the role of the Army Reserve will be expanded and they will work even more closely with the rest of the Army, meaning there will be more opportunities for those that join.

Rather than individual reservists being attached to regular regiments fighting in the world’s trouble zones, entire squadrons of 100 to 130 will now be expected to deploy and will be expected to be as well trained as their full-time counterparts.

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£2 million was spent on a television advertising campaign to persuade thousands to sign up as part-time soldiers, while regular soldiers who leave are being urged to consider putting their skills to use in the Reserve.

Military bosses are working with employers trying to sell them on the benefits of releasing their staff for training, including, they say, skills that would cost thousands of pounds to acquire on ‘civvy street’.

As well as a series of financial incentives, training trips such as this one to Denmark (another to Cyprus is planned for next year) are part of the package designed to woo potential new recruits.

Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony JohnsonSoldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson
Soldier on Ex Viking Star in Denmark with the 150 Royal Logistic Corps. Pictures by Tony Johnson

There is still a long to go to reach the recruitment target, and earlier this year the National Audit Office said the restructure, which has involved thousands of redundancies, “comes with significant risks which, if they materialised, could significantly affect the Army’s ability to achieve its objectives and value for money”.

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According to Lieutenant Colonel Tony Maddison, the Hull-based commanding officer of 150 Regiment Royal Logistics Corp, whose soldiers are also training in Denmark, his unit is “well on the way” to meeting its recruitment target but still needs a 20 per cent uplift by December 2018.

“In normal regular Army style though, we all want to do it by yesterday,” he said. “We are all smashing ourselves about trying to achieve that.

“There are a number of initiatives. Retention positive training like these exercises in Denmark is a good thing, because they may have previously decided they had had enough. This will be a reason to stay, and hopefully they will tell their mates, because the best recruits for reserve are the reservists themselves.

“Also, there are a number of financial incentives for individuals to join the Reserve. Not least they get paid for doing it anyway, but at various points in the training process they get financial incentives which are good attractors.”

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Lt Col Maddison said those joining the Army Reserve would have the chance to make “mates for life” by joining a tight-knit group, with opportunities to compete in different sports and visit foreign countries.

There is, he says, a chance of being deployed to a warzone for those who join. “Currently, and I am not a betting man, if you look across where the deployments are there aren’t that many at the moment but there are an awful lot of things going on in the world that would suggest there is a possibility they could deploy. It would be wrong to say ‘they will deploy’.”

During the 15 days of training in the sandy grasslands of Denmark, reservists are drilled by expert full-time soldiers as part of a system where each Reserve regiment is paired with a regular Army counterpart.

When The Yorkshire Post visits 150 Regiment, whose role is to move combat supplies and equipment to the front line, its soldiers from Doncaster, Hull, Leeds and Newcastle are taking part in a training exercise in northern Denmark where they help defend Danish sovereignty from attacks by a notional enemy.

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It means they are spending 24 hours a day either on the road or in position, preparing for a possible attack. They sleep under ponchos propped up on the grass, with their 15 or six-tonne logistics vehicles covered by camouflage nets that protect them from being spotted by infra-red cameras.

Among them, with only four hours sleep from the previous night under her belt, is Lance-Corporal Linda Glover, 43, from Osmondthorpe, Leeds. A receptionist for a security company in her civilian life, she is a chef in the Reserve but speaks to The Yorkshire Post while looking out for the enemy from under the camouflage net.

“This is the first time I have been abroad, it is like home,” she says. “I am hoping to stay in up to my time [with the regiment] which is 50 years of age. My husband is an ex-regular so he knows all the Army stuff.

“If people haven’t got anything else to do it is good. I wish I had gone when I was a lot younger. I joined when I was 39. I have had about four hours sleep at the most, but I am all right. I cope with it.”

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Private Ricky Noyes, 28, from Hull but originally from West London, combines his role as a reservist with a job working in a call centre. He joined in 2011 after a six-year spell in the regular Army.

“I left the Army for personal reasons, I didn’t want to be stationed in Germany,” he said. “I was out for two years, I tried to rejoin but they said there were no places. I never thought I would do this after being a regular but I needed it and missed it because I did it straight from school.

“When I was in the regulars I was a chef and I have become something completely different. That was one of the reason I joined. Compared to my day job it is a lot more exercise than sitting in a call centre.”

A few hours away at a training site near Oksbøl in western Denmark, volunteers from the 103 Regiment Royal Artillery are being put through their paces.

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As a light artillery unit, its role is to identify targets on the front line using a team of forward observers before passing information back to the gun crews, who can fire shells from up to 17 kilometres away.

Their weapons pack an almighty punch, and ear protectors are required when The Yorkshire Post is allowed to pull the lever on one of the guns, even with a relatively low level of explosive charge propelling the shells into the Danish sky.

Warrant Officer Class 2 Lee Scaramuzza, 34, from Lindley, Huddersfield, is here as an instructor from his parent regiment 29 Commando after spending a year on a gunnery course to complement his 14 years in the Army.

“This is the first time I have worked with reservists, they have been better than I thought,” he says. “There is room for improvement but they are keen and willing.

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“The dynamic is changing. Before they had bad press, this is from what I think, they had a reputation of being not so professional but is that to be expected when someone does it day-in, day-out and someone else does it at the weekend.”

According to Lt Col Sean Costello, commanding officer of the Queen’s Own Yeomanry, the attempts to boost the ranks of the Reserve comes on the back of “huge increase in volunteer spirit” after the 2012 Olympics. His regiment currently has around 250 soldiers but has enough funding for 330 and he is keen to stress the “can do attitude” that comes from being a volunteer soldier.

He said: “The Government has realised they want to capitalise on this good spirit of volunteering, that is the basis of what we do. Some people want to put on the Queen’s uniform, even if it is just at weekends.

“Our job is to say ‘we are in the business of doing this as the Reserve, as volunteers’, so they can make an informed choice.”