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Look at Life
A Look at Life
- with the Coldstream Guards
(Click the below for scanned images of the Look at Life
Brochure)
Interested in Look at
Life?
Visit your nearest Recruiting Office
(click
here to find nearest)
Or give the Coldstream Guards Regimental Recruiting Team a
ring
CSgt 'Mack' McWilliams
on 07782 186661
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- Captain
It should be noted that although
these stories were recorded whilst in our previous post
in Northern Ireland, it provides an ideal background to
life in the Battalion.
This page tells the story of one among 30 officers of
the rank of Captain or less currently serving in the
Regiment. A career in the Infantry and the Coldstream
Guards in particular offers outstanding opportunities
for young men of ability, drive and determination to
achieve an enormous amount in a few years
and to do so
in the company of like-minded people from all walks of
life and backgrounds.
A CAPTAIN IN THE COLDSTREAM GUARDS
Captain Toby Till
Selection
and Training
No
officer's career in the Coldstream Guards follows exactly
the same path. However, every career has the same elements
of variety, travel and adventure, whether for a few years or
for a full career. My experiences in the Coldstream Guards
have fulfilled all my expectations. I was lucky enough to
pass the Army's Scholarship scheme while still at school,
which guaranteed me a Regular Commission after completing
Sandhurst and over £1500 to spend during my gap year. I
spent this windfall on an Operation Raleigh expedition to
Chile before going to the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst
(RMAS) in May 1992. The Commissioning Course is hard work,
both physically and intellectually but also a very
worthwhile challenge. The experiences you face and overcome
during it prepare you well for when you join your Regiment.
If you are lucky, you will be instructed by one of the
Regiment's own Colour Sergeants. Apart from training me as
an officer, the military instructors also trained me as a
Unit Expedition Leader. As part of the course, I was lucky
enough to go to Dubai for three weeks on a visit hosted by
the United Arab Emirates Armed Forces. There we learned how
to live in the desert and how to freefall by parachuting out
of helicopters. Shortly after returning from the
Middle East, we underwent our final two-week exercise in
Cyprus.
With the final test over, I received my Commission as an
officer in April 1993.
First
Postings
My first
posting was to the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, based in
Chelsea Barracks in London, just a stone's throw from Sloane
Square. Within 6 weeks of joining, I had the great honour of
carrying the Queen's Colour on the Queens Birthday Parade,
or Trooping the Colour. The experience was one of the best
of my life. Imagine being the focal point of the parade,
with all eyes and many cameras on you. Millions worldwide
are watching you and I can only say what a privilege it was
to be involved in such an event when I was still just 20
years old. I was also already in command of nearly 30 men in
my platoon, responsible for all their training and welfare.
You have to learn quickly but a team of Non-Commissioned
Officers supports you superbly.
After
almost a year with my first platoon I completed my Platoon
Commanders Battle Course at Warminster, Wiltshire where I
sharpened my skills in Infantry tactics and command over a
tough but enjoyable period of 14 weeks. The course is
intensive but very rewarding, and as always in the Army,
there are plenty of friends enduring the same hardships as
you.
I was then
posted to our 1st Battalion in
Germany
where I was given command of another thirty men and four
Warrior Armoured Fighting Vehicles costing more money than I
cared to think about. Most of my friends from school were
still at University ! Shortly after arriving in Germany I
was selected to lead a platoon of Coldstreamers to
Northern Ireland
on attachment to another Regiment. The first cease-fire had
just commenced so there was a real feeling of tension to see
if it would hold. After 5 months of operations in Northern
Ireland, I returned to Germany to prepare for the
Battalion's imminent test exercise on the High Plains of
Canada. After a period of work-up training in many areas of
Northern Europe we deployed to
Canada on
EXERCISE MEDICINE MAN. After taking over a complete Armoured
Battle Group's complement of armoured vehicles and linking
up with our supporting tank, engineer and artillery units,
we spent the next four weeks conducting extremely realistic
and demanding exercises by day and night and during all
weathers. Much of the training was done using live
ammunition and when it wasn't we exercised using lasers that
indicated when a vehicle or man had been hit by the opposing
force. The training in Canada is as real as it can be. The
experience of driving at over 70 kms per hour over the
Canadian plains towards a distant 'enemy' in the company of
a whole battlegroup of armoured vehicles is a most
exhilarating experience.
Once the
main exercise was over, I spent a month in the Canadian
Rockies with some of my platoon taking part in a wide
variety of adventurous training pursuits. This period was
one of my best times in the Army. For over a month I
climbed, trekked, whitewater-rafted, mountain-biked and
freefell by parachute. Unbelievably, at least to my friends
back home (some of whom were by now slaving away in their
first office jobs), it cost me nothing. In fact, a grateful
Government was paying me to do it! My civilian friends have
never been so jealous.
Recruiting
and Training
Having
spent 2 ½ years by now in command of a platoon, my next
posting in the autumn of 1995 was to the Guards Training
Company at Catterick in North Yorkshire. Here I was given
the job of teaching Infantry tactics to Phase 2 recruits,
many of whom were shortly to be fellow Coldstreamers. The
Coldstream Guards is one of the best-recruited battalions in
the Army as a whole and I found it most rewarding to train
the Regiment's future Guardsmen. I commanded a small
training team and we spent 14 weeks at a time putting each
of our recruit platoons through their paces. I gained a lot
of job satisfaction from helping young and apprehensive boys
develop into confident young men, ready to take their places
in the Regiment. I spent two years at Catterick before
returning to the 1st Battalion just as it moved to Windsor
to start a ceremonial role after six eventful years in
Germany as an Armoured Infantry battalion.
Life As A
Captain
On my
arrival in the 1st Battalion I was promoted to captain and
made the Second in Command of Number Two Company. This
Company, consisting of 110 men was shortly to deploy to the
Falkland Islands for a 4-month operational tour. My job was
to ensure that the company was properly trained for the
deployment and then to organize its training and operational
requirements in the South Atlantic. The Falklands may sound
like a desolate place but for Infantry training it is second
to none. The Company worked closely with the Navy and the
RAF. I personally flew in a Tornado fighter and spent 24 hrs
underwater in a nuclear powered submarine. I didn't drive
either machine, however! The Company's platoon's went
through a cycle of Quick Reaction Force duties, patrolling
the remote outlying settlements and areas for several days
at a time and undergoing some of the best live fire Infantry
training I have experienced to date.
After four
months in the freezing South Atlantic, the Commanding
Officer decided I needed a change of climate. Within a month
of returning to England, I deployed on exercise to Belize in
Central America for 6 weeks of jungle training. As in the
Falklands, my responsibilities included the organization of
live firing, this time in the close confines of the jungle.
I lived in the jungle with a team of 10 men for a month,
training each platoon as it came through. Once the platoons
had completed their training, I had a week in which to fit
some scuba-diving (again at no cost to me) off the remote
and beautiful Belizean keys.
On return
to Windsor I completed a short period of Public Duties, on
Guard at Buckingham and St James's Palaces and at the Tower
of London, trading in my worn-out jungle fatigues for a
smart red and gold tunic and my floppy hat for a tall black
bearskin. The smart social life had just begun to pall when
I took command of the Battalion's Reconnaissance Platoon and
returned once more to Warminster to complete the 7 week long
Recce Platoon Commanders' Course. On return to Windsor, my
new Platoon and I began training, with the rest of the
Battalion for our current operational tour in South Armagh,
Northern Ireland.
Summary
I have
found that my life as an officer in the Coldstream Guards
has been far more rewarding than I dreamed it could be when
I was at school. The satisfaction I have gained from seeing
my hard work and enthusiasm being reflected in competent and
contented Guardsmen far exceeds any reward gained by earning
money in the City. I am lucky to have been accepted by a
well-recruited Regiment. Not only have I never had to
command an under-strength platoon or even worse, wait to
command a platoon at all, but also I have been able to
travel with Coldstreamers all over the world. Because we are
up to strength, we can afford to send detachments of
Guardsmen away instead of conserving them in barracks. In
1999 alone, my fellow Coldstream officers and men were
serving in Europe, including the Balkans, Belize, Jamaica,
Sierra Leone, the USA, and Canada. So if you are looking for
a life of travel, adventure and challenge in the company of
like-minded men, then join the Coldstream Guards.
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