Weekly Meeting - My Life in the Army (Alex McDougall)

Wed, Jul 10th 2019 at 8:00 pm - 10:30 pm

Speaker Meeting (Friend/VOT Neil Normington)


My Life in the Army - Alex McDougall

It is not every Wednesday evening that someone drives down from Pirbright to talk to us, but that is indeed what happened tonight.
Alex McDougall, who also happens to be a neighbour of mine in Harescombe, started his military career as an officer cadet at Sandhurst and was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers, which later merged with the Royal Regiment of Wales to become the Royal Welsh.  He is now with the Welsh Guards and his company is currently doing a tour of ceremonial duty at Buckingham Palace where he can be seen marching wearing his bearskin and with a sword in his hand on a daily basis.

This is a much tougher task than we might have thought:  it is a very long day starting at 3:30 am when they gather their equipment before being transported to the Palace in advance of the rush hour traffic.  Rehearsals then follow so that all is ready for the Changing of the Guard at 11:00 am.  This is then followed by two-hour turns of guard duty through to the next Change on the following day.

Alex’s life in the Army has been far from ceremonial for most of his service.  During his career he has served tours of duty in South Armagh, Basra, Afghanistan (twice) and Iraq, among other places.  Alex outlined a few of the complexities of modern warfare in some of these theatres and then told us some interesting tales about these experiences.  He then moved on to expound on his current role of developing leadership qualities in his company.

Leadership training starts with the basics by making sure that recruits understand the Values and Standards of the British Army – which may not necessarily be how they had been used to behaving in Civvy Street.  The required Values are courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment; and the expected Standards, particularly for NCOs and Officers, are lawful and acceptable behaviour at all times, together with professionalism.  Alex made it clear that these are full-time expectations, not just whilst on duty.

There followed a lively question time when Alex was bombarded with an array of questions on a wide range of subjects which he answered with candour.

All in all we are grateful to know that we are defended by probably the best armed forces in the world and after this talk we are somewhat the wiser as to why they are the best.

Neil Normington

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