‘So, what do you think would be the worst thing about being in the
army,” the colonel asks, eyeing the potential officer candidate before him.
“Death,” comes the deadpan reply.
Milo Thomas, 16, is in the middle of the crucial interview that will help the
Army Officer Selection Board (AOSB) decide whether he is up to scratch.
Twice a year, hundreds of 15 and 16-year-olds apply for two days in
Westbury, Wiltshire, where they compete for 100 scholarships from the Army
Scholarship Board (ASB).
As well as the interview, during which candidates are grilled about their
current affairs knowledge and personal qualities, they undergo a mental
aptitude test, write essays, tackle assault courses and present a planning
exercise that is scrutinised by a group of senior officers.
The days when only independent school pupils went on to become army officers
are over – now 69% of applicants come from state schools. And last week the
prime minister, Gordon Brown, said that he wanted to encourage more
schoolchildren in state education to sign up for military drills and weapons
training.
Recently the government-commissioned review of civil and military relations,
led by the Labour MP Quentin Davies, found that an “alarming” number of
schoolchildren knew nothing about military life.
However, last month, the National Union of Teachers pointed to a report by the
Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, which accused the army of glamorising
warfare in its recruitment literature aimed at schoolchildren. Schools were
being “asked to play a partisan role in war”, argued the NUT, and they
should play no part in army recruitment unless they were prepared to offer a
more balanced perspective.
This cuts little ice with the officers at the Wiltshire selection board.
Captain Stuart McGhee, a group leader in charge of briefing candidates,
thinks that children who would be well suited to an army career will miss
out if the NUT has its way. “If we don’t expose them to what’s going on in
the real world, and the opportunities on offer, then the army is going to
suffer as an outfit, and they will miss out, too. Children who are
interested in a military career should be allowed to make an informed
decision about it.”
The candidates who arrived at the camp in Wiltshire last week – some with
adolescent spots or voices that have only recently broken - seem to have no
doubts. Angharad Fraser-Williams, 16, from St Gerard’s school in Bangor,
north Wales, has been army-mad since she was 12, when she persuaded her
father to take her to meet a recruiting officer with the Royal Welsh
Regiment. Harold Busby, also 16, from Sherborne school in Dorset, has also
dreamt of joining the army since he was small. “I don’t know why, as I have
no family in the forces, but it’s always really appealed to me,” he says.
The scholarship offers an attractive incentive to teenagers who are determined
to become officers. For each year after they are accepted on the scholarship
scheme, they receive £1,500 a year to spend on whatever they like – though
most use the money to help pay school and university fees. They can drop out
at any time – but have to repay the money.
The select 100 are also awarded a place at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst,
which can be taken up within seven years of attending the scholarship board.
Those who aren’t awarded a scholarship but nevertheless display the necessary
potential officer qualities may still win a place at Sandhurst, which they
can take up when they leave university. In an era when competition for
graduate jobs is fierce, they will be in the privileged position of having
guaranteed employment when they leave university.
Aren’t they put off, though, by the very real possibility of being sent to
Iraq or Afghanistan on their first operational tour?
Max Morant, from Eton, is unfazed: “Of course we all wish there was a peaceful
solution to the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan – but everyone who becomes
a soldier wants to see action; it’s what it’s all about,” he says.
His reply fails to impress Captain Christian Henwood, a group leader who has
served in the army for nine years. “There is often a lot of teenaged bravado
from our candidates,” he says, “and it’s hard for some of them – especially
those in some of the country’s top independent schools – to have any concept
of the reality of life on active operations.”
Do the potential dangers worry the parents of any of these would-be recruits?
Richard Fraser-Williams, the father of Angharad, says that he feels he would
be doing his daughter a disservice if he tried to stop her.
“As a parent you’d be daft not to be concerned about the risks that might be
involved. But my daughter is an incredibly determined young lady; and if
she’s decided to follow a career in the army, then I feel it is our duty as
her parents to support her.” Fraser-Williams is impressed by his daughter’s
initiative. “She has done all the research and set up all the meetings and
interviews herself,” he adds. “I’m very proud of her.”
Although the parents of the latest competitors have driven their children to
the Wiltshire camp and seem happy to support their dreams, applications have
fallen noticeably this year. The army believes that there is evidence of
parental resistance.
“It is a bit scary when your child first comes home from school and announces
they want to join the army”, says Kathryn Burden, whose son Mitchell, at
Langley grammar school in Berkshire, is also hoping to win an army
scholarship. “But you can’t try to stop them from doing what they want to
do. And Mitchell’s not committing himself for the next 30 years; he still
has choices.”
Brigadier Philip Mostyn, the president of the AOSB, concedes that the risks
are greater now than when he joined the army. “But I do feel that there is
something in a person’s soul that makes them want to join up, and there is
very little that will stop them when they have their heart set on it.”
That is not to say that everyone who wants to became an officer can expect to
be snapped up. Even before their arrival at the camp the candidates have had
to jump a few hurdles just to get the chance of competing for a scholarship.
Mostyn says they need to be considered the “leading lights” of their schools
by their head teachers. They also have to be good at both sport and academic
work, and must have a history of taking part in worthwhile extracurricular
activities.
Once at the camp, the children are kept busy every hour of the day. The board
aims to assess three groups of about 30 candidates each week.
But how can you tell whether a 16-year-old will make a good officer six or
seven years from now in such a short space of time? “Every officer here has
served on active operations,” says Mostyn. “We have decades of experience
between us and are able to identify the candidates who possess the necessary
potential quickly.”
The task that appears to strike most fear in the hearts of the young
applicants is the “planning exercise”, for which they are asked to present a
detailed plan of action to their group while being cross-examined by their
group leader. Two colonels and an education adviser look on, assessing every
word and movement they make.
“We owe it to our soldiers only to pass the best potential officers,” says
Mostyn. “You have to ask whether they could be trusted with the lives of
their troops.” And it’s this huge responsibility that should perhaps weigh
most heavily on the candidates’ minds.
