24/06/2014
"The understanding of service is not the same now in society as it was when I joined. We have to teach about service, we have to teach about self sacrifice, about duty and loyalty. We do that, certainly at Sandhurst, by explaining the real basics. If I may say so, I believe that depends enormously on integrity. From integrity comes the comradeship which gives us our fighting power. We have to have comrades when we go into Sierra Leone or Kosovo or wherever it is. The integrity that the young bring in from society is pretty grey in areas. I suppose that we lay down a rule of thumb which is that behaviour that offends is unacceptable and we take things from there on upwards. "
"All of us want people who are making our service the career of first choice. That is really what we want. We do not want people who have failed to get into here or were disappointed there. We want people who are first choice. Secondly, I believe the diversity you talk about is one of our strengths. I have traveled to a lot of the other academies in the world and, as you heard from the Admiral, most of them are university-length courses. Our organisations are essentially post graduate and they are focusing young people for a year on command and leadership which is a fantastic start to life, not just to military life but to life. I know the Americans say they are training leaders for the nation. I would not be so grandiose as to say we are doing that but I very much hope we are putting young people back into society who have had the huge privilege of studying leadership and nothing else for a whole year."
