John Miller is the fourth individual to hold the post of army sergeant major since it was established exactly a decade ago – and the experienced Royal Signals WO1 admits his boots haven’t touched the floor since.
Reporting directly to Chief of the General Staff, Gen Sir Roly Walker, the veteran of Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan represents the voice of the soldier at the senior echelons of command.
And it is his job to ensure that the highest standards are maintained across the ranks, at home and overseas. But in a volatile world in which fighting rages in Ukraine, instability prevails in the Middle East and the threat of global terrorism looms, one of his immediate tasks is helping to ensure the army can double its fighting power in two years, treble it by the end of the decade and stay match fit for all eventualities.
We caught up with the soldier, who joined aged 16 in 1999 and has served much of his career with 216 Parachute Signal Squadron, a month after he succeeded WO1 Paul Carney…
So how has the first month been?
Honestly – the fact I’m now actually in post didn’t hit home until the recent Regimental Sergeant Major’s convention. I’d been travelling a fair bit, but there were 240 RSMs in attendance and later I had dinner with senior people. It’s going to be an immense challenge, and a great honour.
Do you have any immediate priorities?
Yes, there are a few. Education is one area of focus for me – and enhancing the NCO Academy. It must represent an identity for our non-commissioned officer leaders and, crucially, support their development.
How important is training in terms of the boss’s fighting power ask?
Extremely. Gen Walker is across several strands of work around the doubling and trebling of fighting power in the coming years and I’m focused on developing our people capability. Outside of our routine schedules, I want personnel to be training whenever we can and mastering the basics well, being extraordinary at the ordinary and putting in reps to make sure we build muscle memory. I know work tempo is a problem and there is not much time available to us but we need to be ruthless in taking every opportunity to improve. There is always something you can do, whether that is time on the range, PT, casualty drills or getting back to traditional navigation with a map and compass. This is going to be important given the GPS signal will likely be killed during a conventional conflict.
Being good across the board is key, then?
Yes, as is maintaining our standards. Being lawful, appropriate and totally professional underpin the army’s values of courage, discipline, respect for others, integrity, loyalty and selfless commitment. As soldiers, we are custodians of an army dating back centuries; I want people to look at our standards and operationalise them. Professionalism and effectiveness on deployment go hand in hand; if you don’t have the right disciplined approach at home, this is likely to translate to the battlespace.
Could you give us an example?
Well, you might get told not to use an unauthorised walking route in barracks. In Ukraine, the front is 1,000km long and 400km deep. There is no hiding, there are drones up and everything is visible. If you unmask and are deemed a worthy target, you’re likely to have around seven minutes to live, so it must be second nature to stick to established routes to aid concealment and deception.
What else are you looking for in our soldiers?
We need to have good leaders at all levels, but good followership is equally important. I want people to feel able to challenge those more senior, but it is important to know how to do this appropriately. Challenge applies to me too – although CGS is many ranks above, Gen Walker says he values the perspective I bring and that soldiers know I am in the room during discussions. These days our recruits often naturally challenge – this is different from when I joined the army back in 1999 and is something that we should clearly encourage. But I think how to do it correctly needs to be incorporated into our training.
Is our leadership generally up to the cut then?
People who are in senior positions now grew up with major operations in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq – so yes, definitely. We learned a lot from those deployments, positive and negative. In tandem, the kit we now have is phenomenal – a world apart from the equipment issued when I joined.
Are we getting enough in the way of large-scale exercises?
Yes, although we are not on the same cycle of train, deploy and recover as we were during operations early on in my career. But things are changing because we now know where the threat is moving. We are deploying and working more with our Nato allies, predominately in Europe.
What gripes are coming from troops?
The bulk of the concerns generally relate to increasing lethality – soldiers ask me what they can do themselves to contribute to this. The answer is to be extraordinary at the ordinary, focusing on the basics, tactical and technical – shoot, move, communicate, medicate.
Are we still getting decent joiners?
You sometimes hear older people assert that soldiers of today are not as good as in their generation – it happens all the time. But from what I am seeing, the quality is the same as when I joined up 26 years ago. The new recruits are just different in nature and the world has changed.
