Behind the Camo - What's Army life really like?

When people think about the Army, they often picture the hard work, the training, the operations. But what's just as important is the life that happens alongside all of that. The friendships, the fun, the support. So in this episode, I want to chat to our panel about what Army life is really like. The camaraderie, the social side and the support that's always there when you need it. I'm Second Lieutenant Michael Kern, an Army Reservist at Port and Maritime Troop Command with 165 Regiment Royal Logistic Corps. Outside of the Army, I work as a sports broadcaster and business owner. And whenever I get the chance, I love putting on my football boots and getting out there on the pitch. Like so many reservists, I balanced my civilian career with Army service and I found it's opened doors to experiences and opportunities I never imagined. If you're watching us live, you can pop your questions in the chat box and our team will reply and give you some answers. Today, I'm joined by our panel to explore what Army life is really like beyond the headlines and the uniforms and to hear firsthand about the friendships, challenges and unforgettable moments that come with being part of this unique community. With me today is Sergeant Declan O'Shea, Sergeant Cameron Eden and musician Jack Rainey. Let's talk about some of the benefits that come with Army life because as I've been saying, it's about so much more than the job itself. For me, one of the standout things has been the chance to see the world. I've traveled to places I probably wouldn't have visited otherwise and it's opened my eyes to different cultures. Well, what about our guests? Well, it's a pleasure to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining us. Let's just kick things off. Tell us a bit about yourselves and your journey in the Army so far and some of your experiences. Excellent. So thanks for having me. I'm Sergeant Declan O'Shea, currently serving in the RIMI as a vehicle mechanic by trade. Joined the Army in 2009 and one of the big selling points for me was to continue my sporting world. Big into my football, big into other sports as well as hobbies, but I've been fortunate enough to manage a career alongside the Army as a professional match official and moved up into operating in the professional football world and onto the EFL and other sort of professional competitions alongside that and the Army has supported that all the way through as well as sort of doing bits and pieces for the Army Football Association and the Army Support Brand as well. So that's kind of me and what my career looks like as a wider piece. I'm Sergeant Cameron Eden and I joined the Army in 2014. I joined as a challenger to gunner, so a tank gunner. I did photography and videography as a hobby and then I found out actually it was a job in the Army. So then in 2020 I transferred to the Royal Logistics Corps and became an Army photographer and that's, I've been doing that now since for the last five years and that's taken me all over the world from Afghanistan to Antarctica and gives me a chance to really show off my creative flair and it's a very, I get to see every aspect of the military not just the niche that I was initially in and yeah. I'm musician Jack Meaney. I actually joined the Reserves first. I was still at school and done seven years there whilst I was studying at college and then I finished my degree and I've transferred over and I'm in a band of Irish Guards. I've been there two years and basically doing all the ceremonial things in central London is what my day-to-day is. That's what I'm doing now. And what's that like? Because I think that's a big thing that the general public sees is a lot of that ceremonial stuff and what's that like as a day-to-day? It's actually a bit surreal to be honest because you see all of that on the TV whenever you're growing up but now I'm actually standing in the middle of it. The first day I was out in Braid it was just overwhelming and my first Guard over to Buckingham Palace I was just standing there and I was like oh I'm on Buckingham Palace forecourt right now. I didn't see this happening six months ago but it's a nice experience and it's something that a lot of people don't get. I'm very aware that I'm quite lucky to have that in my day-to-day life. There's lots of these different opportunities that people don't necessarily expect. You mentioned obviously the officiating route as well. Touch on a little bit of that, that's quite exciting. You mentioned EFL and all those other bits as well. Yeah so I qualified actually before I joined the army as a teenager something that I managed to achieve while still playing. Sort of hung up playing fairly early and moved into refereeing and then actually the long part of my refereeing journey if you will and going through the levels was all through the army and has been supported by army sport, army football and moved through grassroots into the semi-professional game into the professional game which is where I've been for the last six years I think. And yeah operating predominantly on League One and League Two in the EFL as well as the Women's Super League and various FA competitions and that's quite good. It's an advert for sport, people are interested in it, it's something different but we've got a really good cohort of match officials in the army as well that they're all aspiring to get through and sort of umbrellaed by army sport and army football and trying to get people through. So there's sort of the bigger picture that there are other opportunities if you're not a player or you're not going to play representative sport there's different ways of going about stuff to still get your best out of your sport and life as well. I think that's a really interesting point as well like you've mentioned that there's an experience piece there's that qualifications piece and I think that's a big part of it as well is the qualifications that you know you've got that refereeing and officiating qualification now. How about the rest of you? Have you picked up any other qualifications that during your time with the army? I have, could I quote them? So as part of our photography course that we do we get I think it's a level three in photo imaging but I think for specifically my job role and my niche our portfolio would speak a lot louder than a piece of paper. So in terms of qualifications when I was on tanks I got an NVQ in engineering I think that was a level two and that would have gone higher had I stayed in and sort of followed that career path and it was years ago now but I did a rock climbing qualification in the Rockies in Canada like beginner rock climbers. Awesome well look some great kind of experiences there shared at the top of the show. On this episode we're going to delve into some questions that get asked quite regularly so we'll jump all over the place on a few little bits. So the next area I want to delve into we're going to start moving into kind of the well-being bit and kind of being part of the army and a big bit that comes up is the paid leave bit. I think a lot of people presume that when you're in the army it's seven days a week 365 days a year and you don't get time off you don't get to see family in bits and pieces but something you don't necessarily get everywhere is the six weeks paid leave bit so you know how do you guys find that having that kind of time that you have that freedom to do kind of what I guess some people call normal life but obviously you're still paid for it and you've got that freedom. I think it's also good to point out like obviously with my ceremonial role quite often like changing the yards on a Sunday here in Windsor for changing the yard on a Saturday if you do happen to have to work the Saturday and Sunday you also get those back so your chain of command they'll give you like Monday and Tuesday off in lieu of having to work the weekend so you're not actually just working all the time like you're giving your time off whenever you're you're owed it as well as your six weeks of leave and they're very like whenever it comes to my leave I'm allowed to fly home again and there's no problems like I don't have to stay local to the base or anything it's your time you can go and do what you want but your holidays. Something important as well to highlight is many units will try and coincide their sort of like summer leave, Easter leave, these things with also the school term so then those of us with kids we're actually able to take our leave the same time our kids are you know off school and then we're able to go like family holidays things like that and yeah and weekends you don't have to take your leave over weekends because if you're not working the weekend it's not class's duty so weekends providing you're not on duty are a given so yeah the leave package is very generous. I think the guys have sort of summed up fairly well to be honest and as Jack alludes to there seems to be a misconception that everyone's sort of gatebound and you can go home and you can have 10 minutes a day or whatever that is I mean I don't live on camp I commute sort of 45-50 minutes to work a day and that's again as long as you're in work at the right time like any other organisation with the right equipment in the right state then there's very little to be said or done about it same with leave I mean you might have to forward plan your life a little bit just by the nature of the beast in terms of holidays and de-conflict on what that looks like from an exercise point of view or an operational point of view but generally I mean I've just over 16 years and I've never had to sort of subtract any leave or cancel holidays Let's continue on kind of the lifestyle piece and we've also mentioned a little about sport already so let's delve into that one a bit more how about the rest of yourselves experiencing the sport do you participate in any army sport? I don't play pigeon shooting at home whenever I was growing up and I've found now that the army actually has a clay pigeon club so I've started going to that now and you can do your qualifications and all through that there that you're completely up to scratch with all the safety and then they teach you all the different types of clay pigeon shooting that you're competent in all of them which is quite cool because it's something that I didn't actually think the army would be interested in but it's out there Yeah I think it's really interesting as well like you mentioned obviously the qualifications piece with that sport element as well you know I'm involved with the army reserve football team and I've just taken on the role as their kind of secretary so even if you don't necessarily participate I'm still clinging on to play in a little bit still trying to still play but actually there's other roles within sport as well which is quite interesting you mentioned the officiating piece as well so I think that's important to highlight as well when it comes to a sport piece even if you don't necessarily are a player or kind of take part in that side of it there's that administration piece as well which is really good and how about yourself with the sport element? Yes so it wasn't it was not long after I finished training I got to regiment LGE they held a sports fair in the gym and I wrote or I signed up to winter sports and then a few days later I got asked if I wanted to do luge and I was you know brand new in the army I was like yeah opportunity came up why not let's do luge didn't know what it was but I was like absolutely and soon found out what it was after I googled it and that but that's taken me to Norway, Germany, Austria and for those who don't know luge is you're lying on your back going down a nice bobsled track on like sled and I've spent probably in total about two months abroad doing that sport I was army novice champ I was then into services I came fifth overall and then I competed in the British Championships where I crashed and didn't finish but still a great experience and like out of pocket for me it was like 200 pounds personal contribution and then the rest was all funded and yeah it was like overall a couple of months abroad and with that sport as well and the way the track works so bobsleigh so you share the track with skeleton and bobsleigh so luge goes first then skeleton and then bobsleigh and that's because bobsleigh sort of tears the track up and then in the evenings the track gets reset so sort of come 11 o'clock in the morning we were finished so then you're in Norway for the rest of the day time is your own off you go it was a really great experience and obviously yourself you touched on the kind of officiating piece as well with that kind of sport piece I guess support from the army how's that been and then is there any other sports that you participate in and transferables on that element? Not so much any sports now I've had other sports as hobbies I've played golf in sort of previous time and bits and pieces but the focus on football as a match official is huge now and the time and commitment it takes especially at the level of the game that we operate at and actually I don't think it's possible to do what we do and there's a couple of guys that have been to the same level or we had a premier league assistant referee at one point who I think would also echo that it's not possible to operate at that level without the support of the army because whilst your work doesn't go away and there's still an expectation that you deliver on your day job there are times particularly on a midweek fixture that I'll be travelling to games and we've got certain criteria and bits and pieces that are in place we've got a bit of grounds at a certain time to achieve certain things and so that does sort of mean that you're travelling during the working day I mean you've then got to have a really good understanding boss and a really good relationship with your team around you to understand what that looks like to pick up the pieces because you can't just sort of like hand it off onto people but also it's a really good trade-off for being involved in professional sport so yeah there is times where I do work in the evenings or I work a bit earlier in the mornings or I work from a hotel or a little bit of the weekend I mean we're not talking losing my whole weekend to pick up the pieces but it's just to stay on top of some of my own responsibilities to afford the opportunity and I think that's the biggest thing in anything sport related or that you're going to do outside of your day stuff is that there always will be a bit of give and take and I think whilst I think if you can prove that generally the support's always going to be there I think if you start neglecting it then that's where it sort of may become an issue because you mentioned a broad spectrum of kind of sports that lose obviously tin tray and ice tracks maybe not so for everyone but you've also got adventurous training and those opportunities as well have any of you kind of made the most of some of those trips I know I've seen with our reserve unit you see trolls going out because they don't want to go and do skydiving course and all these kind of sports and adventurous activities you wouldn't necessarily associate your day-to-day of your kind of footballs and all those kind of things have any of you made advantage of any of those? I've went skiing twice done two ski qualifications when I was there those two separate weeks and then I'm actually going now in September I'm going for two weeks scuba diving which I've never done before so that's something I definitely would never have done only the opportunity to come to the army to go scuba diving in Cyprus for two weeks incredible it was back in a while ago but I did rock climbing in the Rockies in Canada and that was so I was out in Canada for eight months for a long time but during that period you would have time off and opportunities to go and do AT so I took for a week and then went rock climbing in the Rockies got a qualification out of it and yeah that was that was amazing again all paid for all funded it was a lot of fun so another question we kind of get asked is kind of about living costs and bits and pieces we obviously mentioned during that pay leave the flexibility with the family and school holidays and bits and pieces I'm not sure if any of you guys live on camp or you've got army accommodation but let's just delve into that a little bit because you know there is especially that military accommodation piece it makes life affordable and there are those extra benefits with it so I've got a family I've got two young kids and a wife and we live in service provider accommodation so SFA so that's service families accommodation and that is currently I live in a three-bedroom house with a garage front back garden driveway in probably one of the more expensive places in the UK to live and if we want to talk in terms of costs all in including council tax it's just less than 400 pounds a month and equivalent say let's say on like civilian street if I was to pay for that privately due to where I live that's getting on almost 2000 pounds a month in rent so already I'm saving a huge amount of money there with the accommodation I'm living in which then frees up more disposable income me and my wife actually were talking about this the other day so living in that service accommodation is we are able to then provide a lot more opportunities for our kids so we're actually able to provide there a nursery full-time which has allowed my wife to go back to work full-time earlier than having to wait until they're in school it also provides more opportunity for us to you know days out things like that with the kids so kind of benefiting from that subsidised accommodation has opened up a lot of opportunities for us that wouldn't be available if we were privately renting or even had a mortgage something like that Jack obviously you mentioned ceremonial duties you're snap bang in central London talk to us about the accommodation and bits and pieces that you're in at the moment yeah so my accommodation is what they call a single living accommodation and it's basically an ensuite room it's I actually commute from Woolwich into central London so I pay £40 a month for my room in Woolwich and then I'm given a travel card to get me in and out of work every day and I guess like £3,000 a year but I just make like a £30 contribution a month so I'm basically travelling around London for free basically which is a great bonus because you can use that all the time that's really us yeah so I started living in single living accommodation again when I first joined the army and quickly sort of moved out into private property and I've been there ever since and obviously I take the opportunity to commute into work day-to-day so but plenty of guys and girls live in the mess live in on-site in accommodation and they speak as the guys have spoken in terms of like functionality and prices and the convenience to it and it just affords you another opportunity if you're not quite ready or don't want to sort of settle somewhere and do that it gives you the opportunity to move around and you're not restricted to sort of do certain things in certain areas you can post where you want because obviously you get a degree of say in what your postings look like as well especially as an attached army I think this panel will cling on to you still so something we don't usually think about is pensions but that's another part with the army as well I don't know how much kind of thought you've all given that but obviously you get your yearly kind of pension statement as well so there's that kind of future planning as well built in yeah I mean I could talk all day about pension it's very very good very generous refer some numbers out there so our pension is non-contributory so that means we don't pay into it most civilian pensions the employer and employee so you would have to contribute some of your salary into your pension we don't have to do that but what the MOD does do is they pay into our pension and that contribution is at 43.8% of our salary every year is added to like our kind of pension pot then with the pension it's with the current scheme it's like once you hit state pension age which is currently I think 68 then it's payable but what a benefit that most people don't know about is and this is very unique to the armed forces pension is if you do 20 years of service and you're 40 or over when you leave which for most people if they do 20 years of service they will be you'll actually then get a tax-free lump sum when you leave let's say 41 years old if you leave then and you'll also get a monthly income up until the point your pension is paid at state pension age it's not necessarily enough to live off but it's certainly enough to give you a lot more freedom and flexibility in what you choose to do after a career in the forces let's move on to the camaraderie piece you know my personal experience and kind of my training I've you know got a group of friends now we kind of speak on a whatsapp chat every single day and kind of you know keep in contact now let's talk about that camaraderie and friendship piece you know obviously through training through exercises through deployments and through your day-to-day army life you build bonds with people and build friendships that last a lifetime yeah well I know for myself I lived in Manchester for six years and then I moved down to London and within like two days I had a group of ones that I definitely had easy to have good track with like all the time and there was never a dull moment and there still isn't any dull moments like you go into the changing room and there's always something going on that's gonna bring a smile to your face no matter how bad your day is and I think something that we're quite lucky with and I know in our band is that everybody's of the same mindset that we'll get through everything together and it's going to be a tough day maybe but we're all going to have a good laugh about it and we'll try and find the funny sides to it we don't get too serious about it because you get yourself worked up yeah 100% I've made some absolutely amazing friends since being in the military as an example of so before I transferred to the Royal Logistics Corps I was in the King's Royal Service on tanks and back then one of the trainings we would do is in Batas which is Canada we would exercise for like 32 days you're out in the field for 32 days live out of a tank and the bond that you form with your crew so a chalet crew is four people is a really tight bond and my driver at the time he's now out the army but like we are still in constant contact and then even though I've now transferred I'm in a different corps I'm still in constant communication with people from my old corps so the Armoured Corps, KRH and it was even I think April like we had a big get-together about 10 of us hadn't seen each other in years and it was just a big catch-up it was great yeah absolutely same again to touch on the points that the guys have just said is you will create really good friendships in terms of sort of really close friendships and chat regularly with people but equally it happened this morning just watching it it'll happen on any army company you go to a couple of guys sort of bumped into people that they'd not seen for a little while and then straight away it was like high-fives smiles and cuddles and all the rest of it and a sort of really quick two-minute catch-up on what the last five, ten years have looked like for people and that happens everywhere you go the places become familiar so certainly the longer you stay in and the more stuff you get involved in that you definitely get a lot of associates as well as sort of close friendships as well there's a lot of people you can reach out to and speak to should you need to and obviously create a life with if you want to we've spoken quite a bit about sport and those kind of elements and some of the fun stuff army life can also get quite tough and can be difficult and there are some really great support structures within the army I just wonder if any of you are comfortable to talk about kind of like the support structures within the army that you've kind of maybe not necessarily personally come into contact with but are aware of to kind of support that well-being side from like a kind of mental and physical piece as well and if you've got any interaction with any of those kind of elements so I was quite naive to it for a long time to be honest and bits and pieces but I had the opportunity a couple of jobs ago as a junior NCO to work in the welfare department for a period of time and whilst I wasn't qualified to sort of directly engage with individuals when they came through the door and that just to see it from that point of view and things that sort of the welfare and the other sort of mechanisms that are in place to help people cope and get over stuff and that could be something really really serious it could be something not so serious which is sort of really bothering someone to blow out of proportion and actually it sort of really changed my mindset on it not that I was ever sort of negative towards it or that I just didn't know a lot about it to be honest I'm fairly fortunate that I've never been in a position that I've needed to go sort of looking for support and help but it's absolutely out there in abundance and it's not that difficult to find publicly or privately That's incredible I'd like to kind of ask how you all manage the balance of everything everyone's got different mechanisms of doing bits and pieces but obviously you know yourself you go from high pressure situations of standing on that Buckingham Palace forecourt you know the public image of the British army I'm sure you've all had experiences on kind of deployments as well you mentioned obviously with the photography you've seen bits of the world how do you manage that day-to-day piece of being in the army and then everyday life as well the army is a different career it's slightly different than someone in kind of the world that goes and does a nine-to-five and works in an office or does a different job on a building site or bits and pieces so how do you kind of manage that work-life balance especially with family as well Mine's predominantly through physical activity I've got a group of mates at the gym civilian mates that I go to and we've all signed up for a half marathon in a couple of weeks a couple of months rather sorry so we sort of got running with them created our own little run club if you will I'm starting to dabble in triathlon just because it's something that I've been interested in and want to do that and amongst that I've got a ten-year-old daughter that obviously we spend time with and do bits and pieces with and go away and it's managing your time as best as you can it's like anything the easy option is to go home sit on the sofa and watch telly and not rise again but I think it's keeping your interests high and creating your own opportunities to do things and creating your own life experiences as well and predominantly for me that's through physical sport I think for me one of the big things that I have thankfully around me is because there's a group of us doing those high-pressured things all the time we're all in the same boat so at some point during our careers there's people that have been in maybe 20 years they can pass on the advice to somebody who's only in the door a month and say it's going to be difficult today and you're kind of pre-warned and then they can talk you through it almost before it happens and then whenever you've finished they're there making sure that you're okay and just taking over with their experience which I find was very helpful so I think the way I kind of manage it is essentially as in the team that I work with and that's both like in work so the team at work but then like me and my wife as a team at home so we're able to bounce off each other at work and you know delegate tasks or help each other out if we know it's going to be a really busy week then we'll all knuckle down and get it done and then at home if I know I'm gonna have a bit of a longer week next week or whatever I'll let my wife know and then we're able to then better plan our lives so if I am working a little bit late then you know she knows she has to maybe finish work a little bit early and all that so I think communication is pretty key in how like I deal with sort of the day-to-day and any of that kind of the work-life balance both like with my team at work and then sort of the team cohesion at home Well thank you so much for sharing some of that insight that's really kind of really informative so thank you for that and I think it goes to show that army life really isn't just about the job it's about the experiences that help you grow as a person the confidence you build and the fun you have along the way thank you so much incredible contributions on the show so thank you much for your time and being part of it today so there you have it some myths busted about army life and I hope if you're viewing this and wondering what army life is really like you're starting to see the bigger picture it is about people opportunity and growth and that brings us to the end of this series of Behind the Camo where we've taken you on a journey to see what army life is really like from those who really have gained in their chosen career across these episodes we've lifted the lid on life in the army the friendships that form the incredible opportunities for sport adventure and personal growth and the support networks that help us all to thrive Behind the Camo is all about showing the human side of the army the side you don't always see unless you are a soldier I hope that through these stories and conversations you've come away with a deeper understanding of the purpose pride and community that define army life if what you've heard has inspired you why not take the next step explore the opportunities find out more and see where an army career could take you because behind the camo there's a place for everyone